Will business leaders stand up and take responsibility for Digital success or failure ?

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 !

Technology changes the game, customers change the rules !

In the early 90s, the initial days of email it was fashionable to have a personal tag line at the end of the message over and above the signature; it used to be a famous quote or a witty one liner that represented the persona. Unaware of the profoundness of the statement as a youngster I had the following going for almost 5 years: “My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there”. I don’t know the source from where I picked it up as it was before the advent of the browser, contemplating it now feels awkward !

The future is here and how ! We aren’t done with technology evolution, we keep anticipating new disruptions and welcome them. Technology disruption over the last century or more started with electricity and then continued with transportation and electric appliances which change the way we live and travel today. Today when we think of technology and its power of disruption we think about the last two decades and the impact they have had on us and business with disintermediation and customer engagement.

A famous venture capitalist and Angel investor once wrote about “Why software is eating the world” which outlines the technology led disruption to almost every industry. Old and even new economy companies have been threatened by software evolution and software led disruptions. The concept of software is applied in a broad sense with computers and related technologies being clubbed. That does not in any way reduce the impact technology has created across industries as captured by the author.

Mobile phones have been around for a while now and so have smartphones; but the newer devices are stretching the limits of compute in our hands thus providing enterprises new ways of engaging their customers. Be it services or products, every company wants to use the primary consumer device to push all kinds of notifications, track locations, access contacts, store cookies, at times to the extent of becoming a pain; today almost every service is available via an app and so is every fathomable product.

Multitude of channels bombard the customer from physical to digital to mobile assaulting the senses through the day and night. Every visit to a website, an app opened, store visited, mobile wallet used, credit card swiped, destination searched on maps, every action leaves indelible bread crumbs which are picked up. For the customer fatigue starts setting in when gamification offers freebies in return for action once again creating a short lived surge of activity while everyone catches up to the game with me too offerings.

Every person has a trigger point, some short where consumers don’t tolerate anything that is not aligned to their interests; they research options to shield themselves from the barrage and shut off all possible triggers they can and broadcast these to their circle to follow suit; activist behavior marks this segment of consumers who love to be served at their terms and are cautious of their privacy. They are opinion leaders and shapers who people listen to and take action because it feels right and good.

However, the majority tend to maintain status quo while being subjected to all kinds of incitement, and at times irrelevant messages; the effort to change appears high and thus inertia keeps them going until an incident – direct or hearsay – provokes them to take action. This segment is tolerant to being hounded ignoring small indiscretions thereby once again landing in the same state from where they started. They play the game with their brands of choice until they become tormentors and fall off grace only to be replaced by others.

A minor and growing segment plays the game becoming the protagonist to beat business at their own game. They know how to exploit the system, get best of deals, hack into models to find value and distribute to whosoever may be interested. Predominantly millennials who love the technology connect and take disruptions in their stride. At times they are the source of ideas that send shivers down established conventional business entities. They are inventors wanting to change the world and thus lead change in the rules of engagement !

It is unimportant to enumerate the list of disruptors and the disrupted across industries, the most talked about being the hospitality, transportation, photography, music and music distribution, gaming, media and advertisement, logistics, education, healthcare, the list goes on. Every new idea gets copied to death threatening the original and at times succeeding in uprooting the innovator. Customer expectations continue to change as they love the adulation of the wooers who compete for the same segment.

Keep innovating, stay hungry, stay connected !

Value Destruction

When I came across my CIO friend who looked like he had been trampled multiple times by a runaway cattle herd, I was anxious to find out more about the cause of his pitiable condition. His demeanor suggested that he was on the brink of giving up, ready to throw the towel, just run away and retire into the Himalayas, to hell with the fabled Ferrari and take up the way of the monks. For someone always willing to help with a ready smile, it was a sight that concerned many of us to do a root cause analysis and help the poor soul.

He was not a recluse or introvert but in recent times conferences and seminars had been prominent with his absence. He was a busy man, everyone knew it; he was also known to be a master in time management rarely forgetting an appointment or being late or making anyone wait. So his growing hermetic avatar was a surprise to many of us who surrounded him to hear the cause of the rainy clouds replacing sunshine. Hesitant at first, after a few drinks he decided to share his predicament to lighten his heavy heart and seek a solution from collective wisdom.

His mega project that was on the watch list of many vendors, partners and the industry had run into some minor challenges. He engaged a specialist consulting company to review the situation and suggest the way forward. They had suggested shift in approach for the issue and resource augmentation with specialist skills which appeared to be a rational approach. Some internal stakeholders taking advantage of the situation wanted to take control with infusion of their coterie. Despite no skill match, they had prevailed to further damage of the project.

Like termites the project was soon crawling with unskilled people ignorant of business or ability to manage complexity and were projected as God’s gift to mankind and specialists. Despite the situation deteriorating, status reports were altered to reflect progress. This continued for some time with the CIO being asked to back off. Protests and discussions with key stakeholders and management changed nothing. The project in a tailspin now, the CIO could only watch from the sidelines; he was hurting from the damage to his toil and blood.

The large business and IT project team disillusioned by the downward spiral were of broken spirit indifferent to the outcome. Unable to bear the incompetence some quit the project and the company weakening the now shaking foundation and structure. Timelines slipping further and expert opinions overruled, there was little hope for the transformational project that was to be the savior and enabler for the business and enterprise. Unable to bear the hurt to his passion child and with no recourse, the CIO had decided to detach from the company.

We listened with stunned and angry silence absorbing the pain, empathizing with the CIO living his agony, everyone unanimously wanted to reach out and touch his wounds to heal them. No one disagreed with his decision, many wanted to help his recuperation; there was shock at enterprise apathy and silence by a large affected group to the value erosion. Lightening his burden the CIO managed a fleeting smile which lifted the gloom from the group. He joined the light banter that typically follows a serious discussion.

Time flew by, months passed away, the CIO moved on to newer ventures and greener pastures, happy and successful again with no visible scars of the past. It was as if he had buried the bitter experience never to be unearthed again, any discussion on it a taboo. But morbid curiosity never lets’ go especially when someone you know and respect has been wronged; you want the perpetrators to get their due punishment. Meetings with common industry peers and vendors does raise queries on progress and status.

A year into the intervention, the project had seen slippages on timelines consistently; some of the leadership team finally found a voice and challenged the continually sliding deadlines. Running out of excuses though unwilling to acknowledge their limitations they shifted the blame to the business folks for not defining the requirements, cooperating and providing accurate data; it seems there is no hope for redemption. Last heard there was pressure to shape up or ship out; a new date has been set to go live in whatever state, business disruption be damned !