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Opening the Closet: Learning from Project Failures
Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.
It is a nearly universally accepted truth that large IT projects often struggle to succeed. It is also a nearly universal truth that the reasons that they struggle are incredibly common--we know them, we can recite them, we advocate solutions for them…and yet the problems persist. Large-scale IT projects are almost by definition messy, high risk and uncertain. What we seem to struggle with is the organizational will to concretely address the problems in a comprehensive, substantive and lasting manner.
Government IT projects are no less likely to fail, and in some ways are even riskier. The government environment offers some unique challenges that private sector organizations do not. Administrative heads of ministries and departments are often politically appointed, moving from portfolio to portfolio with the ministers or government ministers with whom they most closely work.
Government IT projects are often of a significant scale, and tied up in the much larger transformation of service delivery and process change, but are still managed as being primarily IT projects. As well, there are two very conscious and distinct streams of project opportunities: one administrative, as the organization identifies continuing improvement and enhancement activities; and the other political, tied to the imperatives and priorities of the elected government of the day.
One advantage that …
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"O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous To use it like a giant." - William Shakespeare |