It is difficult, that's why it required a whole institution. And not just an institution, but with proper mandate as well.

In fact, Fred Brooks in The Mythical Man-Month, specifically in chapters 3 "The Surgical Team" and 4 "Aristocracy, Democracy, and System Design" explains why strong (even, maybe, authoritarian) central planning is imperative for large [software] projects.

Without proper mandate the work would be undermined constantly. I'd like to also reference a "Broken Ownership" article [0] (discussed here [1]) which defends, among other things, the necessity of the mandate [in software projects].

All in all, if you don't have the proper mandate, resources and your project is sabotaged in other ways, you might not need look to far in the search of why it doesn't go as ...planned.

[0] https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/broken-ownership

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37225397

If they were not accurate about history, what else did they get wrong?