Letter to the IT Industry – It doesn’t have to be this way

IT’s failure rate is high and getting worse. You need to look beyond systems to solve it

IT failure rates remain stubbornly high because organisations still start with technology, not value.

Dear IT Industry

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The IT market in many respects (maybe not for AI?!) is flatter than a pancake and has been getting this way for the last few years. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Yes, the economy is ropey; we have wars globally in several locations affecting most economies in a downward direction. But there is something we can all do.

For the last half century, more or less the whole history of corporate IT, the rate of failure to meet expectations has been around 75%. Computing published a letter of mine on this subject in June 1996, when I started my quest for a more productive, suitably value-layered relationship between business and IT to engender better business and organisational outcomes.

Now, after 30 years of the fail rate not getting better but actually looking to get worse, here we are with $6 trillion of global IT spend and rising. Three quarters of that, sometimes more, is still failing to meet expectations. The reported corporate AI fail rate is currently at 95%; no surprises there.

So, you may ask: are expectations mismatch a big part of the problem? Absolutely! We need to align them. And, in my view, the fundamental principles for consistently optimising success, business value and ROI were never defined, in detail, in a practical, pragmatic and macro-micro connected way.

In 2024, drawing on research and development I’ve been carrying out since the 1990s, I launched the “75% Fail to 75% Success!” initiative at DigiGov 2024, followed by similar launches at public sector events in November 2024 and March 2025.

Now, with models, concepts, principles, guidelines, techniques, role definitions and artefacts emerging from the R&D, we have a new breed of multiskilled Business Value Maximisation Specialist (BVMS), using Business Value Maximisation Framework (BVMF®), starting to engender much more satisfactory success rates and value levels.

Here are just five suggested ways from dozens, even hundreds I could cite, that ‘It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way’ can start to come about.

1 Drive forwards, not in reverse: Start with the outcome and value the organisation needs, not with IT implementation and a hope that benefits will follow. Technology matters, but it is only one part of the value chain: people, processes and IT together deliver organisational outcomes.

The same principle applies to resourcing. Too many roles are specified around narrow technical experience — software, version, patch, sector — rather than the ability to understand and guide the whole value journey.

Specific technical skills are often essential, but they are not, on their own, what makes projects succeed. The point of what we all try to do (I hope) is to raise the productivity of an organisation or business; it’s our raison d’etre, so let’s start doing it a bit more effectively.

2 Understand how value arises, what it’s made up of and how to optimise it from the start: Those who’ve joined our initiative are now finding that as multiskilled BVMSs they can speak all languages around success, value and ROI with their team members, addressing and boosting all value types (there are many). This role, by the way, is bigger than benefits management realisation - much bigger and more powerful.

3 Work cohesively with all project team members around the common goal: The siloed approaches of project teams and their respective disciplines invariably leave cracks in the success and value pavement. We BVMSs work to an end with no cracks - ‘no value leakage’ as we say.

4 Evaluate net benefit (predicted and actual) based on all positive factors, tangible and less tangible, set against all negative factors, tangible and less tangible: We aim to set, track and boost value the whole way along, and we never stop doing so.

5 Don’t try to boil the ocean: This is a highly complex, multilayered environment we work in and there’s no obligation to use IT systems over good old (and young) human beings! And yes, this applies to AI as much or more than any other IT system.

Try not to be obligated to digitally transform unless you think it will be of net benefit to every stakeholder. If you do decide to go for it, don’t feel obligated to do it all in one go; a single process upgrade and associated IT implementation is challenging enough on its own without overburdening your resources and ability to manage such a significant project and ensuing activity.

If any of this resonates with you, the best (and most fun) way to see what’s been happening with this initiative is to check out our YouTube channel and other websites ( here and here).

I wish everybody in the industry very well with their success and value creation. I will end by saying, as Bob Hite of Canned Heat sang so powerfully, “Come on, let’s work together”!

David P Jacobs BSc, MBCS, BVMS

Senior Business Analyst
Business Value Maximisation Specialist