Repeating Failure in Large-scale Government IT Projects: A Taxing Story

Large-scale information technology (IT) projects experience higher failure rates than smaller IT projects. When these projects fail in government agencies, they represent significant costs to both the agencies and society. This paper reports the results of a study on large-scale government IT projects that failed over multiple iterations. Data was gathered on the modernization efforts at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from publicly available documents spanning over 30 years of project history. The inductive techniques used both confirm and extend prior literature to suggest that while existing theories can help explain cyclical patterns of escalating and withdrawing commitment, there are clear organizational determinants that play a role in this process. In particular we discuss the role of strategic factors, emerging project characteristics, and organizational capabilities for project management and systems development in government IT projects.