Major Sources of Unplanned Work According to Research

IT Process Institute Research (Gene Kim, 2000-2009)

Research by Gene Kim (CTO Tripwire inc.) and the IT Process Institute, which benchmarked over 1,500 IT organizations from 2004 to 2009, identified several primary sources of unplanned work in low-performing IT organizations^[1].

Top causes identified:

• Failed changes: The production environment is used as a test environment, and the customer is the quality assurance team^[1]
• No preventive work, making repeated failures inevitable: Mean time to repair may be improving, but without root-cause analysis, the organization is doomed to fix the same problems over and over^[1]
• Configuration inconsistency: Inconsistencies in user applications, platforms and configurations make appropriate training and configuration mastery difficult^[1]
• Security patching and updating: Inadequate understanding and consistency of configurations makes applying security patches extremely dangerous^[1]
• Too much access: Too many people have too much access to too many IT assets, causing too many preventable issues and incidents^[1]

Performance Differences Between Organizations

The IT Process Institute found that high performers have the lowest amount of unplanned work (less than 5%). Low performers typically have poor service quality, with constant service outages, break/fix work and fire fighting. They also have unhappy customers who seem to see every mistake, auditors constantly bombarding them with more documentation requests, tests and archaeology projects – and of course, high amounts of unplanned work (often exceeding 50%)^[1].

Recent Research on Unplanned Work Impact

PagerDuty Study (2020)

A study of more than 500 IT professionals conducted by Dimensional Research found that more than 81% of respondents agreed that urgent, unplanned work keeps their company from focusing on key objectives. Almost half of participants said their organizations experience major technology issues at least once a month^[2]. 62% of IT professionals in North America spend more than 100 hours each year on disruptive, unplanned work^[2].

Project Scope Creep Research

Scope Creep as a Major Source

Multiple academic studies have identified scope creep as a significant source of unplanned work:

• Academic research indicates that scope creep is one of the most common causes for the failure of software projects and could occur in almost every software project, which leads to compromise in quality, delayed schedules, increase cost and decreased customer satisfaction^[3]
• Research shows that scope creep is the major cause of project failure; budget increase happened in 52% of failed projects due to scope creep, schedule problems were reported in 75% of the problematic projects, a decrease in quality was observed in 38% of the projects^[4]

Primary Causes of Scope Creep

• Lack of sponsor involvement and stakeholder involvement both have long been ranked the #1 and #2 reasons for project failure^[5]
• Improper requirements definition with a 27% occurrence rate^[5]
• Weak change control mechanisms stand as the third key cause (24%)^[5]

Economic Impact

According to calculations based on Forrester Research estimates, if 10% of U.S. GDP is spent on IT, and 50% of that IT spending is on "operate/maintain" activities, and at least 35% of that work is unplanned, that's $350 billion in unplanned work^[1].

Additional Verified Sources of Unplanned Work

Security Incidents and Breaches

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: Previous claims that "88% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error" are FALSE. The actual Tessian study shows 36% of employees believe they made security mistakes^[6].

Research confirms that security incidents create substantial unplanned work. The Verizon DBIR 2023 found 74% of breaches involve the human element^[7]. UK government research found 43% of businesses and 30% of charities experienced cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months^[8], with only 22% of businesses having formal incident response plans^[9].

Infrastructure Failures and System Outages

Infrastructure outages represent a major source of unplanned work. The Uptime Institute found that 80% of data center managers experienced outages in the past three years^[10], with human error accounting for 40% of significant outages^[10]. The average cost of infrastructure failure for large enterprises is $100,000 per hour according to IDC research^[11].

Poor Task Handling and Workflow Processes

Research demonstrates that workflow inefficiencies create significant unplanned work. Studies show that just 53.5% of planned tasks get completed every week, with individual contributors only averaging 4.2 hours per day on actual task work^[12].

Technology Overload and Inadequate Information Systems

Systematic reviews confirm that technology overload reduces productivity. Research shows 310 Romanian employees developed workaround behaviors due to inadequate information systems^[13]. A comprehensive review found technology overload significantly impacts workplace productivity^[14].

The Financial Impact of Unplanned Work in Australia

Australia's IT Spending and Economic Impact

Australia's technology sector spending reached $133 billion in 2024 (forecast $147 billion in 2025)^[15][16], representing approximately 4.6-4.7% of GDP^[15]. This positions technology as Australia's third-largest industry sector^[17].

The IT sector is experiencing 7.8% annual growth^[15], substantially outpacing overall GDP growth of 1.3% in 2024^[18]. Spending breakdown for 2024:

• IT services: $48.8 billion (largest segment)
• Software: $38.7 billion (fastest growing at 12.8%)
• Communications services: $25.6 billion
• Devices: $15.9 billion
• Data center systems: $4.3 billion^[15]

Downtime and Unplanned Work Costs

Unplanned downtime costs the Australian economy up to $86 billion annually according to Splunk research^[19][20]. Downtime costs vary dramatically by organization size:

• Small businesses (1-20 employees): $8,000-$25,620 per hour
• Medium businesses (20-200 employees): $100,000-$300,000 per hour
• Small-medium enterprises (201-1,000 users): 91% report costs exceeding $300,000 per hour^[21]
• Large enterprises: 97% report minimum $100,000 per hour, with 23% exceeding $5 million per hour^[21]

Industrial sector shows particular vulnerability with $349,000 per hour during unplanned outages—1.8 times higher than the global average^[22].

Cybersecurity and Data Quality Impacts

The average data breach costs Australian organizations $4.26 million—a 27% increase since 2020^[23][24]. Australia takes 8 days longer than the global average to identify and contain breaches (266 days vs. 258 globally)^[24].

Ransomware represents the most severe threat, with Australian organizations paying an average of $9.27 million ($6 million USD) in ransom payments in 2024—a 297% increase from 2023^[25]. The government estimates ransomware costs the economy $2.59 billion annually^[26].

Poor data quality imposes separate costs, with organizations losing an average of $20 million per year, including 20% reduction in overall labor productivity^[27][28].

Australian Productivity and Skills Challenges

The Australian Computer Society's Digital Pulse 2024 found Australia's tech workforce surpassed 1 million workers but falls short of the 1.3 million needed by 2030—a gap of 312,000 workers^[17]. The Productivity Commission identified AI could contribute $116 billion to GDP over the next decade but noted significant adoption barriers^[29].

Critical systemic issues include:

• 92% of Australian workers experience workplace friction from technology^[30]
• 73% of organizations use too many technology platforms^[30]
• 33% of developer time diverted to technical debt^[31]
• Australia ranks second-last in the OECD for relative tech sector size^[17]

The Australian Cyber Security Centre's 2024-25 report documented 1,200+ cyber security incidents (11% increase) and 84,700 cyber crime reports (one every 6 minutes)^[32].

References