(ref.doc)sa0994

Scientific American
September 1994

p 72 Software's Chronic Crisis
by W. Wayt Gibbs

Studies have shown that for every six new large-scale software systems
that are put into operation, two others are cancelled. [...]
And some three quarters of all large systems are "operating failures"
that either do not function as intended or are not used at all.

When a system becomes so complex that no one manager can comprehend
the entirety, traditional development processes break down.

Tom Peterson, head of Loral's shuttle software project [CMM level 5],
attributes his success to "a culture that tries to fix not just the
bug but also the flaw in the testing process that allowed it to slip
through".