And so, even the most incriminating evidence generally gets delivered. As litigation consultants and expert witnesses, we spend an inordinate amount of time poring over these project records. The surprising thing is that, in most of these cases, there is a great deal of what we might call, well, Lying. It's not at all unusual to find yourself with a memo from X to his boss stating that delivery will be delayed by at least six months and a memo from X to the client, dated the very same day, providing comforting assurances that the project is right on schedule. Outright lying is a direct sin of commission.
Omission is just a different flavor of lie.
Lying to your contract partner is morally indefensible, generally illegal, and always gets found out in litigation. So far we've spoken mostly of cases where the software builder overcommits. And they are just as subject to the three patterns presented above. When you are the buyer and another organization agrees to build a system for you, the signing of the contract moves primary responsibility for successful implementation from you to the builder, but the risks involved in attempting the project do not all move with that responsibility. No organization can completely buy its way out of risk.