The reasons and the costs...

"Software project failure is often devastating to an organization. Schedule slips, buggy releases and missing features can mean the end of the project or even financial ruin for a company. Oddly, there is disagreement over what it means for a project to fail."
This article at CIOUpdate uses economic criteria to define what it means for a project to fail. It then categorizes how projects fail and finally, it examines common traps that contribute or accelerate project failure.