Project Success Requires Context-Aware Governance

Despite growing project management maturity, the failure rate of IT-related projects remains high. We investigated four large IT-related projects within the Swiss Federal Administration that were well-managed but still failed. We found that these projects failed because of poor project governance, in particular inadequate handling of project context by the project sponsor and steering committee. We identify five contextual factors that steering committees should focus on and provide recommendations for strengthening context-aware project governance, illustrated by their implementation in the Swiss Federal Administration.