Several risks articles have been devoted to these failures. I must say that I feel that the number one cause of this is our educational system and our attitudes towards education. Many students today, from grade school to postgraduate institutions are only interested in learning that which they perceive to be useful in a future job. This leads to managers and beaureaucrats that are for the most part computer illiterate. As they see it, computers are an appliance, like the office copier, that should perform on demand.
Managers see knowledge about computing only useful to engineers and programmers.
Business schools for the most part do not teach computer literacy, nor how a non-technical manager should deal with a large software system in his company. On the other hand, engineers, and programmers rarely take any business courses. They see that as something only useful to managers and beaureaucrats. The problem this leads to is lack of understanding between technical and non-technical persons. Non-technical managers often do not understand such things as throughput, disk space, etc., and are intimidated by the technical terms.