InfoGraphic-Scary IT Project Statistics

It is no secret that IT projects are less than a roaring success most of the time.  However, when you start to look at the numbers around success rates and reasons for overruns it gets scary.  The problems we face are not new.  There have been IT projects documented for over a half century.  There is nothing scary about IT projects on their own; we just need to face the everyday struggles and address them to improve success rates.

Patience and Communication is not Scary

The problems around most IT projects can be boiled down to lack of patience and communication.  Fortunately, these are problems faced throughout a business.  Therefore, they are not only solvable, they are addressed every day in other areas.

InfoGraphic-Scary IT Project Statistics

Every important initiative and project have a vision of success and a payoff.  Thus, it is only natural that we want to get the improvements started.  Furthermore, we want them implemented as soon as possible.  In IT projects, this can lead to short design periods and a rush through requirements gathering.  The implementation starts too early because we think we can “fill in the gaps” of the requirements while the solution is built.  This situation is often referred to as building the track when the train has already left the station.  Our rush to get going can leave us open to all sort of problems later on.

Proper Communication

Communication is like productivity.  You can “do” a lot and not be productive.  This situation is also known as “busywork.”  Our day is full of communication that is similar to busywork.  The result is not very useful even when large amounts of text or data are communicated.  In the project world, this is what happens when we swap a bunch of emails and attend a bunch of meetings, but fail to document the details of decisions.  Worse than that, sometimes the details are documented, but the documentation is not shared with the whole team.  We adopt a “need to know” basis for sharing the requirements and design details.

We will look deeper into running a successful project in the weeks to come.  Until then, check out the attached infographic for some scary statistics and pitfalls to avoid whether you are just getting started or deeply into the implementation of a solution.