Business and Management Review Vol. 2(4) pp. 01 – 14 June, 2012 ISSN: 2047 - 0398 Available online at http://www.businessjournalz.org/bmr 1 Projects Management in Reality: Lessons from Government Projects Dr. Ali M. Al-Khouri ABSTRACT This article presents some practical insights and challenges encountered during the implementation of major IT projects in the government sector in Arab countries. The primary purpose of this article is to point out the identified pitfalls to the existing body of knowledge from a practitioner’s standpoint, as many of the articles published in this regard are published by vendors, consultants, or academics. Each item is discussed to highlight how it impacted the management and the overall performance of projects. They are believed to contribute significantly towards the successful management and implementation of projects, and as valuable lessons that should be recorded in an organisation’s knowledge and watch list repository. Keywords: Project Management; Project Failure. 1. INTRODUCTION IT IS widely accepted in the literature by both academics and practitioners that information technology projects have very high failure probabilities and that between 60 to 70 per cent do actually fail. Many other researchers argue that the actual figure might be far more frightening since many organisations tend not to disclose such experiences, due to fear of criticism by audit or the media (Collins, 2006; Cross, 2002; Fichter, 2003). Perhaps this may be attributed to the fact that current information technology is more complex and diverse than several years ago as it is moving out of the back-office and into more mission-critical business process e.g., customer interfaces, electronic commerce, supply chain management, etc. (Gartner Group View, 1999). Besides, many researchers pointed out that many of today’s failures are avoidable (Avison & Wood-Harper, 1990; Bentley, 2002; Berkun, 2005; Broder; 1999; Curtis, 1998; Lam, 2003; Radosevich, 1999). They argue that many of the projects fail because of foreseeable circumstances and that organisation’s need to give careful attention to several factors to reduce failure. The findings of this article correspond with the often quoted statement in the literature contributing to failure and that is related to the fact that organisations tend to treat IT projects from purely technological perspectives, and do not give much attention to other organisational issues. Almost all challenges and pitfalls reported in this article were organisational issues related to management and people. Figure 1 provides an overview of the pitfalls. The identified elements hindered the progress of projects and delayed them from hitting the planned go-live milestones repeatedly. The elements pointed out here are considered to be some valuable lessons learned during the implementation of several government IT projects and that if understood thoroughly could minimise the potential problems with the management and resultant delays in similar projects elsewhere and smooth their implementation.