Too Long; Didn't Read
Optimism can be useful in inspiring motivation and getting a project going. But optimistic simplification can be dangerous as it blinds us to risks of under-estimation. It can lead us to pursue ideas that just don't work when fleshed out. Big cost-saving IT projects have a special risk of going badly wrong. In 2019 $1.3 trillion was spent on digital transformation and as much as $900bn went on failed projects. We can learn from these failures as I think they embody extreme cases of a logic we see in other IT projects too.