Information systems development projects are a significant expenditure for enterprises, and numerous projects fail to achieve their objectives. Systems development risk factors are presented and categorized into technical, resource constraint, organizational, and “other ” risks, based on the prior literature. These factors are analyzed and synthesized, and an integrative framework is presented. Experienced systems development engineers and project managers participated in a structured “interview ” through an in-depth, open-ended questionnaire. The expert panel’s responses provide rich, qualitative data regarding their perspectives on the relative importance of the various risk factors and procedures used to ameliorate them. Common threads and key distinctions characterizing their experiences are identified. Our analysis indicates that risk factors ultimately derive from organizational influences and may be overcome with organizational responses. We also noticed a dichotomy between perspectives of senio