Edward De Bono, famous for his work on critical thinking tools, has this to say about failure –

"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. "

With software projects failure is undesirable as millions of dollars could be lost. Sadly it is all too common. It is worth looking at a few high profile failures and the reasons behind them-

(sources http://www.spectrum.ieee.org and http://www.techworld.com)

UK Inland revenue system -

Development company EDS developed a tax credit system for the inland revenue.