Diploma project at The Polytechnical College 1998-99:

IT project failures

The project was conducted by Nils Erik Ihlen and me as a part of our Diploma studies at The Polytechnical College (DPH) in Bærum outside Oslo, Norway. DPH is currently known as The Norwegian School of Information Technology (NITH).

In cooperation with the Police Computing Service and the Ministry of Justice we studied the lessons learned after a major IT project failure in connection with the XVII Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer in 1994.

The diploma thesis was written in Norwegian and is downloadable here. During the study we also published an article called "It-bransjens bedrevitere?" ("Smarty-Pants of the IT industry?") in the Norwegian Computerworld.

The thesis was given the top grade and resulted in scholarships to the authors. This achievement was given accolades in "Stipender til DPH-studenter" ("Scholarships to DPH students") in Computerworld.

Synopsis
This report documents the research and analysis of a diploma project. It is written by two students at The Polytechnical College. The subject of this research assignment is failed IT-projects. We have chosen the following problem definition: "How should systems development projects be carried out to increase the likelihood of meeting the objectives of the projects?"

Our research is mainly based on theoretical literature and empiricism. The theory covers three aspects; characteristics of systems development as a profession, project-based management, and a set of classic mistakes that causes software projects to fail. The empirical section covers a case study of a failed systems development project. In the case, we study the causes of the failure and the influence consultancy assistance has on the result of systems development projects in general.

Our main conclusion is that the previous research on this subject already has revealed the principal causes of failures. Nevertheless, the same mistakes are made over and over again. We indicate that the failures might have a connection to a lack of understanding of the complexity of systems development. Causes of failures have two elements, what and why. We claim that the latter must be paid far more attention. Reflections to the human factors and self-knowledge are essential.