Why the development of information systems is a complex task!

IT Project failure is not an random event. Statistics (e.g. the Chaos Chronicles report of the Standish Group) show that over 75% of all IT projects, fail. As a consequences decreased revenues, damage to reputation, exposure to legal liabilities, and a productivity decreases are the result. There are a lot of reasons to explain these failure and one of them is that over the years, the Development of Information Systems has become an very complex task. This complexity has many sources and aspects:

• Todays business environment of stiff competition and very short times to market, requires a continuous reduction in cost levels, and an increased quality and service level to customers, while software continues to grow more complex. Many software suppliers cannot keep pace with the demand for new products, so they frequently set overly aggressive schedules for new product development. As a result more often than not, quality suffers. Managing the balance between these tradeoffs is a big challenge.
• In today's uncertan and unstable economical and technological climate, requirements on information systems change on a daily basis. Changing requirements implicate rework in design and implementation and thus impact schedules and cost which endangers the whole project.
• As of today, organizations invest greatly in information technology in order to improve their operational and strategic position. Therefore the extent to which information systems (IS) play a part in organizations is increasing rapidly. The interaction between IT and organization is very complex and influenced by many factors, including the organizations structure, operating procedures, politics, culture, environment and management decisions. Consequently, the main problem for an organization in achieving viability is the complexity and uncertainty exhibited by itself and its environment.
  
• The distributed nature of today's enterprise requires distributed IT infrastructure in an effort to ensure that employees have reliable access to business applications. This makes high-availability and security of today's information systems critical and their architecture has to support these increased user demands. Additionally distributed workforce requires different management techniques and skills to keep motivated, productive and on track.
• Last but not least the multitude of different stakeholders (users, developers, architects, requirements engineers, customers, etc) involved in a information systems development require consideration of competing objectives, risk and uncertainty.