Project Failure Rates; Are the Statistics Tainted?

We've all heard the horror stories about 50-75% project failure rates (depending on the industry). But how many projects that come on over-budget or behind schedule do so because the project manager succumbed to pressure to set an unrealistic target to begin with?

I'd argue that by increasing persuasion skills and learning tactics to negotiate proper targets, we'd see project success rates go up exponentially. Certainly there are issues with scope creep, lack of planning, lack of communication, etc., but many projects fail because the project manager was forced to meet an unrealistic and/or arbitrary deadline.

See my entry on Tuesday, August 30th on "Managing Projects with Unrealistic Deadlines," which points to an excellent article for dealing with this issue.