I.T. FAILURES
(listed in no particular order)

1. Forrester also found that more than two-thirds of major IT projects failed to a significant extent.
   Computer Weekly - 18 October 2001
   
   
2. But note that King does not tell us how many of the 70% of the successful projects were over budget, over time, or defective in function upon completion.
   University of Missouri - St. Louis - December 16, 2003
   
   
3. AMR Counterpoint: More failures than successes
   ...Research shows CRM success is uncertain
   TechRepublic- on 9 April 2003
   
   
4. According to research firm Forrester, about two-thirds of major IT projects fail to deliver some of their original objectives, and more than a quarter fail altogether.
   Computer Weekly - Feb 28, 2002 by Karl Schneider
   
   
5. The Gartner Group found that approximately 55 percent of all CRM projects failed to meet the company's expectations
   ZDNet - Adrian Mello - March 18, 2002
   
   
6. Value of Project Management Offices Questioned- "It's no surprise that the presence of a PMO didn't have much effect on project failure rates," said Tom Pohlmann, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester and author of the report "How Companies Govern Their IT Spending," published June 30
   Computerworld, July, 2003
   
   
7. Failure of Corporate Websites - 62% of Web shoppers have given up
   UseIT - Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for October 18, 1998
   
   
8. The ''Failure'' of CRM - Looking for someone to blame - "How did we ever achieve a 70 percent failure rate?" says Andrew Kellett, senior research analyst at the Butler Group. "The vendors don't admit their solutions fail. The consultancies that work closely with them would never admit that a project fails. The IT director, it's not in his interest."
   by Jim Ericson, Line56 - Thursday, August 02, 2001
   
   
9. 'We Did Nothing Wrong'   And 32% said their companies released software with too many defects. If you dont demand quality, you dont get it, SQIs Krasner says. In effect, users and developers of software must begin demanding quality, and backing those organizations that certify developers, such as SEI, or those that support development of reliable code, such as the SCC......Too many people building programs lack skills. Lots of people call themselves software engineers who are not, says the SQIs Krasner. ......To be a doctor, one must get a college degree, pass medical exams, complete an internships and than take a series of tests to practice in a particular specialty. Accountants, engineers and lawyers also most go through rigorous testing and certification processes. That doesnt happen in software, Cigitals McGraw says. You can declare yourself a software architect and off you go.
   BASELINE - By Debbie Gage and John McCormick - March 4, 2004
   
   
10. For the IRS There's No EZ Fix
    By assembling a star-studded team of vendors, the IRS thought its $8 billion modernization project would manage itself. The IRS thought wrong. Now the agency's ability to collect revenue, conduct audits and go after tax evaders has been severely compromised.
    Apr. 1, 2004 Issue of CIO Magazine - BY ELANA VARON
    
    
11. i2 Hurt by Nike Shortfall - "This is what we get for our $400 million? - But Nike singled out its supply chain solution, saying that it did not perform as expected, caused inventory to swell and prevented the company from meeting customer orders. As a result, Nike cut third-quarter earnings estimates by at least 24 percent from the previous forecast. Nike Chairman Phil Knight said his immediate reaction was, "This is what we get for our $400 million, huh?" "This is what we get for our $400 million? - GOOGLE SEARCH
    Apparel maker blames lower forecasts on software
    by Jim Ericson, Line56 - Tuesday, February 27, 2001
    
    
12. H-P stock rocked by profit shortfall
    Debacle in server, storage sales results in exec shakeup
    By Rex Crum, CBS.MarketWatch.com
    Last Update: 6:13 PM ET Aug. 12, 2004
    SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Hewlett-Packard's market value fell by nearly $8 billion Thursday after the computer giant said that its quarterly profits would be sharply lower than expected because of weakness in its server and storage businesses.




13. Hewlett Profits Come In Lower Than Expected
    By GARY RIVLIN - NY TImes
    Published: August 13, 2004

    ....Rob Enderle, the principal analyst at the Enderle Group, a research firm in San Jose, Calif., said he was awakened at 4:15 a.m. by a Hewlett-Packard representative telling him the company had an important announcement. "It was very clear that Carly was very surprised by this news and very upset," Mr. Enderle said. The company conducted the call at 5 a.m. from inside its Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters.

    "Although we are satisfied with our performance in personal systems, imaging and printing, software and services," Ms. Fiorina said, "these solid results were overshadowed by unacceptable performance in enterprise servers and storage. Here execution issues cost us, and we are therefore making immediate management changes."

    In explaining the steep drop in its server and storage revenues, Ms. Fiorina cited the introduction of a new order-taking software package that took six weeks to put into place rather than the two weeks that the company had expected. She also cited problems with the intermediaries who sell Hewlett-Packard equipment, particularly those operating in Europe. At the same time, the company experienced a softening in the broader storage market - a trend that has hurt other data storage companies in recent weeks.
    
