Artificial Intelligence for Life

70% of IT projects fail due to a number of reasons:

• The project did not support organisational strategy.
• Project success factors were not defined and clearly understood.
• No clear Leadership and governance models were used.
• Poor or no communication between stakeholders.
• Assumptions not verified and tested.
• Flawed mental models crept into the decision making process.
• When the A-team presents and you get the B & C-team in the project.

A recent bait and switch case in the US had the customer signing off on what they thought to be a $17 million, 12-month project, only for it to blow out to $66 million for over 3 years.

Prevention is always the best medicine to avoid this ever happening to you. To begin any project, you need a clear understanding of what you want from the project. This is an important first step so you know that the project will deliver on its promise.

A clear link must always exist to a tangible business outcome.

In other words, will the project help you with your top & bottom line? The more specific and articulate you are, the more you can hold those who are delivering your project to account.

Then have a project plan and have in writing the resources from all parties that will be working on your project from start to finish. This will definitely reduce your risk.

If you are already involved in a project and you feel it is starting to blow out of proportion, then what should you do?

1. Admit reality. Once you have drawn up a couple of viable options present them to your key stakeholders.
2. Refocus the scope. – Work with your partnering organisation on a more favorable outcome and realign key deliverable’s to reflect the current situation.
3. Determine the costs. Find out what has been spent from your current budget and compare this to what remains to be done.
4. Remediation work. If the relationship with your partnering organisation has been poisoned by the experience then seek the assistance of someone who can do remedial work and get the project back on track.
5. Start fresh. Issue a revised scope statement obtain funding, reset the schedule and get appropriate levels of support.
6. Review lessons learnt.  Very important step and will give confidence back to management on how to best avoid these issues from happening again.
7. Legal. This is your last resort when all else has failed. As difficult as this is sometimes you may need to resort to this sort of action to recover your costs.