kevin_williams•2d agoProlific Poster

That stat about 80% of web projects failing hit different when I looked up the source

I kept hearing that 80% of web projects fail stat thrown around in every dev forum. Finally got curious and tracked it down to a 2018 Forrester report. Turns out their definition of 'fail' includes any project that goes over budget by even 1%. So basically almost everything fails by that standard. Felt kind of misleading honestly. Has anyone else actually read the original study or was I the only one who just nodded along?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinn3412d ago

That Forrester report gets misquoted everywhere. I found the same thing when I dug into it a couple years ago. Their definition was basically any project that didn't match the original scope, timeline, and budget perfectly. That's a really high bar for almost anything. It made me feel better about my own projects honestly.

charlieh742d agoMost Upvoted

Blew my mind too when I actually looked it up. I'd been quoting that stat like gospel for years without ever checking where it came from. Makes me wonder what other "common knowledge" I've been blindly repeating just because some tech influencer tweeted it.

paulnguyen1d ago

Nah I actually disagree a bit. Yeah the 80% stat is misused but the Forrester definition is not that crazy if you think about it. Going over budget by 1% on a $100k project is $1k that could've been avoided with better planning or requirements gathering. I've been on enough projects where scope creep was just people nodding along and not pushing back. The problem isn't the stat, it's that devs conveniently want to dismiss it instead of asking why our industry consistently fails at basic project management.