To success! Or rather, to technology failure

We’ve seen the following printed in block capitals across newspaper signboards: ‘another IT failure: millions wasted’. Every year, phalanxes of projects break down; suppliers fail to meet their obligations; a few people in suits walk away with fatter wallets. Disconnected systems, frustrated staff and wasted millions are the only legacy.

According to The Standish Group, the industry-recognised trend-plotters, the failure rate of IT projects was 24% in 2009, down from 40% in 1996. In another post we’ll discuss why the figures are improving over time. Meanwhile, the focus of this article is why so many are still dropping between the cracks.

Of the programmes I’ve worked on in the financial, utility and manufacturing sectors, those that did not succeed were always the more interesting. After all, what do we learn from achievement? These initiatives were full of wishy-washy parameters, deserts of lost momentum and false summits. Demarcations between supplier, client and investor were blurred, while the rewards of succeeding or perils of disaster were inelegantly split. Often, the business-as-usual contingent was too strong and opposed change in surreptitious means. Occasionally, the consultants perceived that winning the original procurement contract had been the largest battle and weren’t trying hard enough.

The most distressing part is that those who actually foot the bills are never consulted. In many industries, failed technology programmes are ultimately paid for by customers, shareholders or taxpayers. If these people actually saw where their money went, pavement revolts would be understandable. The project governors, including consultants and powerful suppliers, are beneficiaries of the process of transition, not of the finished product. They have an interest to never actually finish, create problems for the future that only they can fix and anticipate invocation of the magic words ‘change control’. Meanwhile, business- departments are caught in the middle and have an understandable anathema of taking ownership.

It is the taxpayer, the pension-owner, and the 9-5 workers who have the most to lose from public and private IT project failures. The issue is not one of government, for we have robust politic and executive frameworks in most of the world. In fact, the issue is apolitical and is not really of business either, because there is choice where to save, spend or invest or save our ¥, £ or $. So that makes it you and I who are responsible. Our lethargy - or should I call it acceptance - is almost palatable. It is the feeling that a single person cannot do anything to alter either the inevitability of change or the prospect of failure. But we can.

Neither the quality of the process of change nor the quality of the output can be guaranteed. A new house can create huge amounts of CO2 in construction and also be functionally and aesthetically awful when complete: the reverse and any midway combination is also possible. The yardstick is Quality, by which I mean the kind of values defined in RM Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. To achieve this depends on the diligence of each and every person, system and component involved in the planning and execution of change, and of their fit into the existing environment. We talk of ‘buy-in’, but it is much deeper than that. It’s an emotional engagement too.

Failure is never inevitable, though there seem to have been many projects where I stepped into the office on day one and realised the likelihood of success was close to zero. And there were some occasions where I’ve been surprised. Experience has shown that the ability for a project to succeed boils down to individual and team resilience. In short, this can be interpreted as the creativity, adaptability, leadership and collaborative approach brought to the table and for the potential for these characteristics to be used en route.