INTRODUCTION

Information technology (IT) is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve,

transmit, and manipulate data or information, often in the context of a business or other
enterprise IT is considered a subset of information and communications
technology (ICT).
IT includes several layers of physical equipment (hardware), virtualization and
management or automation tools, operating systems and applications (software) used to
perform essential functions. User devices, peripherals and software, such as laptops,
smartphones or even recording equipment, can be included in the IT domain. IT can also
refer to the architectures, methodologies and regulations governing the use and storage
of data.
IT architectures have evolved to include virtualization and cloud computing, where
physical resources are abstracted and pooled in different configurations to meet
application requirements. Clouds may be distributed across locations and shared with
other IT users, or contained within a corporate data center, or some combination of both
deployments. [1]
 IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT

IT project management is the process of planning, organizing and delineating

responsibility for the completion of an organizations specific information technology
(IT) goals. [2]
A project is a unique, undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined
in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits. A project is usually deemed to be a success if
it achieves the objectives according to their acceptance criteria, within an agreed
timescale and budget.
IT project management includes overseeing projects for software development, hardware
installations, network upgrades, cloud computing and virtualization rollouts, business
analytics and data management projects and implementing IT services.
In addition to the normal problems that can cause a project to fail, factors that can
negatively affect the success of an IT project include advances in technology during the
project's execution, infrastructure changes that impact security and data management and
unknown dependent relationships among hardware, software, network infrastructure and
data. IT projects may also succumb to the first-time, first-use penalty which represents
the total risk an organization assumes when implementing a new technology for the first
time. Because the technology hasnt been implemented or used before in the
organization, there are likely to be complications that will affect the projects likelihood
of success.
IT project management involves a structured approach to planning, organizing, leading,
and controlling information technology projects. There are various types of IT projects
that an organization could undertake, including:
Software development and implementation
Hardware installations (e.g., servers, desktop computers, or telephony systems)
Network system upgrades
Data management
 COMMON IT PROJECT CATEGORIES

There are some most common IT project categories

1. Research: Information Technology is an anomaly within academia whereby it was
created as an academic discipline out of a need for IT graduates. Most academic
disciplines instead are created out of a new research stream. SIGITE is currently
heavily involved in identifying IT research. It has been found that much/most of this
research is being done at the seams of other computing disciplines. In order for IT
as an academic discipline to grow, the identification and nurturing of this research
must continue.

2. Service: IT service refers to the application of business and technical expertise to

enable organizations in the creation, management and optimization of or access to
information and business processes. The IT services market can be segmented by the
type of skills that are employed to deliver the service (design, build, run).

3. Software Development: Software development is the process of developing

software through successive phases in an orderly way. This process includes not only
the actual writing of code but also the preparation of requirements and objectives,
the design of what is to be coded, and confirmation that what is developed has met
objectives.
Typical phases of software development:
1) Identification of required software
2) Analysis of the software requirements
3) Detailed specification of the software requirements
4) Software design
5) Programming
6) Testing
7) Maintenance
In general, the development of commercial software is usually a result of demand in
the marketplace, while enterprise software development generally arises from a need
or a problem within the enterprise environment.

4. System Deployment: Software deployment is all of the activities that make a

software system available for use. The general deployment process consists of
several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities
can occur at the producer side or at the consumer side or both.
System deployment is a complex endeavor which is a critical aspect of the software
development lifecycle (SDLC), an endeavor that is all but ignored by writers in favor
 of sexier topics such as distributed object development, components, or the latest
version of an SDK.
In its IT context, deployment encompasses all the processes involved in getting new
software or hardware up and running properly in its environment, including
installation, configuration, running, testing, and making necessary changes. The
word implementation is sometimes used to mean the same thing.

5. Change Management: Change management is the process, tools and techniques to

manage the people side of change to achieve the required business outcome. Change
management incorporates the organizational tools that can be utilized to help
individuals make successful personal transitions resulting in the adoption and
realization of change.

6. Infrastructure: The term infrastructure in an information technology (IT) context

refers to an enterprise's entire collection of hardware, software, networks, data
centers, facilities and related equipment used to develop, test, operate, monitor,
manage and/or support information technology services.

