The software industry has an appaling record for delivery. Since the early 1970's and before people have been deploring the fact that we seem to be unable to reliably deliver software that is of a suitable quality, at reasonable cost and that meets the needs of our users.
Studies of productivity vary, but most seem to agree that for all but the smallest projects more than 70% fail to deliver what they promise on time .
People who practice AgileDevelopment believe that TraditionalDevelopment processes, the processes that underlie most software projects, are badly misaligned with the reality of software development and that this mis-alignment is a direct contributor to this poor record.
http://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research/chaos_1994_1.php
http://www.it-cortex.com/Stat_Failure_Rate.htm#The%20Chaos%20Report%20(1995)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201835959/002-7180437-1448011?v=glance