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A long time ago I learned that big projects are more likely to fail. One empirical study defined failure as "no line of code used in production". All the studies I know are decades old. In the hope we've learned something since then: What is the relationship between project size and failure now? (Say, the past decade?)

To answer my question:

P. 4 of the Standish report's CHAOS Report 2014 is a good answer. Alas the chance of failure seems broadly unchanged.

https://www.standishgroup.com/sample_research_files/CHAOSReport2014.pdf

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    This looks interesting to me. Unfortunately, asking for "the most common methods of managing the risk" is way too broad for the Q&A format of this site, this topic has probably filled book shelves, not just one book. If you are after newer studies about this topic: sorry, questions for 3rd-party resources are off-topic on this site (have a look into the help center). – Doc Brown Jul 6 '18 at 14:28
  • the problem with this kind of research is that it costs money to access – Ewan Jul 6 '18 at 15:48
  • see also this former SE answer for a better definition of what a project failure is – Doc Brown Jul 6 '18 at 16:16
  • The question itself is precise, For example for the '80s. it was answered explicitly in the OU's Project Management course. I've edited it to remove the "and what might one do about it?" part. I can't believe that such a core question is ALL unresearched or behind paywalls - government studies might be another source. The chance of project failure is one of the most important questions in software project management! – Michael Grazebrook Jul 11 '18 at 6:35
  • @Doc Brown: The link to a better definition of project failure is irrelevant to this question. – Michael Grazebrook Jul 11 '18 at 12:40