Resumen
The article focuses on identifying software project risks. Software projects are notoriously difficult to manage and too many of them end in failure. In 1995, annual U.S. spending on software projects reached approximately $250 billion and encompassed an estimated 175,000 projects. Despite these costs involved, press reports suggest that project failures are occurring with alarming frequency. In 1995, U.S. companies alone spent an estimated $59 billion in cost overruns on information services projects and another $81 billion on canceled software projects. One explanation for the high failure rate is that managers are not taking prudent measures to assess and manage risks involved in these projects. Advocates of software project risk management claim that by countering these threats to success, the incidence of failure can be reduced. Since the 1970s, both academics and practitioners have written about risks associated with managing software projects. INSET: How the Study was Conducted.