An IT project postmortem: Identifying root causes and eliminating rival explanations

Information technology (IT) projects often fail. Postmortem analysis is not general practice in IT project management. This is a missed opportunity for IT project management because postmortem analysis is a proven source of practice improvements and preventive actions in other domains. In this article, the root
causes of failure of a major IT project are identified by postmortem analysis, a well-established method for investigating accidents and failure ex post facto to improve practice and performance. The root causes of failure identified are: a) inadequate planning, b) novelty of a technology to the organization, and c) inappropriate software development method and process. The postmortem offers insights into risks and challenges that IT projects still face today. Significantly, the postmortem analysis shows how a different approach to project planning could have prevented the failure and termination of the project. This article also demonstrates how systematic IT project postmortem analysis can be conducted based on leading theory of process tracing and causal modeling in combination with the literature on IT project failure. The demonstration of this approach to IT project postmortems is new and original.