&quot;How does one spend $1 billion on software and fail?&quot;<p>Just look at most UK Government IT projects.  They&#x27;ve got it down to a fine art, blowing billions and being left with nothing useful.<p>Several major international government consultancy firms got their break on supposed small UK Gov IT projects, and were able to keep billing $1,000&#x27;s&#x2F;hour for years (while delivering nothing useful) and became big IT consultancies in the process.  The failure didn&#x27;t harm them one little bit - it let them claim the have <i>experience</i> and that got them way more work.<p>IT project failure in large and complex organizations is practically guaranteed.<p>Now, if they did that small-ish team, paid well, it could well work.  But your board is not going to approve some pizza munching, jolt cola drinking geeks as your wonder IT team.  Don&#x27;t worry what the team is really like, the consultants asked by the board to review them as part of the process will make sure they&#x27;re described as the aforementioned pizza and cola weirdos.  And recommend using the consultants team instead.  Been there. Done that.