We do not cover them because most people study the failures. Failures happens to be more instructive and lead us to successful projects. Both the Standish and KPMG reports revealed important differences between project failure and success. After distilling the information from both reports, we have the five most important lessons learned for project success. First, create a clear statement of requirements.
Requirements can take the form of a white paper, or a detailed technical specification.
Get consensus from others by reviewing the paper or spec. Most requirement documents need a few iterations to be respectable. Second, get management involved. Management controls the direction and money of the company, so they hold the fate of your project in their hands. They must be involved for your project to survive.