Escape the cull

Cath Everett investigates why 25 per cent of IT projects fail and shares some tips on how to makes yours a success story

Analyst Gartner has pointed out an uncomfortable fact ­ that a huge 25 per cent of all IT projects are deemed failures because they come in late, bust budgets and do not include the functionality expected or required by the business. So what is going on?

Such failure rates would not be tolerated in other functions, so why is it happening in IT? Richard Buchanan, managing vice president at Gartner, believes there are two key reasons and the first is related to shortcomings in delivery.

“Organisations sometimes just don’t have good project management skills and they don’t train and certify staff,” he says. “They neglect to invest in the IT community to raise their basic blocking and tackling skills and they don’t report the project status effectively. If you can’t even do the basics, you are in trouble.”

The second issue, which is even more grievous, is tied to inadequate portfolio management. There is no link between the mix of projects being undertaken and the company’s wider business strategy, often because the business has failed to clarify to IT what that strategy is and bases investment on personal interest or politics rather than on supporting a vision.

“In this case, it’s not simply that projects are failing because even when they appear to succeed, they often don’t add any strategic business value,” says Buchanan. “Many organisations don’t have very good business strategic planning processes or they’re kept secret, so IT ends up grasping at straws and trying to make sense of individual projects bubbling up from below.”

So what can be done about the situation? In essence, IT directors have to grasp the nettle and make the case that the business and IT are linked, which means
it is counter-productive to make false distinctions between the two in terms
of strategy.

The argument is necessary because many businesses simply do not make the connection that IT has to understand what problems the business is trying to solve to make the right technology and implementation decisions.

What’s the point?
Even if such a connection is made and an overarching strategy clearly defined, it can be difficult to stick to the original plan. David Henderson, chief information officer at Northcliffe Media, says you have to be rigorous around projects not being initiated in local centres, but being part of the central schedule. “We have often tried to do someone a favour and it has always backfired,” he says. “The problem is that it impacts on other things that are going on so you have to be disciplined.”

The £500m media organisation, which provides 36 local newspapers and related web sites across the UK, is currently 18 months into a two-year IT transformation programme, which it undertook with the help of management consultancy Qedis. The goal is to cut costs and reinvest the savings in more flexible systems that can support an increased online focus.

“When resources are scarce and have to be prioritised, there are always winners and losers. So you have to be completely transparent and be careful not to play off one against the other,” says Henderson.

“If there is an issue though, I talk to my chief executive as his involvement helps take the emotion out of the situation and makes people justify their aims in a more rigorous commercial sense.”

Another mechanism that can help ensure that projects meet corporate goals is the creation of a senior management committee. At Northcliffe, the group meets every two months to revisit priorities and explore and agree any necessary changes in scope or focus. It also provides feedback to stakeholders on progress.

“There is always a balance between maintaining a clear direction and coping with market changes so it’s necessary to be flexible and adaptable,” says Henderson. But he also believes that there are clear criteria for projects being successful or not.

“Projects that work always have business backing and sponsorship, clear business objectives and very good project management. In fact, one of our biggest findings was that if you give a project manager both operational and project responsibility, they will tend to focus on the former because it is always more pressing. So it is crucial to separate out those two functions,” says Henderson.

Keep lines of communication open
But it is also crucial to make a realistic assessment of the risk that each project carries from the outset ­ and as Nigel Reed, head of technology delivery at the Met Office points out, this means budgeting for the reasonable likelihood
of risk.

Other important considerations include ensuring that there is adequate communication and a careful managing of expectations and requirements, says Reed. “IT sometimes makes promises to the business that it doesn’t actually know whether it can keep. The business says it wants x and it wants it in a year and IT says that it will do its best,” he says.

But the IT department is actually unsure it can deliver the project on time, while the business thinks it has made a set promise. “So nine months later, the business does not receive what it wants and is not very happy, but the issue is that the requirements were not really understood in the first place,” says Reed.

So to prevent what can, in a worst case scenario, result in a project cull, it is imperative to provide a means of enabling ongoing conversation to iron out misunderstandings, keep people abreast of any issues and accommodate any necessary change.

Northcliffe, for example, took the step of appointing a full-time communications person to talk to disparate sets of people with different agendas and at a range of management levels, ranging from wall charts and podcasts to briefings and conference calls. Such an initiative kept the wider agenda at the forefront of workers’ minds and provided a single point of contact for internal concerns.

But such communication should not necessarily be limited to things that are going wrong, says Henderson. “Sometimes good projects can finish with a whimper because success was not celebrated so that should be built in as well,” he says.
“IT can be rather lax in telling people early about bad news, but it is the same for good news too. You will be beaten up for the bad news so you absolutely must not be shy in celebrating the good as it helps to build confidence.”

Top tips for preventing a project cull
How to make sure you see projects through to the end

• Link every project or programme of work to the company’s wider business strategy to make sure IT workers deliver value. Be wary of personal agendas.
• Keep portfolio management disciplined and do not do favours for people without understanding and explaining what the impact will be elsewhere.
• Undertake a project only if it has business backing, sponsorship and a clear business objective.
• Ensure that the management of requirements and expectations is at the heart of any project.
• Maintain open and clear lines of communication with the business at every stage of the project to prevent misunderstandings, keep people abreast of any issues and ease any necessary changes.
• Ensure that the organisation has good project management skills in place and refrain from assigning project managers responsibility for operational tasks as these will end up taking priority.
• Do not be afraid to kill off projects if priorities change ­ just do it in a controlled way and as early as possible to prevent further unnecessary investment.
• Celebrate project success to build up trust with the business that you can deliver on your promises.