    

14. Fed up hospitals defy patching rules
    By Ellen Messmer Network World, 08/09/04
    
    
    
15. A. Points of Reference: E-Commerce Failures - . eBay
    The most significant web failure experienced by any e-commerce site so far occurred at the online auction house eBay over June 10-11, 1999 when the site closed for 22 hours.154 Prior to June 10, 1999, eBay experienced other significant failures and has since suffered additional outages which together totaled more than 70 hours of outages in the first seven months of the year.155 During the two day June crisis, eBay's stock crashed $47 to $135, wiping out $5.7 billion of market capitalization, and dipped below $80 in early August before rising again the $130 range.156 Experts assessing the cause of the disaster cite eBay's failure to build a redundant, scalable web architecture.157 Moreover, eBay's outage was prolonged due to the fact that its database files became corrupted, requiring the files to be rebuilt before the system could be brought back online. 158

    The outages at eBay echo the strain that outsized demand has placed on online brokerage firms. As one consultant noted, "A lot of these sites just can't keep up with their growth. They don't have enough skills to keep the site running all the time."159 (And the extent and complexity of these problems prevents easy solutions.) Thus, eBay outages knocked its site out four times in five days this November.160 The latest was attributed by eBay to a nearly ten-fold increase on a server for graphic images.
    ref - New York State's Chief Legal Officer, the Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
    
    

16. HP: The Adaptive Enterprise that can't adapt - All told, HP's hardware and software failings cost it $400m in revenue and $275m in operating profit in Q3
    By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
    The Register - Friday 13th August 2004 19:35 GMT
    
    
    
17. To Customise Or Not to Customise - That is the Question - "To customise as little as 10% of a system's functionality can cost the same as purchasing a completely new system," he points out. "Subsequent upgrades require that the process be repeated all over again, which involves more costs. Rather first see what the system can do, and then carry out further development if necessary."
    ITWeb (Johannesburg)
    August 13, 2004 - Paul Whalley - Johannesburg
    
    
    
18. If You're Going to Fail, Admit It
    All of this assumes that a development team will think hard, in the first place, about the possibility of failure. If you don't admit that failures can occur, you probably won't do a very good job of detecting failure and limiting the damage that it does. You'll be more likely to build a system that works quite well when its assumptions are upheld, but that fails when conditions are other than those expected.
    
    Users' expectations won't be met, and that's failure by one of its most important definitions.
    eWeek - By Peter Coffee August 9, 2004
    
    
    
19. January 2000 study - Converting System Failure Histories into Future Win Situations Dolores R. Wallace and D. Richard Kuhn
    Information Technology Laboratory
    National Institute of Standards and Technology
    Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA
    NASA
    
    
20. When the customer is always wrong - There is no denying that many clients are more sophisticated at choosing and managing their IT services partners. Yet, despite this, the failure rate of outsourcing contracts is still estimated to be about 75 per cent, according to leading market observers, and ComputerWire is reliably informed that some of the most prominent $1 billion contracts signed in the last year are already showing signs of total collapse.
    ComputerWire/Datamonitor- Monday 9th August 2004 08:47 GMT
    
    
21. New voting system falls short of verifiable
    South Carolina Progressive Network - BRETT BURSEY - Tue, Aug. 10, 2004 Guest columnist
    
    
    
22. Short-term response to blackout complete; future of power transmission oversight unclear - A year after the nation's worst blackout, a recommended revision of electricity delivery oversight is not complete, although utilities are better prepared to keep local outages from cascading across multiple states .......FirstEnergy developed emergency response plans and installed new computers and software to improve communication with the Midwest Independent System Operator, which monitors energy flows on transmission lines. The task force said both companies' response plans were inadequate and FirstEnergy's computers had problems sharing information with MISO's early in the blackout.
    JOHN McCARTHY - Associated Press - Sat, Aug. 07, 2004
    Akkron Beacon Journal - Ohio.com
    
    
    
23. SPIN DOCTOR Article - IT Myth 5: Most IT projects fail -
    The report says challenged projects represent 51 percent of all IT projects and are defined as projects with cost overruns, time overruns, and projects not delivered with the right functionality to support the business.
    
    GRAPH of Number of FAILURES -
    SlashDot Rebuttal to above one the above article
    General hint for journalist: if you have to redefine words to prove your point, you're probably not telling the truth.

    No, perhaps 70% of projects aren't unmitigated failures, but I'll bet that IT projects fare far worse than other industries:

    How many unfinished bridges do you know of?
    How many unfinished housing projects can you name?
    How many unfinished/incomplete decks and swimming pools have you seen?
    How many times do EE's scrap a project after a successful prototype has been built, due to project management failure?
    How many automobile engine projects have failed? The last I can remember is Chevrolet's Vega engine - glass lined cylinders should have been a tip-off right there....
    
    One should note who wrote this article and if 48% of the small projects fail, then you can't use the word, "Most" software project fail? Ah, OK, thus even with a postive spin, and to moving your definition from 70% to 48% percent is good?
    

24. CRM 2004: Will Old Problems Sink New Users?
    By the Editors of CIO Insight August 1, 2004 - CRM 2004
    63% of companies have deployed or are deploying CRM
    75% are or will soon use CRM for data mining and analytics
    43% at large companies that have deployed Crm say it deserves the bad press
    59% say data integration issues led to CRM project delays and cost overruns
    63% say CRM systems require a major cultural change
    

    
    
    

25. An example of BAD SIDE of software best practices software developers don't tell you about. NOR have the insight to realize in the first place.
    As I write this, SourceGear Vault 1.0 has been shipping for over two months. We have no regrets. For an abstraction pile as large as the one described above, it's remarkable that this product works at all. :-)
    Eric Sink - Founder of sourcegear.com, an Inc. 500 company