Turkey Time: IT Projects Fail Like Pies and Cakes from Crazed Aunties

November 27, 2025

Another dinobaby original. If there is what passes for art, you bet your bippy, that I used smart software. I am a grandpa but not a Grandma Moses.

Today is Thanksgiving, and it is appropriate to consider the turkey approach to technology. The source of this idea comes from the IEEE.org online publication. The article explaining what I call “turkeyism” is “How IT Managers Fail Software Projects.” Because the write up is almost 4,000 words and far too long for reading during an American football game’s halftime break, I shall focus on a handful of points in the write up. I encourage you to read the entire article and, of course, sign up and subscribe. If you don’t, the begging for dollars pop up may motivate you to click away and lose the full wisdom of the IEEE write up. I want to point out that many IT managers are trained as electrical engineers or computer scientists who have had to endure the veritable wonderland of imaginary numbers for a semester or two. But increasingly IT managers can be MBAs or in some frisky Silicon Valley type companies, recent high school graduates with a native ability to solve complex problems and manage those older than they. Hey, that works, right?

Auntie knows how to manage the baking process. She practices excellent hygiene, but with age comes forgetfulness. Those cookies look yummy. Thanks, Venice.a. No mom. But good enough with Auntie pawing the bird.

Answer: Actually no.

The cited IEEE article states:

Global IT spending has more than tripled in constant 2025 dollars since 2005, from US $1.7 trillion to $5.6 trillion, and continues to rise. Despite additional spending, software success rates have not markedly improved in the past two decades. The result is that the business and societal costs of failure continue to grow as software proliferates, permeating and interconnecting every aspect of our lives.

Yep, and lots of those managers are members of IEEE or similar organizations. How about that jump from solving mathy problems to making software that works? It doesn’t seem to be working. Is it the universities, the on the job training, or the failure of continuing education? Not surprisingly, the write up doesn’t offer a solution.

What we have is a global, expensive problem. With more of everyday life dependent on “technology,” a failure can have some interesting consequences. Not only is it tough to get that new sweater delivered by Amazon, but downtime can kill a kid in a hospital when a system keels over. Dead is dead, isn’t it?

The write up says:

A report fromthe Consortium for Information & Software Quality (CISQ) estimated the annual cost of operational software failures in the United States in 2022 alone was $1.81 trillion, with another $260 billion spent on software-development failures. It is larger than the total U.S. defense budget for that year, $778 billion.

Chatter about the “cost” of AI tosses around even bigger numbers. Perhaps some of the AI pundits should consider the impact of AI failure in the context of IT failure. Frankly I am not confident about AI because of IT failure. The money is one thing, but given the evidence about the prevalence of failure, I am not ready to sing the JP Morgan tune about the sunny side of the street.

The write up adds:

Next to electrical infrastructure, with which IT is increasingly merging into a mutually codependent relationship, the failure of our computing systems is an existential threat to modern society. Frustratingly, the IT community stubbornly fails to learn from prior failures.

And what role does a professional organization play in this little but expensive drama? Are the arrows of accountability pointing at the social context in which the managers work? What about the education of these managers? What about the drive to efficiency? You know. Design the simplest possible solution. Yeah, these contextual components have created a high probability of failure. Will Auntie’s dessert give everyone food poisoning? Probably. Auntie thinks she has washed her hands and baked with sanitation in mind. Yep, great assumption because Auntie is old. Auntie Compute is going on 85 now. Have another cookie.

But here’s the killer statement in the write up:

Not much has worked with any consistency over the past 20 years.

This is like a line in a Jack Benny Show skit.

Several observations:

The article identifies a global, systemic problem
The existing mechanisms for training people to manage don’t work
There is no solution.

Have a great Thanksgiving. Have another one of Auntie’s cookies. The two people who got food poisoning last year just had upset tummies. It will just get better. At least that’s what mom says.

Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2025

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Management, News, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.