Introduction
The purest treasure mortal times can afford is a spotless reputation, William Shakespeare wrote (Laszlo, (999). Projects and program failures have a negative impact on the reputation of an organization. According to Bowenkamp & Kleiner (987), a project is a distinct and compound set of harmonized activities undertaken with clear-cut starting and finishing points by an organization to meet specified objectives within a specific time. He continues to say that it has a defined lifespan, measurable outcomes, organizational structure, defined amount of resources, and a corresponding set of activities. A program, on the other hand, is a system of projects that are designed to meet a certain need in an organization. Project or program failure is when there was no actual realization of the expected outcomes and in the expected quality. A study by the Standish Group (US) in 2003 showed that 60% of IT projects undertaken either totally abandoned or fall against a measure of budget, scope, time, or quality (Barber & Warner, 2005). The same study also estimated that the cost of abandoned or failing IT proje
cts in the United States of America alone run into hundreds of billions of dollars. Common causes of project or program failure include lack of a clear link between the project or program and the organizations key strategic priorities; lack of effective involvement with the right stakeholders who should be identified and the rationale for doing this identified too; when attention was not given to breaking development and implementation into manageable steps; Proposals driven by the initial price rather than the long-term value for money. Lack of effective bonding between clients, suppliers, and supply chain and the project team leading to failure to make a market evaluation also leads to project failure (Bowenkamp & Kleiner, 987). One or a combination of these factors may lead to project failure.
Impacts of failure of projects and programs on the reputation of the company include the imposition of business fines, suspension, public admonishment and/or parliamentary inquiry, loss of trading licenses, inconvenience in service delivery, negative press, and even firing of involved staff.
Statement of the problem