Why Most IT Projects Fail (And How 'The Phoenix Project' Shows a Way Out)

IT projects often come with a reputation for being late, over budget, or outright failures. The story told in 'The Phoenix Project' shines a light on why this is so common and offers a compelling path forward. At Parts Unlimited, the Phoenix project represents a critical initiative to modernize and save the company, yet it struggles under the weight of deferred testing, unclear requirements, and overburdened staff.

The book reveals how poor change management practices contribute directly to failures. Despite having formal ITIL-compliant tools, these processes were often bypassed because they were seen as cumbersome. This cultural resistance to discipline results in unauthorized deployments, undocumented changes, and increased risk of outages. Manual workarounds by finance teams to meet deadlines further complicate the environment, introducing errors and security vulnerabilities.

Another major factor is the siloed nature of development and operations teams. The classic