CT050-3-3 Project Management

IT Project Failure

Prepared by: SMR First Prepared on: June 2008, Last Modified on: XX
Quality checked by: MOH
Copyright 2004 Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology
 LET’S START THE TOPIC

IT Project Failures

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 WHERE WE ARE?
1. Introduction to the module/In-course
2. Project Management Basics/Principles
3. Project Charter
4. WBS and Organisation
5. Scheduling
6. Estimating
7. Quality Management
8. Change and Risk Management
9. Monitoring and Control - EVA
10. Managing Communications
11. Project Close-out
12. Project Methodologies
13. Project Failures
14. Revision

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 LEARNING
OUTCOMES

• At the end of this lecture you

should be able to:

– appreciate why IT Project fails

– Identify steps to avoid failures

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 KEY TERMS

• If you have mastered this topic, you

should be able to use the following terms
correctly in your assignments and
exams:

– Project Failures
– Spotting Failing Projects

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 MAIN TEACHING POINTS

• Main Lecture
• Defining Project Failure
• How to spot failures (10 ways)
• Backup Slides
• The Human Element
• Technical Limitations
• Political Issues
• Funding
• Failure to apply SDLC Methodologies

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 WHY PROJECT FAIL

Inexperience Lack of
in scope and communication
complexity 20%
17% Failure to define
objectives
17%
Technical
issues
14%
Project Management Problems
32%

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

• Project failure can rarely be described in absolute

terms
• Some projects fail so badly that companies go out
of business
• Other projects fail, but their impact is hardly felt by
the organization or the people affected
• The following table identifies some events that are
generally indicative of project failure. The second
column in the table identifies the severity of the
project event:

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Events indicative of project failure

Project event Severity of failure

Cancellation High
Late delivery Medium to High
Over budget Medium to High
Low quality Medium to High
High employee turnover Low to Medium

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Why do IS projects fail?

IS projects have the distinction of being unlike projects in
other industries in key areas:
❑ IS industry is faced with a chronic shortage of staff
❑ IS industry is faced with an ever-evolving and changing
set of development tools
❑ IS industry is faced with a relatively high rate of
employee turnover
Some standard problems result from the high complexity
on most IS projects:
❑ General inability to recognize that a solution is correct.
E.g. Sw metrics
Because of the large number of components and
combinations in any application it is a real challenge to
identify what a successful solution should look like. Most
of software metrics defined on a relative basis.

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Five broad categories that contribute to

project failure:

Project Failure

Lead Lead Lead Lead Lead

to to to to to
Human Technologic Political Funding Method
Issues al Games s
limitations

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

The Human Element

• Inability of users to agree on business requirements
• Inability of users to communicate business requirements
• Inability of users to understand the implications of business
requirements
• Inability to accommodate changes to business requirements
• Insufficient technical skills
• Failure to effectively manage one or more phases of the
development effort
• Insufficient testing
• Insufficient resources
• Unrealistic expectations
• Working with poor performers
• Inability to deal with contractors and vendors

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Technical Limitations

• Technical limitations can become huge

problems in the following situations:
– Overambitious development
– Insufficient benchmarking Inability of users to agree on
business requirements
• Migration from development to production
environment (sometimes requires changes to
software hardware/software

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Political Issues

• Organizational politics
• Team politics
• Power and influence
• Protection against organizational politics
• Individual politics

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Funding
• IS project should be funded adequately
• Failure to do so does not necessarily bring
about project failure
• Although a project might be successful side
effect will be unavoidable:
➨ Team members will be stressed out (overtime work)
➨ Staff turnover will increase

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 DEFINING PROJECT FAILURES

Methodology
• Each of the system development methodologies offers
implementation success
• However, there have been cases where project that have
followed certain methodologies have failed.
• The main reason is that methodologies are at times followed
without being understood.
• Example, the objective of prototyping in to promote a closer
interaction with the user, not just to develop a dumb
prototype system
• Besides, there are many activities (in the boxes) that require
experience, analysis and ability

