* A look at what defines the success of an IT project
Take heart if your IT department blew a project deadline or busted the budget. One analyst says those actions don’t necessarily equate to failure.
Helen Pukszta, a senior consultant with Cutter Consortium, says the typical definitions of IT project success are based on whether a project is delivered on time, within budget, and with the agreed upon functionality. “I will venture a guess that the most successful IT projects – those whose ratio of benefits to costs is the highest – significantly deviate from original plans. This is because producing high business value typically implies a high degree of uncertainty, and that, in turn, significantly frustrates estimating efforts,” she says.
Reports of project failures are legendary. But if late, over-budget and scaled-down projects are failures, why does business even bother to invest in IT, Pukszta asks? The answer, of course, is that there is value and opportunity there. The problem is that measuring the value of IT investments is tricky and that those benefits might take awhile to materialize.
In her research report, “Rethinking Success and Failure in IT”, Pukszta notes that many IT departments avoid projects with significant business payoff when there’s high uncertainty. These organizations pursue what’s manageable and predictable rather than take a risk with the potential for a much higher payoff. She recommends experimentation through pilots, proofs-of-concept and simulations.
Naturally, there’s obviously a need to keep an eye on the calendar and watch the budget, but just understand that these goals shouldn’t take precedence over the drive to maximize business value. IT departments should define their success by the value they provide to the business and then by the accuracy of their estimates and ability to guide user expectations.
