Book Context
Large-scale transformation has become a defining challenge for organisations across both the public and private sectors. Financial pressure, regulatory change, digitalisation, workforce constraints, mergers, restructurings, and rising stakeholder expectations are driving programmes of change that are broader, faster, and more interconnected than ever. At the same time, strong empirical evidence shows that the risks associated with transformation delivery are routinely underestimated.
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Independent research into major transformation and IT-enabled change shows a consistent pattern. Large cross-sector studies report that approximately 65–70% of transformation initiatives fail to fully achieve their stated objectives, whether measured in cost, schedule, scope, or benefits realisation(1). Further analysis shows that around 20% of major initiatives experience cost overruns exceeding 25%, while a smaller but critical minority suffer extreme overruns of 100–200% or more(2). These extreme outcomes account for a disproportionate share of financial loss, operational disruption, and reputational damage.
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This ‘low-probability, high-impact risk’ distribution, reflects the ‘highly skewed risk profile’ nature of transformation outcomes, in which a small number of catastrophic failures dominate overall risk exposure. Research suggests that around one in six major programmes qualifies as ‘extreme outlier failures’, with cost overruns of around 200% and schedule overruns approaching 70% (3).
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High-profile failures illustrate these patterns across sectors and geographies. In the UK public sector, Birmingham City Council’s Oracle ERP programme failed to establish basic financial control and contributed to severe organisational and financial distress(4). The NHS National Programme for IT was spent more than £10 billion of public expenditure, and still failed to deliver a national capability(5).
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Internationally, the Queensland Health payroll system went live with known defects, resulting in widespread under- and non-payment of staff and remediation costs running into billions(6), while Canada’s Phoenix Pay System required multi-billion-dollar recovery programmes and years of manual intervention(7). Comparable patterns are evident in the private sector, where large ERP implementations and post-merger integration programmes show similar risk profiles, with 50–60% of mergers failing to realise expected synergies, most commonly due to poor integration design, weak governance, and cultural misalignment rather than flawed strategic rationale(8).
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Across these cases, audits, inquiries, and post-implementation reviews consistently identify the same underlying causes. Failures are rarely driven by technology alone. Instead, they stem from weak or fragmented governance, unclear decision rights, poor integration planning, inadequate risk escalation, over-optimistic assumptions, premature go-live decisions, and insufficient attention to organisational readiness, change adoption, and benefits realisation[9].
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Because these patterns are predictable, they are avoidable. Successful transformation depends on proportionate governance, disciplined decision-making, and integrated delivery structures applied across the full lifecycle of change. This book is written in that context.
(1) McKinsey & Company (2011). Why Change Programs Don’t Produce Change. McKinsey Quarterly, April 2011.
[2) Flyvbjerg, B. (2014). What You Should Know About Megaprojects and Why: An Overview. PM World Journal, Vol. III, Issue I.
[3) Flyvbjerg, B. & Budzier, A. (September 2011). Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than You Think. Harvard Business Review.
[4) Grant Thornton UK LLP (2023). Value for Money Report: Birmingham City Council.
[5) National Audit Office (2011). Lessons from Delivering Major IT Programmes.
[6) Queensland Government Commission of Inquiry (2013). Queensland Health Payroll System Commission of Inquiry Report.
[7) Office of the Auditor General of Canada (2017). Building and Implementing the Phoenix Pay System.
[8) Harvard Business Review (April 2014). Why So Many Mergers Fail.
[9) National Audit Office (2020). Lessons from Major Programmes.