I

t’s not uncommon to see an IT project start out well, with unparalleled enthusiasm and promises of a great new world, only to become stressful, fade into oblivion, or worse – drag out into a costly, cumbersome experience.  Ever wonder how many IT projects actually succeed?  Research by strategy consultants, McKinsey in 2012 indicates that “on average large IT projects run 45 percent over budget and 7 percent over time, while delivering 56 percent less value than predicted.”  Projects are a challenge because “failure” can be considered in many different ways:

  • was it over budget?
  • is the solution used correctly by staff?
  • is the solution overly complicated?
  • is the solution maintainable?
  • does it save the company money as intended?
  • does it make for a better customer experience?

These, and many other questions, make it difficult to quantify the success of a project.  In our experience, projects usually fail because of two core factors:

  1. The original business case is poor or not thought through, and/or
  2. The project is not executed well

Defining a strong business case can be an intangible and difficult thing to do.  However, managing a project is very tangible and critical to success.  Planning, tracking milestones, keeping track of budgets, resources, scope, managing decisions from key stakeholders, and most importantly ensuring that the project is inline with the original business requirements and benefits cannot be underestimated.

For all of our solutions, we will manage our own resources and projects to the highest possible standard.  This includes regular reporting back to you to ensure you:

  • know how the project is going
  • are aware of any major risks and issues that require your input and decision making

Good project management is also important for us to ensure we keep our costs under control.

We are also happy to manage projects outside of our solutions.  So, if you have an existing project that needs some help, we can provide direct support to your project managers, or even work onsite as your project manager for short support engagements.