Jerry Weinberg‘s top three reasons for software projects going over budget or failing to meet their original requirements:
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The original budget, schedule and requirements were totally unrealistic, due to the inability of people to speak truth to power.
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The original budget, schedule and requirements were totally unrealistic, due to the inability of people to understand and acknowledge their own limitations (which we all have).
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Even in those rare cases that people pass those first two hurdles, they lose emotional control during the project when something goes wrong — and something ALWAYS goes wrong. In 50 years, I’ve never seen a project where something didn’t go wrong. When it does, the project’s success is determined by the leaders’ ability to manage themselves emotionally.