I first met project/change failure statistics in around 1982. I had been working on projects for a couple of years, and many failed. Of course, no one admitted that they failed. But they did.

Here we are 39 years later in 2021 and the bad news has not changed. That is very sad.

Sad for the Enterprises involved of course, but also sad for the disillusioned and depressed people working on those projects. I know because I have worked on many failed projects over the last 36 years. The only thing more depressing than knowing the project you are working on is going to fail, is having no ability to do anything to stop it, and in many cases the ignominy of being vilified for pointing it out. “Think positive!” and “Just Do it!” are in copious supply but, “Oh bugger, thanks for pointing that out. We’d better take stock…” is nowhere to be found.

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