I'm a great fan of the TV show, Grand Designs. The first time I saw the show, my partner and I had just started to build our new home. Architect designed, bespoke everything. Should have been a disaster, but it was a dream build. So why are there so many near disasters on the show. Well I guess they vet the people so that they have a show with plenty of tension, problems to solve, and interesting characters.
The things that usually go wrong on Grand Designs are that people try to build homes that they can't afford, mainly because some problem occurs, or they are silly enough to start knowing they don’t have enough money! Sometimes they have to rework mistakes. Sometimes the design is overly complex, or poorly estimated, or hard to execute. Sometimes the people and their ideas are just plain crazy. So which were the standouts that just worked?
One was the guy who with his own hands built a Cruck house in the middle of the woods, whose own deep technical skills and a modest expectations built a truly beautiful home for less than the price of a medium sized car. Another was the ex-chairman of Wilkinson Sword whose home I didn't much care for, but whose project came in band on time and budget; he knew how to manage.
Which brings me to IT projects.
M |
1. Requirements: Unclear, lack of agreement, lack of priority, contradictory, ambiguous, imprecise.
2. Resources: Lack of resources, resource conflicts, turnover of key resources, poor planning.
3. Schedules: Too tight, unrealistic, overly optimistic.
4. Planning: Based on insufficient data, missing items, insufficient details, poor estimates.
5. Risks: Unidentified or assumed, not managed.
This is as good a list as any and is consistent with what most other studies report. In my mind it all comes down to this; IT folk and the business executives overseeing them do not apply commonsense project management process to IT Projects. Partly this is because the IT people don't really understand the things that are important to their business clients, and the business executives often don't think that IT is all that important to them, either because they don’t understand it or don’t want to understand it. Paul Dorsey talks about this lack of engagement as a big reason IT projects are often set up to fail.
Dorsey also talks about the importance of having independent advice. It is ALWAYS in the interest of the project team, internal or contracted, to present a positive view of the project - right up until when it fails (my view).
The same is true for an IT Project, be it big or small. Invest in design, proper process and great people. It doesn’t guarantee success, but not having it guarantees failure. Oh, and get independent advice and audit. You can give me a call for that.
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