In todays Finnish language business magazine Kauppalehti there is an article citing HP research, stating that one out of two IT projects are late. Also one out of two projects are stated as being over budget. The main reason given is that coordination between IT and company management is lacking, outsourcing is failing and to a lesser extent changing or unclear requirements and a lack of resources. The research was compiled based on questions sent out to a large number of IT executives. However, the answers obtained to be over optimistic and that a change made to the time table for a project is not reported as being late. A better estimate would according to the article be around 90 % late / over budget.
What is interesting however is that the projects being late has a direct impact to the profitability of the companies. I would say that this sounds like the ideal market condition for consultancy and outsourcing vendors, whatever goes. I wonder when management is going to start taking interest in where the IT money is spent and why the promised returns of investment is not showing.
Further more management seems to be unable to do anything about the situation. Decreasing scope and increasing number of people on the project are the most common way of reacting to a problem in a project. Only one out of five confess to sacrificing quality over timetable, the rest probably never intended testing anyway or are too embarrassed to admit to this. Adding additional coordination will probably only add to the over all cost without any significant improvement in project delivery.
