Trailing-edge management

Abstract

The last thirty years has seen incredible growth in the computer industry, both commercial and technological. However, during that same period, there have been various studies asserting that somewhere between sixty and eighty percent of all software projects fail and the blame for these failures is most often laid at the door of the project manager or the project workers. This paper asks if the project manager and his team really are to blame and points out some similarities to historical events in other industries. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.