7. Needs Assessment: With respect to technology, a needs assessment is an evaluation

of the technical tasks and functions an organization must be capable of performing
(that it currently isn't), or of the needs that technology must be able to meet (that are
not currently being met). A true needs assessment requires that all possible needs be
identified. Determining whether they are realistic, necessary and affordable comes at
a later point in the planning process. The assessment must align with the
organizations goals and for IT plan. For patient engagement, the organization must
include the patients as part of this process.[3]

IT PROJECT LIFE CYCLE

For any IT project, the project will have a start point and an end point, and the part in
between is known as the project life cycle. There are generally five phases for all
projects.
To illustrate these phases in the management of an IT project, let's look at a company
that is replacing all sales force laptops with tablets.
1) Initiation - A sponsor and a governing team (sometimes called a steering committee)
are appointed, and they clearly define the goals and objectives for the project. A project
manager is assigned to the project, a project team is recruited, and the project charter is
created.
2) Planning - The project manager and the project team work together to define all
the deliverables, or intended outputs, of the project, and then plan all of the tasks
needed in order to produce each deliverable. Each task is assigned a start date, end date,
and responsible person(s), and all of the tasks together roll up into the project plan. The
project planning processes can be repetitive in nature, and it's quite normal for planning
to occur often throughout the project.
3) Execution - The project team executes the project plan to create the deliverables of
the project.
4) Monitoring and Controlling - As the project is being executed by the project team,
the project manager monitors and controls the work of the team for time, cost, scope,
quality, risk, and other factors. The project manager regularly reports the project status,
as well as any issues and risks, to the project sponsor and steering committee. To ensure
that the project meets its objectives, monitoring and controlling is also an ongoing
process.
5) Closing - At the end of each phase of the project, and at the end of the entire project,
project closure ensures that all of the project work has been completed, is approved, and
that ownership of the project deliverables have been handed over from the project team
to operations. [4]

WHY IT PROJECT FAILS

Projects are failing by these reasons
1. Communication
2. Project Managements
3. Scope
4. Cost
5. Time
6. Initiating
7. Team
8. Risk
9. Technologies
Here I collect some of the example of largest It project fail. Firstly I like to introduce with
STANDISH GROUP.
Standish Group has been collecting the Project performance data in the form of cases for the past
20 years. Over these two decades they have looked over 100,000 projects.
In this research report, Standish Group compared the proposed project, Number Portability
Administration Center (NPAC) with other large Projects within the CHAOS Database.

The above chart shows the resolution of very large software projects from 2003 to 2012 within
the CHAOS database. Successful projects are on time, on budget, and have a satisfactory
implementation. Challenged projects are over budget, late, and/or have an unsatisfactory
implementation. Failed projects are projects that were either canceled prior to completion or not
used after implementation.

A project that did not meet or exceed expected business value. Our view of project
success is relatively straightforward. If you do what you say you're going to do, then you
should be on-time and on-budget. If you deliver what you say you're going to deliver
then you should achieve or exceed the business value promised.

The Standish Group 2015 CHAOS Report showed that out of all 50K projects in the
study, 71% failed to meet these three criteria: on time, on budget, and satisfactory
results. The problem is even higher for big projects. Medium-sized projects failed at
91% and large projects at 94%. That's scary since PwC reported that capital projects and
infrastructure spending between 2014 and 2020 could reach $29 trillion! Does this mean
that $27 trillion is at some risk? That's crazy! Are we doing anything about this? And
what about all projects that include small, medium, and large? We read this as 70% of all
projects fail.[5]
The sad part of this story is that we are NOT getting better!

2013 - 31% of projects successful

2014 - 28% of projects successful
2015 - 29% of projects successful

Key reasons why projects get cancelled

Business strategy superseded;
Business processes change (poor alignment);
Poor requirements management;
Business benefits not clearly communicated or overstated;
Failure of parent company to deliver;
Governance issues within the contract;
Higher cost of capital;
Inability to provide investment capital;
Inappropriate disaster recovery;
Misuse of financial resources;
Overspends in excess of agreed budgets;
Poor project board composition;
Take-over of client firm;
Too big a project portfolio.
Business reasons for project failure

Management reasons
Ability to adapt to new resource combinations;
Differences between management and client;
Insufficient risk management;
Insufficient end-user management;
Insufficient domain knowledge;
 Insufficient software metrics;
Insufficient training of users;
Inappropriate procedures and routines;
Lack of management judgment;
Lack of software development metrics;
Loss of key personnel;
Managing legacy replacement;
Poor vendor management
Poor software productivity;
Poor communication between stakeholders;
Poor contract management;
Poor financial management;
Project management capability;
Poor delegation and decision making;
Unfilled promises to users and other stakeholders.

