Common Problems and Lessons Learned from Managing Large-Scale US Government IS/IT Projects

2. Background

Many researchers have studied the management of large-scale projects and indicated that a majority of them have ended up with poor project performance. Studies have also been conducted to investigate the causes of poor performance. The results show that the main causes of cost overruns of megaprojects stemmed from a lack of realism in initial cost estimates, low level of contingencies, insufficient consideration on changes in project specifications, designs, and exchange rates, and undervaluation of price changes, expropriation cost, and safety and environmental demands (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003). The major causes of schedule delay of a major public transportation project came from lack of owner’s abilities and strategies to manage hi-tech megaprojects, lack of appropriate scheduling tools, underestimating the technical requirements, and public resistance due to environmental concerns (Han et al., 2009).