# The Chaos Factory

> The inside story of corporate IT failure, by Adam Zachary Wasserman

## What this is

The Chaos Factory is a book about why enterprise IT projects fail. It traces the history of industrialization from the Springfield and Harper's Ferry armories through the American System of Manufacture to modern corporate software development, arguing that the IT industry never completed its own industrial revolution. The book examines the gap between how software organizations claim to work and how they actually work, and why billions of dollars are wasted on failed IT projects every year.

## Key themes

- The history of interchangeable parts and the American System of Manufacture as a lens for understanding software engineering
- Why corporate IT governance structures produce failure by design
- The Springfield Armory and Harper's Ferry Armory as competing models of craft vs. industrial production
- How the absence of genuine accountability in IT leadership perpetuates chaos

## Where to buy

- [Paperback on Amazon](https://amzn.to/46I8piO)
- [Kindle on Amazon](https://amzn.to/4npONaq)

## Other writing by the author

- [Hackernoon articles](https://hackernoon.com/u/azw)
- [Welcome To The Jungle articles](https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/authors/adam-zachary-wasserman)

## Author

Adam Zachary Wasserman — [adamzacharywasserman.com](https://adamzacharywasserman.com)