IT failure, too much information in Information Technology

by Toby Elwin

Technology enables information, but why are so many information technology projects failing?

  • 74% of all projects fail, come in over budget, or run past the original deadline*
  • 90% of major Information Technology (IT) project initiatives fail to be completed on time and on budget*
  • A survey by the international consulting firm KPMG finds that 56% of IT projects globally fail, but believe that 56% is an underestimation of the scale of the problem
  • UK IT Director Forum Certus believes that failure rate of IT projects is closer to 90%

Why is the information part of information technology failing to deliver projects? Why do we continue to spend so much of operations strategy on the technology portion of the common people, process, and technology framework when clearly it is the people that define the process and the people that launch technology, but it those same people don’t turn information into decisions. Is it the technology at fault or is it the people behind the technology?

Realistically, information technology projects provide plenty of information: scope, risk, stakeholder need, end-user requirements, communications, governance to name a few. And IT projects rely on subject matter experts to design components, identify need, define user requirements, and test functionality, but what is the break down? Why do IT projects continue to fail? Who are the sponsors for all these failures and who keeps funding these projects and expects different outcomes. Once underway, who changes the game?

I propose we lessen the reliance on information and increase the reliance on decisions. Information technology is intended to enable decision making, clearly it is not.

  • Information on scope creep does not help, decisions to stop scope creep does help.
  • Information on risk does not help, decisions to mitigate risk does help.
  • End-user functionality information does not help, end-user decision feedback does help.

Let’s change the term Information Systems to Decision Systems.

Let’s change Information Technology to Decision Technology.

If we can’t rely on information for decisions, let’s stop trying. Clearly, in times like these, we would do well with less information and more decisions.

I would love to hear your thoughts, your successes, and your stories on IT projects you have managed and how you have successfully managed scope, expectation, budget, time, and quality.

* Project Management Institute

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  • http://www.TobyElwin.com Toby Elwin

    I wanted to point out too many organizations and businesses rely on technology to solve structural and procedural failures. Technology enables speed, but if decision-making and bureaucracy are crippling then technology will not necessarily improve your either. Technology will be incredibly successful at speeding up your inefficiencies. In classic operations management, you move the bottle neck, but have not increased the throughput or yield.

    People rely on information to make informed decisions and to enable business discussions. Without information we have a lot of personal cases for change, information is intended to provide a business case for change, and I agree with you, it is a big mistake to wield information – people are not being paid high salaries to provide information, they are paid high salaries to provide decisions.

    Thank you finding and commenting on the post. I wrote this back in December and am pretty sure the post came about from yet another client discussion about whether we should revisit a strategic discussion or to implement an enterprise technology “solution” without an executive strategy.

  • http://www.allcovered.com/locations/boston/ IT Network Support

    Information technology is intended to enable decision making, clearly it is not. –> it doesn’t necessarily “enable” you per se. it will definitely help you and you can use it as one great resource. but to have it decide for you, is a big mistake

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