TABLE OF CONTENTS In the United States, organizations spend more than $2.3 trillion each year on projects of all sorts, according to a Project Management Institute (PMI) study. The Standish Group reports that U.S. organizations spend $275 billion annually on application software projects alone. These IT projects are loaded with risks that often lead to failure. According to a Standish Group survey, only 16 percent of technology projects are completed on time and on budget and 31 percent are cancelled altogether. Moreover, cost overruns average 189 percent of original estimates.
These alarming trends tell only half the story. Many times, customer service and employee morale and productivity suffer when projects do not produce finished products on time or when these products are delivered with minimal functionality and bugs due to poor testing. Failed projects also increase the chance of litigation between companies when they involve outside developers.
[1]Lanza, Richard B., IT Audit, Technology Projects: The Riskiest Parts of the Business, 2002.
Of all of the studies done on fraud, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners most probably has the best given their focus in the area and the extensiveness of their research. The Report to the Nation 2002 [2] was based on 663 occupational fraud cases that were reported by the certified fraud examiners who investigated them. In total, the cases in this study caused over $7 billion in losses.
The report focused on five areas: the...
