When companies that are large enough to spend "multi billion" dollars on a software project blow up "within 4 years" it makes the news. Like Enron. And Worldcom. And Lehman. Etc. And in those cases it's usually a very deep systemic rot. So I don't know how much all of that matters.
I also echo the concerns below about the "multi-billion" comment. Did somebody just mention sometime that it's that expensive? Because that's a remarkably large amount of money for business. Government? Not so much. But for a business, well, there are very few billion-dollar businesses and a scarce handfull that are spending a billion+ on any single project. My fiance is a PM on the largest electronic medical records rollout in the nation, which includes visits to over a thousand clinics around the country to install hardware, convert paper records and train people, as well as all the infrastructure, and it's reportedly going to bust through the original budget but still clock-in around $100 Million dollars.
I also echo the concerns below about the "multi-billion" comment. Did somebody just mention sometime that it's that expensive? Because that's a remarkably large amount of money for business. Government? Not so much. But for a business, well, there are very few billion-dollar businesses and a scarce handfull that are spending a billion+ on any single project. My fiance is a PM on the largest electronic medical records rollout in the nation, which includes visits to over a thousand clinics around the country to install hardware, convert paper records and train people, as well as all the infrastructure, and it's reportedly going to bust through the original budget but still clock-in around $100 Million dollars.