Recently came across an interesting article on “Why IT
projects still fail ?” and the subject caught attention as it is still being
discussed. It had references to some spectacular failures where the blame was
squarely placed on the implementation partner; another one where business users
at the bottom of the pyramid showed spirited resistance to the new way of
working. Finally it quoted the most popular reference on IT projects with
limited change in results over score of years with IT Business Alignment
retaining high marks.
Reasons attributed to the dismal success record included inadequate
resources, overly aggressive timelines, underestimated costs, overlooked
requirements, unanticipated complications, poor governance and human mistakes
such as bad code can all lead to project failure. Surprisingly a quote “the definition
of success is evolving with traditional measures of scope, time, and cost no
longer sufficient in today’s competitive environment. The ability of projects
to deliver what they set out to do — the expected benefits — is just as
important.”
Everything pointed the finger at IT; they are understaffed,
overpromise, don’t know how to estimate costs or gather requirements and stick
to them and finally are bad project managers. Also I am not sure about the
world the respondents of this 2017 global report live in if they do not
articulate the benefits in business terms. Okay, I take my words back, I do
know of a few who still are unable to, but those are exceptions. Interestingly
the article goes on to define formula for success without addressing the core.
So I dug a bit on the background of the author and found no
evidence of having either run an IT shop or been at the receiving end. The
article was an observation based on statistical evidence from various reports
and the hypothesis that has lived for long: IT does not communicate, IT does
not know the business, IT needs to sell the project to business, IT should
prepare a business case and illustrate the benefits, IT should get the budgets
sanctioned and then monitor time, cost, resources, success, failure, … really ?
Let’s for a moment shift focus from IT to the business
folks; business models have undergone major upheavals and digital has been thrust
upon the willing and unwilling alike. Majority of the incumbent leaders and
giants have been slow to react – unwilling to accept reality brushing it off as
irrelevant – and then finding someone (read IT) to blame for not delivering in
(the constrained) time while the new players have eaten market share. They have
treated the change like a technology project rather than technology enabled
business transformation.
Success stories are all about the handful of enterprises who
decided to create cross-functional teams to evaluate and respond to the
upcoming opportunity. They did not hire consultants to give them a roadmap, or
define waves of implementation, or hire from outside to lead the internal team;
they were willing to change, explore, experiment, willing to take risks, and
understood the limitations of pure technology over the collaborative success
that they had co-created multiple times in the past along with IT.
The leaders do not hand off accountability, they find ways
to induct others into their vision; they are always on the lookout for creating
differentiation against competition. There are no IT projects, only business
projects that use technology. Even mundane decisions like cloud evaluation or
change in support vendors seek business impact and changed outcomes. IT
responsibilities and KRAs are spelled out in business terms; this is the real
world of pervasive IT today which has shed the technology skin of the past.
In such a world then why does “Why IT projects still fail ?”
still find a headline and mention ? Such reports and publications continue to
berate technology teams. They find it convenient to continue using the old
scapegoat without looking elsewhere if the paradigm has shifted. So are these about
the laggards and disconnected teams who have failed to stay current and
relevant in the new normal with shrinking business and loss of customers ? This
does not appear to be the universal truth but sensation sells better than
reality.
Can business grow up and take responsibility for success or
lack of it rather than live in a world of transferred responsibility especially
when things don’t work out the way they were planned ? Can the technology teams
stop being subservient and stand up to their professional achievement and pride
? Wherever the chasm still exists, can both start by acknowledging it and work
towards building a sustainable bridge that will offer achievement of business
objectives ? A necessary step to stay relevant internally and externally.
Finally let’s bury IT projects !
No comments:
Post a Comment