Technical reasons
Inappropriate architecture;
Insufficient reuse of existing technical objects;
Inappropriate testing tools;
Inappropriate coding language;
Inappropriate technical methodologies;
Lack of formal technical standards;
Lack of technical innovation (obsolescence);
Misstatement of technical risk;
Obsolescence of technology;
Poor interface specifications;
Poor quality code;
Poor systems testing;
Poor data migration;
Poor systems integration;
 Poor configuration management;
Poor change management procedures;
Poor technical judgment.

What are the major causal factors contributing to project failure?

Judgments by project stakeholders about the relative success or failure of projects tend
to be made early in the projects life cycle. On examination of the project stage reports it
became apparent that many project managers plan for failure rather than success.

If we consider the inherent complexity of risk associated with software project delivery
it is not too surprising that only a small number of projects are delivered to the original
time, cost, and quality requirements.

Our evidence suggests that the culture within many organizations is often such that
leadership, stakeholder and risk management issues are not factored into projects early
on and in many instances cannot formally be written down for political reasons and are
rarely discussed openly at project board or steering group meetings although they may
be discussed at length behind closed doors.

Despite attempts to make software development and project delivery more rigorous, a
considerable proportion of delivery effort results in systems that do not meet user
expectations and are subsequently cancelled. In our view this is attributed to the fact that
very few organizations have the infrastructure, education, training, or management
discipline to bring projects to successful completion.

One of the major weaknesses uncovered during the analysis was the total reliance placed
on project and development methodologies. One explanation for the reliance on
methodology is the absence of leadership within the delivery process. Processes alone
are far from enough to cover the complexity and human aspects of many large projects
subject to multiple stakeholders, resource and ethical constraints.

Although our understanding of the importance of project failure has increased, the
underlying reasons still remain an issue and a point of contention for both practitioners
and academics alike. Without doubt there is still a lot to learn from studying project
failure.

Going back to the research undertaken there is little evidence that the issues of project
failure have been fully addressed within information systems project management.
Based on this research project failure requires recognition of the influence multiple
stakeholders have on projects, and a broad based view of project leadership and
stakeholder management.

Developing an alternative methodology for project management founded on a

leadership, stakeholder and risk management should lead to a better understanding of the
management issues that may contribute to the successful delivery of information systems
projects.[6]

TOP 5 IT PROJECTS FAILS

1. Targets entry into Canada

Who failed?

Target Corporation, the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind
Walmart.
A company that is worth roughly 72.62 billion US dollars as of March 2016.[7]

What did they attempt to do?

They attempted to enter the Canadian market. It made perfect sense at the time as many
Canadians would cross the border and come down south to their United States neighbors
to do their shopping. Coupled with the fact that the company was reaching maturity in
the USA, Target felt it time to expand their operations.

Why did they fail?

The Canadian market was waiting with bated breath for the introduction of Target to the
Great White North. Excited for the far lower prices they were surely going to
experience, and heavier pockets, there was quite a bit of hype around this market entry.
But all was not as they thought.

2. NHS civilian IT project

Who failed?
The National Health Service is the publicly funded healthcare system for England. It is
the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world.[7]

What did they attempt to do?

The NHS had great plans to create a unified electronic health records system for all
British citizens. With an intention to serve 40,000 GPs and over 300 British hospitals,
this project was going to be one of the worlds largest IT projects ever attempted.

Why did they fail?

The NHS bit off more than they could chew and started too big too quick. This project
was astronomical in size and was always going to be difficult to finish out successful.

The NHSs huge NPFIT project, intended to serve 40,000 GPs and 300 plus hospitals,
was claimed to be the worlds largest civil IT project. In fact, its ill-fated intended
central core, a nation-wide Electronic Health Record (EHR) facility, dramatically
illustrates one of the most serious causes of large IT Project failures.

3. The Death Star

Who failed?