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 SPOTTING FAILING PROJECTS

1. Your team only gives you good news at every

status meeting
2. The implementation date is only a few weeks
away but, you, the manager, have never seen a
hands-on demonstration of the application
3. Most of the memos your team sends to you
complain about the lack of skills in the other
team members
4. Team members continue to play a fine act of
protecting themselves at every opportunity
5. Team members are resigning on a regular
basis

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 SPOTTING FAILING PROJECTS

6. Team members are either frustrated and

constantly on edge, or conversely feel no
pressure to get the job done
7. The project has already missed several
deadlines and is well over budget
8. There have been no detailed walk-throughs of
the application design and code by independent
reviewers
9. When you think of your project, and there is no
thought of team, but only separate individuals
10. The user community is not aware of the project

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 What is the Project Management Maturity Matrix?

The matrix describes four levels of maturity in project

management:

•Level 1: Projects are often delivered through the personal

heroics and effort of the project manager and his/her team.
They tend to be delivered in spite of the organisation rather
than because of it.
•Level 2: Anybody can deliver here not just heroes, because
there is an agreed methodology to be followed that helps repeat
earlier successes from similar projects. Courses and training
can help at this level.
•Level 3: This is not only about delivering projects but also
realising benefits. This involves knowing what benefits are
expected and when the project has delivered them.
•Level 4: Is concerned with whether we are doing the right
projects and how via those projects we can deliver the business
strategy and add value.
CT050-3-3 Project Management
 For organisations to understand the level they are
operating at, it is useful to ask these questions:

•Level 1: Project Management Success (cost, time and quality)

Did our project produce the desired output?

•Level 2: Repeatable Project Management Success (predictable

outcomes)
Do our projects consistently produce the desired outputs?

•Level 3: Project Success (benefits realised)

Do the project outputs produce the desired outcomes?

•Level 4: Corporate Success (strategies implemented, value added)

Do the outcomes produce or have the intended impact on the
business strategy?

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Moving from one level to another requires
organisations to develop processes in a
number of areas:

• A methodology is required to move from level

1 to 2

• Benefits management is required to move

from level 2 to 3

• Portfolio management is required to move

from level 3 to 4

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 REFERENCES

How to Manage a Successful Software Project:

Methodologies, Techniques, Tools
by S. Purba, D. Sawh, B. Shah
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995

Software Project Dynamics: An Integrated

Approach
by T. Abdel Hamid, S. E. Madnic
Prentice Hall Inc., 1991

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Q&A

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 WHATS’S NEXT ?

?
? ?

Revision

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Backup Slides

The following slides assist in

providing more information.

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Defining Project Failure

- Phases in a project receive products from other phases, and

create ones of their own

Phase A Phase B Phase C Product

A+B+C
Product Product
A A+B
1. As the number of phases increase, so too does the complexity
2. Increasing complexity increases the potential points of failure
dramatically
3. This creates an added challenge in maintaining the integrity of an IS
project

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Defining Project Failure – cont’d

A final consideration is the feedback loop

This occurs when phase A builds a product that is fed into phase B. If
something new is learned in phase B, a change must be made to the
product in phase A, which would result in a change in phase B and so
on.
Second pass updated Second pass updated
requirements requirements

Requiremen Developme
Requiremen
ts phase First First nt phase
pass ts
pass

Changes to business rules discovered and sent back for more

analysis
This situation creates a ‘moving target’ that can keep both phases
form completing successfully
CT050-3-3 Project Management
 The Human Element

Inability of users to agree on business requirements

Example: Users agree that a merchandizing system is required, but
cannot agree on the functionality it should support (e.g. multiple
languages, multiple currency, multiply product types, etc.)
Suggested solution:
❑Plan regular meeting session using an impartial facilitator who
draws users and IS staff into constructive discussions
❑Document all communications and interpretations so that it is clear
when decisions are being made or avoided
❑Use prototyping technique, where an initial design is build
❑Prototype is iteratively modifies until stakeholders agree on decisions
❑Allows users to see the impact of decision early in the process

