Projects that fail severely in terms of budget or target date overruns and/or reduced functionality are known as runaway projects.

The four disciplines of management - planning, organising, controlling, and leading - are thought of as key elements of avoiding ‘runaway-ness’. A project manager who fails in one or more of these areas may create a runaway project, as poor planning, organising, controlling, and leading have all been linked to runaway projects.

We will study project failure from the perspective of a project manager, and will look at why IT and IS development projects in particular are prone to fail, and why they are so often allowed to continue.

The presenter will give examples of famous runaway projects and lessons learned, and will also present a case study of a runaway project that was assigned to her for completion, and the lessons learned from rescuing this project.