Why so many IT projects go so horribly wrong

Let’s play a word-association game. Champions (Liverpool). Cyclists (smug). IT project (failure). Ask people what they know about tech projects, and they will probably say that they take longer than expected, cost more than budgeted and deliver less than they are meant to. Is that perception accurate? And if so, what can be done about it? A forthcoming paper, by Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University and his co-authors, sheds light on these questions.