Business project failures and systems project failures

Doubtless you currently have within your organisation one or more business projects. The intentions of those projects are probably, ultimately, to help you deliver improved operational or commercial performance.

However, your judgment and intuition may be suggesting that some of those projects or initiatives could possibly deliver the business results you want, more quickly and effectively.

You may well be right, but how do you validate those perceptions? You can do it quite simply. Even without knowing the details of those initiatives and projects, the three warning signs below are typical and should serve to alert you: -

1. you are being asked to pay for 6-12 months work or longer before expecting results;

2. project goals are not quantified or expressed in terms of impact on corporate objectives;

3. the ‘answer’ you are being told, is a significant IT system implementation or upgrade.

Do your projects show any of those warning signs? If so, then there is substance to your concerns. Each of those warning signs indicates the presence of underlying problems. Those problems could be significantly impeding your progress in commercial performance improvement and raising costs unnecessarily. Here are the reasons: -

1. You are being asked to pay for 6-12 months work or longer before expecting results
Does this traditional approach seem a slow and expensive way to run projects? It is. You may have noticed some of these worrying characteristics: -

conventional project methods focus on tasks and activities rather than business results;
results emerge only after lengthy project phases during which requirements often change;
requirements changes during long project phases leads to rework, further costs and delays;
project costs accrue and resources are consumed over extended periods yet paybacks remain elusively on the distant horizon.

Standard project methodologies such as Prince 2 tend to structure projects in this way. Such methodologies are often too slow, too cumbersome and too expensive in a fast-moving commercial world, particularly as traditional project phases, each of many months, are not necessary if some rethinking is allowed.

2. Project goals not quantified or expressed in terms of impact on corporate objectives
Beyond the subject of costs, business and IT projects are almost without exception not structured to focus on specific key operational, measurable results.

The absence of clarity and quantification of the project aims typically means: -

The absence of clear, specific and quantified performance improvement goals is a warning sign that the project planning has been done foremost with tasks and activities in mind; rather than commercial benefits. It warns you that business results are currently lower project priorities because the focus is on "doing stuff". The consequent risk: extended timescales, increased costs and delays in the achievement of benefits.