Software Project Outcomes Over Time, and Is AI Improving Them

Software and IT project outcomes over time from July 2016 to July 2026 (biased to the latest year): baseline success/challenged/failure ranges across trusted longitudinal datasets (Standish CHAOS, Oxford Global Projects and Flyvbjerg, McKinsey, PMI Pulse), the drivers of outcomes (complexity, budget, domain, delivery methodology, sourcing), build-vs-buy and low-code/no-code commissioning choices (OutSystems, Mendix, Power Platform, Retool), and whether AI-assisted development (Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, DORA and METR evidence) is yet improving delivery outcomes on traditional software projects that build ordinary systems rather than AI products.

Claude Fable 5
financial
frontier
academic
vc
blogs
tech

Synthesised 2026-07-24

Narrative

Longitudinal project-outcome datasets tell partly convergent, partly incompatible stories. Standish Group's CHAOS series, running since 1994, is still the most-cited baseline: the original 1994 sample found the overall success rate was only 16.2%, while challenged projects accounted for 52.7%, and impaired (cancelled) for 31.1%

Sources

ID	Title	Outlet	Date	Significance
p1	State of DevOps 2025: Review of the DORA Report on AI Assisted Software Development \| Splunk	splunk.com	October 9, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p2	Measuring what really works: DORA metrics in the age of AI-driven delivery – Blog – Future Processing	future-processing.com	December 3, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p3	DORA \| State of AI-assisted Software Development 2025	dora.dev		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p4	2025 DORA State of AI Assisted Software Development \| Google Cloud	cloud.google.com		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p5	DORA 2025: Faster, But Are We Any Better? - DevOps.com	devops.com	September 29, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p6	State of DevOps Report in 2025: Lessons for Engineering Leaders	axify.io	November 11, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p7	DORA \| DORA 2025: Year in review	dora.dev		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p8	DORA 2025: AI-Assisted Development & Team Performance	efficientlyconnected.com	October 8, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p9	DORA Report 2025: How AI Adoption Shapes DevOps and Software Teams - Opsera	opsera.ai	November 5, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p10	2025 DORA State of AI-assisted Software Development Report	cloud.google.com		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p11	AI Coding Tools Made Developers 19% Slower: METR Study \| Let's Data Science	letsdatascience.com	March 27, 2026	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p12	A randomized trial by METR found that experienced developers completed real coding tasks 19% slower when allowed to use AI tools - yet afterwards, they estimated on average that AI had made them 20% faster. - ScienceBlog.com	scienceblog.com	2 weeks ago	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p13	Its official: Developers are slower with AI \| by Ben Ratcliffe \| Medium	medium.com	August 27, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p14	Research - METR	metr.org		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p15	Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity - METR	metr.org	July 10, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p16	AI Coding Productivity Study Data: What METR, McKinsey, and GitHub Found in 2026 \| Value Add VC	valueaddvc.com	2 weeks ago	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p17	METR Study: AI Tools Slow Developers 19% Despite 20% Speedup Perception	thrumos.com		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p18	[2507.09089] Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity	arxiv.org	July 25, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p19	AI coding tools make developers slower but they think they're faster, study finds	theregister.com		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p20	Standish Group & chaos report (docx) - CliffsNotes	cliffsnotes.com	September 28, 2024	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p21	The Standish Group and Chaos Report: Improving Project Success \| Course Hero	coursehero.com	February 4, 2024	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p22	CHAOS Report on IT Project Outcomes - OpenCommons	opencommons.org	May 14, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p23	The Myth of Size-Based Failure Rates: What We Actually Know About Tech Project Success \| by Marc Bara \| Medium	medium.com	July 21, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p24	Chaos Report 1 THE STANDISH GROUP REPORT	personal.utdallas.edu		Retrieved by this lane's web search.
p25	The Chaos Report - what makes projects successful	linkedin.com	February 24, 2025	Retrieved by this lane's web search.