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Inability of users to communicate business

requirements
Another problem that is encountered on IS projects is a general
lack of communication between users, managers, and IS
development teams
Suggested solutions:
❑ Try to maintain communication by:
1) Holding regular status meeting sessions
2) Keeping good documentation
3) Keeping centrally located logs of issues
4) Recommendations
5) Teams members should be mandated to share
information equally

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Inability of users to understand the implications of

business requirements
Users agree on a solution without fully understanding its
ramifications (similar to 1)
Example: Everyone may agree that a Canadian Purchase Order
System is required, but it may not be understood that it is needed
in both French and English
Suggested solutions:
❑ Holding facilitated meeting sessions between the users and the
IS staff
❑ The users should be ‘toured’ through the various levels of the
system form strategic planning to system design
❑ Sharing of details of information should be encouraged

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Inability to accommodate changes to business

requirements
Business requirements are subject to change for a variety or
reasons, even after they have been agreed by stakeholders and
formally signed off
Suggested solutions:
❑ As changes are discovered information is put in a central ASCII file
❑ Each change should be numbered, assigned a priority, and described
❑ Development team browses and updates the file on a routing basis
❑ Problems are selected based on the priority assigned: urgent
problems must be selected first
❑ The central ASCII file allows duplicate and contradictory requests to
be quickly discovered
❑ The file used for reporting purposes to the steering committee

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Insufficient technical skills

Insufficient technical skills can result in variety of situations:
❑ E.g. Hiring resources with mainframe backgrounds for
client/server projects, or vice versa
❑ E.g. Hiring inexperienced people
❑ High turnover:
1) Team member leaves,
2) Team member gets promoted, or
3) Team member transferred to some other area.
Suggested solutions
❑ Provide: in-house courses, self training, university/college
education
❑ Provide the above to people who have demonstrated ability and
commitment
❑ Examine track records before selection is made
❑ Ensure development standards are in place, so that team
members have something to emulate

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Failure to effectively manage one or more phases of

the development effort
Suggested solution:
❑ The project manager should:
1) Develop a comprehensive plan showing clear deliverables
2) Develop criteria for measuring success at each step
3) Track against these carefully
4) Corrective aations should be taken as soon as a problem is
encountered
5) By developing an intrinsic understanding of a project’s issues, a
manager is able to take iterative action that reacts to problems
when they are identified

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Insufficient testing
Applications that do not go through a cycle of thorough
testing will probably fail in production or during
acceptance testing
Suggested solution:
❑Invest time and money for iterative testing phases
❑Impress the need for thorough testing on all team members
and associated teams
❑Consider the implementation of Total Quality Management
(TQM) programs

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Insufficient resources
Projects require a specific amount of effort and materials-
computers, telecommunications equipment, people, others
A project plan should identify what is required, when is required
and the quantity required
Project manager should plan on:
❑ Architecture/design skills to get started
❑ Normal turnover of key resources
❑ Skills transfer
❑ High intensity deadlines
❑ Short term skills requirements (e.g. facilitator, auditor, GUI
standards expert,technical guru)

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Unrealistic expectations
This type of failure occurs when managers are not concerned with
facts, but insist that some dream be fulfilled at some particular
point in time of their choosing-blatant impossible situation
Examples:
❑ Expecting someone with a COBOL background to learn C and
UNIX overnight, or vice versa
❑ Some managers think of work day as consisting of 20 hours and a
work week as having 7 days
Suggested solutions:
❑ Managers must be realistic in their expectations

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Working with poor performers

Some people may have noble intentions, but sadly, lack the
experience or ability to perform well on some projects
Suggested solutions:
❑ Look for opportunities to train and mentor such employees
❑ Judge people on past performance, but understand that they can
improve or devolve over time
❑ Give people opportunities in situations that you are able to
control, I.e.
❑ if your trust is not met, this error in judgement should not derail a
project