The Death Star was the Empires (an army of sorts) ultimate weapon: a moon-sized
space station with the ability to destroy an entire planet. It is, of course, a fictional
weapon from the popular movie franchise, Star Wars. It was destroyed in the Battle of
Yavin.[7]

What did they attempt to do?

The Death Star was going to be the ultimate weapon. Capable of wiping out whole
planets with a single blast of its super laser, it was the deadly destroyer that the Empire
was going to use to control the galaxy.

Why did they fail?

This particular project failed for a number of reasons. The over-arching issue was the
inability to plan for attacks on the ship. The project team was so focused on creating a
weapon capable of destroying anything in its path, appropriate defensive measures were
not put in place. Essentially, the Death Star had no risk management strategy put in place
to mitigate against risks such as flying spaceships captained by Chewbacca and friends.

4. Microsoft's Surface RT

Yes, new versions are now out that might still turn around the fortunes of Microsoft's
troubled sorta-tablet, sorta-PC. But no successful project forces a company to take a
nearly $1 billion write-off to cover unsold inventory. [7]

Customers just didn't know what to make of the original Surface RT. It straddled the
tablet-PC divide awkwardly, offering a keyboard cover, mouse support and an integrated
stand that made it look like a laptop replacement. Yet it ran a stripped down version of
the Windows 8 called Windows RT, which didn't support most older Windows
applications. (Its sibling, the Surface Pro, ran full-fledged Windows 8 and was much
more successful.)

The $499 price tagplus $130 for the keyboard covermade the RT fairly pricey, too.
And on top of all that, it just didnt perform well.

You might think that Microsoft learned its lesson. Think again. The upgraded Surface
RT, now dubbed the Surface 2, still uses Windows RT, and still appears to be just as
confusing.

5. Healthcare.gov
The Affordable Care Act was already a lightning rod for criticism, and that was before
the disaster called HealthCare.gov went online. Or rather, didnt. Mandating health
insurance and then not giving the public a way to evaluate their options shows a
stunning lack of foresightor at the very least, developer testing. That this disaster
likely cost $170 million dollars simply defies logic.[7]

The tech failure here mirrors the broken and fragmented nature of healthcare tech
systems. It's basically what happens when government agencies and insurance
companies, with their vast and incompatible databases, are suddenly called upon to
make their systems talk to one another.

Healthcare.gov has come a long way since October, but the site still reportedly has
issues. By early December, it met administration goals of serving 800,000 unique users
and 18,000 enrollment requests a daybut glitches in the system have also caused
roughly 15,000 applications to go astray, as insurers never saw them. There's little doubt
that this debacle will be remembered as the biggest government tech failure of 2013.
 PROJECT FAILS IN BANGLADESH

DOEL LAPTOP

The government has identified the need for increasing the Internet penetration rate in the
rural areas of the country to fight against poverty and illiteracy. The first prerequisite is
to increase the rate of computer penetration in rural areas. The present status of
computer penetration is below ten per hundred people for the whole country and in rural
areas it is below two.

Considering this as a big hindrance towards building Digital Bangladesh, the

government has taken initiatives to manufacture low cost Netbook/Laptops through the
state owned company TSS. The Laptops/Netbooks being assembled by TSS has been
brand named Laptop/Netbook. With the present installed capacity, it is possible to
assemble initially 10,000 to 15,000 Netbooks/Laptops per month. Presently all the raw
materials of Laptop/Netbook are being imported. Very soon TSS will start producing a
number of components in its own factory premises. The present production capacity may
be enhanced several folds by recruiting more manpower and ensuring enough working
capital. [8]

A STUDY IN PROJECT FAILURE

Dr John McManus and Dr Trevor Wood-Harper

Research highlights that only one in eight information technology projects can be
considered truly successful (failure being described as those projects that do not meet the
original time, cost and (quality) requirements criteria).

Despite such failures, huge sums continue to be invested in information systems projects
and written off. For example the cost of project failure across the European Union was
142 billion in 2004.

The research looked at 214 information systems (IS) projects at the same time,
interviews were conducted with a selective number of project managers to follow up
issues or clarify points of interest. The period of analysis covered 1998-2005 the number
of information systems projects examined across the European Union.

