As background, I have been in the Informational Technology (IT) consulting business for over 20 years so I have seen strategic programs that have been successful and those that have failed. Thus my perspectives are from the IT side of a corporate initiative to achieve a different strategic business result. While I agree that all six of the key areas are important, I think there are at least two that are not. The first key area I would add is ‘Lack of experienced, knowledgeable resources to manage and lead the initiative' (Aileron, 2011) I have seen too many programs fail because the client does note either put the right people in leadership positions or do not have enough key executives involved in the steering team. The second key area I would include: ‘business units look at the IT department as a supplier of services, not as a true business partner.' When the business unit executives and their employees do not truly partner with the IT department most business initiatives will struggle to succeed since IT systems are directly tied to business and customer needs. As mentioned in the article, ‘Some CFOs don't get it' (The Buzz, 2000), more than half of CFOs believe that CIOs and their organizations are simply technology implementers versus true drivers of change.
Having said that, given the six key areas stated, I would say that a poorly defined strategy and how to achieve it would be the main cause. My second key factor is a combination of the lack of meaningful performance measures and the lack of solid data and systems to make decisions because without the systems and solid data, you cannot track performance measures no matter how well they are defined. However if you have these two things, the program management office and key executives can see trends, review performance, and make decisions to impact the success of the program. All of this leads to the fact that company executives do a poor job defining an executable strategy, putting experienced, skilled resources in charge, and not being able to accurate track the results of the program (Aileron, 2011).