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 The Human Element – cont’d

• Inability to deal with contractors and vendors

Contractors and vendors are permanent fixtures on projects
They augment the organizational staff by providing specialized
skills or additional bodies
In dealing with contractors and vendors, managers are faced with
the challenge of ensuring that their organization is properly dealt
with by the vendor and/or contractor
Suggested solution:
❑ Develop a cooperative effort with vendors and contractors
❑ Make it clear that you want regular, honest communication
❑ Develop a service agreement
❑ Understand that contractors/vendors have their business to run

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Technical Limitations

• Example:
❑ A software for the greenhouse industry, developed in the 80’s
❑ Presentation of prototype well-received… prototype worked fine
❑ In the 80’s PCs horsepower came from INTEL’s 8088 chip
❑ In the 80’s 5 1/2 inch floppy disks, 360 kb capacity were used
❑ After several iterations to the prototype the product improved its
functionality well
❑ However, the new added functionality made the product slower
❑ The application quickly exceeded the 360 kb of one floppy, and
grew to fill several diskettes
❑ The user had to swap disks while navigating through certain
features
❑ The application was limited by available technology

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Technical Limitations – cont’d

• Technical limitations can become huge

problems in the following situations:
Overambitious development
Insufficient benchmarking
❑ Number of records in a database is rarely linearly related to
performance degradation

Very Rare Very Frequent

Performance
Degradation
Performance
Degradation

Number of Number of
records
CT050-3-3 Project Management records
 Technical Limitations – cont’d

Migration from development to production environment

(sometimes requires changes to software hardware/software
❑ Perform System Testing (Humphrey)
1) Stress Testing,
2) Volume Testing,
3) Compatibility Testing,
4) Security Testing,
5) Performance Testing,
6) Installability Testing,
7) Reliability/Availability Testing,
8) Recovery Testing, etc.
Inability to identify functionality that cannot be automated with
current technology

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Political Issues

• Organizational politics
Project managers are sometimes frustrated to find general lack of
commitment within an organization to implement a project
When confronted with this situation the project manager should
undertake the following activities:
❑ Document ideas, information, and observations. Keep a paper trail
going with senior management, other departments and team members
❑ Do not become impatient or difficult to deal with
❑ Start changing the visibility of the project from tactical one to
investigative
❑ Write memos to members of steering committee, politely detailing all
issues and concerns
❑ Publicize the purpose and nature of the project
❑ Do not hide problems

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Political Issues – cont’d

Situations of general lack of commitment are extremely frustrating

for every one concerned
Usually such systems are never implemented and the team is
reassigned
• Team politics
Politics can also be played within teams, with the objective of
gaining the following rewards:
Tangible rewards:
❑ Members of a team compete for the manager’s attention to get a
better position, pay rise, better computer, better place etc.
❑ Managers who support this are actually supporting political
games

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Political Issues – cont’d

Power and influence

❑ Human beings love to tell others what to do. This is seen
everywhere in society.
❑ Example: Some managers promote spying within a team. This is
done by having frequent informal one-to-one meetings with team
members to gossip about what other people are doing.
❑ Managers who participate in this sort of management style should not
be surprised at the negative results and the lack of team building
Protection against organizational politics
❑ Many potentially good project teams are subverted by organizational
politics
❑ When it is known this is happening, individuals begin to protect their
jobs instead of trying to deliver the product
❑ E.g. self-protecting memos, constant questions about responsibility...

CT050-3-3 Project Management

 Political Issues – cont’d

At best, politics at the team level can encourage team members to

attain peak performance while competing with each other

At worst, team politics degenerate into backbiting and infighting

and severely undermine the project schedule
• Individual politics
➨ Individuals play politics against other individuals anywhere
within an organization
➨ This form of politics quickly degenerates into team politics
➨ Individuals begin to learn that certain behavior is rewarded,
another is punished, and the reaction is not based in the value to
the company

CT050-3-3 Project Management