Number of IS projects examined within European Union

Rank Sector No. of projects examined

1 Manufacturing 43
2 Retail 36

3 Financial services 33

4 Transport 27

5 Health 18

6 Education 17

7 Defence 13

8 Construction 12

9 Logistics 9

10 Agriculture 6

Total 214

Project value in millions of Euros

Number of Percentage Accumulative
Value range in millions ()
projects (%) (%)

01 51 23.831 23.831

12 20 9.346 33.177

2-3 11 5.140 38.317

3-5 33 15.421 53.738

5 - 10 4 1.869 55.607

10 - 20 87 40.654 96.261

20 - 50 6 2.804 99.065

50 - 80 2 0.935 100.000
Totals 214 100.00 100.00

At what stage in the project lifecycle are projects cancelled (or abandoned as failures)?

Prior research by the authors in 2002 identified that 7 out of 10 software projects
undertaken in the UK adopted the waterfall method for software development and
delivery. Results from the analysis of cases indicates that almost one in four of the
projects examined were abandoned after the feasibility stage of those projects completed
approximately one in three were schedule and budget overruns.

PROJECT COMPLETIONS, CANCELLATIONS AND

OVERRUNS

Waterfall method Number of projects Number of projects Number of

lifecycle stage cancelled completed projects overrun
(schedule and/or
cost)
Feasibility None 214 None
Requirements 3 211 None
analysis
Design 28 183 32
Code 15 168 57
Testing 4 164 57
Implementation 1 163 69
Handover None 163 69
Percentages 23.8% 76.2%
Of the initial 214 projects studied 51 (23.8 per cent were cancelled) - a summary of the
principal reasons why projects were cancelled is given below. Our earlier research
elaborated on the symptoms of information systems project failure in three specific
areas: frequent requests by users to change the system; insufficient communication
between the different members of the team working on the project and the end users
(stakeholders); and no clear requirements definitions. Whilst communication between
team and end users was still perceived as an issue within some projects; the top three
issues from this study are: business process alignment; requirements management; and
overspends.

One notable causal factor in these abandonment's was the lack of due diligence at the
requirements phase, an important factor here was the level of skill in design and poor
management judgment in selecting software engineers with the right skill sets. Equally
the authors found some evidence in poor tool set selection in that end users found it
difficult to sign-off design work - in that they could not relate process and data model
output with their reality and practical knowledge of the business processes.[9]

OUR OBSERVATION OF THIS PROJECT

By making this project we observe that, many reasons have for IT project failing around
the world. Some projects are failing for poor preparation, some are failing for poor
budget, some for bad leadership. So obviously, we need to identify this reasons and
solve this problem.

We can clear to know about the important reason for project failure by drawing pie
diagram with percentage__
 Figure: Percentages of IT Project Failures

CONCLUSION

We have argued that, many of the reasons given for the failure of large IT projects is an
inadequte respect for the projects understanding of requirements. We have tried to show
that requirements drift either underlies the main reasons given for failure, or contributes
to them in a signicant way. We have shown, in a model, that the diminishing returns
experienced in a large projects as its product gets bigger is exacerbated by drift to the
extent that projects may never achieve the kind of quality that makes their product
acceptable. And nally, while oering no silver bullet, we have suggested that a true
belief in requirements drift among engineers and their managers may itself go a long
way towards mitigating its eects.
Project managers can easily reduce the risk of failure by identifying the common reasons
that pave the way for project failure. They will have to take steps to prevent these factors
from casting negative shadows on their projects. If you want your project to complete on
time, then you will have to deliver all the required resources to project managers and
prevent project creep from getting out of control.
Keep things organized and avoid mismanagement. Ensure that all your team members
are on the same page and united for a common cause. Involvement of stakeholders is
critical to your project success. All this will go a long way in helping you in reducing the
chances of project failure.

REFERENCES

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology
[2] http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/IT-project-management
[3] https://project-management.com/top-10-main-causes-of-project-failure/
[4] https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-3-the-project-life-cycle-
phases-project-management/
[5] https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/white-papers/chaos-report.pdf
[6] http://www.standishgroup.com/outline
[7] https://www.brightwork.com/blog/3-projects-that-failed-
miserably#.WY5z_TXmPIV
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doel_(computer)
[9] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2533563/it-project-management/it-s-
biggest-project-failures----and-what-we-can-learn-from-them.htm