Project Failures = Reputation Risk

Kevin Coleman is a highly skilled senior level project and program manager/advisor with experience leading projects with labor budgets ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to multi-million dollar budgets across multiple industries.

  Risk Management   Strategy  

We all operate in a technology-intensive world in which change is continuous. That being the reality forces organizations to adopt and integrate technology and an increasing rate. While the promise of these technologies is quite attractive, there is an ugly side that must be considered as well. In the fall of 2012, management consulting firm McKinsey published McKinsey Business and Technology – Delivering large-scale IT projects on time on budget and on value.

The publication paints a vivid picture of the poor performance when it comes to delivering technology projects with a budget exceeding $15 million. McKinsey’s analysis concluded that 45 percent of projects experience cost overruns. It also found that 56 percent delivered benefits that fell short of expectations.

I don’t think that anyone would dispute just how significantly changes are occurring that impact organizations. Now for the most startling figure: “17 percent of IT projects go so bad that they can threaten the very existence of the company.”

That illustrates the significance of this issue. In my past articles, I addressed managing cyber threats and the unique challenges that new/evolving technologies bring to project management. As one can imagine, these projects probably have a higher failure rate than traditional IT projects given all the unknowns that accompany new …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.