27 October 2008 - 16:30 Is “IT” really this difficult?

Critical Logic has been holding a series of Webinars entitled “Accelerating IT Performance.” Based on the feedback, two major issues seem to be on most senior IT managers’ minds:

• “We seem to have a lot of challenges getting IT projects delivered successfully; is everyone else having problems?” and

• “What can I do about it?”

This edition of Critical Knowledge examines the first of these questions. Future editions will address the second.

Is Everyone Having These Problems? Yes!

We’ve been working and talking with senior IT professionals about project challenges for over two decades and their litany of problems never seems to change: missed deadlines, blown budgets, failure to deliver business value, and lack of quality.

We wondered if this is just the nature of who we talked to, or is it a global complaint?

To get an objective insight into the question, we looked at the various literature on the subject and found that the best seemed to be the bi-annual Standish Group’s Chaos reports. They’ve been looking at these issues since 1994, and their latest study (based on over 15,000 projects) shows that not only is there a problem, but people know it’s there, and know it’s big. How big? Twenty percent of IT projects completely fail or are cancelled, half are challenged (late, over budget, missed objectives) and only 35% are completely successful!

Why?

Saying there’s a problem begs the other half of the question: Why? Here again, our anecdotal evidence seems to be supported by what the studies are saying: lack of user/executive involvement and unclear/poorly communicated business objectives … But the single biggest factor is poor requirements (Forrester Group - 2006).*

We think that most IT execs would agree that given the first two causes, it’s not suprising that it’s so hard to get requirements right - and the code written from them.

Upcoming editions will look at what people are doing about it. Experience the difference of getting it Right from the Start™. Visit critical-logic.com or email moreinfo@critical-logic.com for more information.