Information technology: concepts and applications

¶ … Failure

No one likes to admit failure -- in business or in life. But by understanding why a project failed, one may better prevent the occurrence from transpiring in the organization's future development and management of other projects. Poor communication, internal politics and overrun cost estimations can affect all projects and contribute to an IT project's failure. Of course, such variables can also affect a project regarding a new product's design and Internet-based projects as well. But IT projects that require hardware, unlike Intranets must contend with a number of other issues such as late project deliverables. They also must address increasingly complex issues as organizational security, ease of access and integration with currently existing technical systems. (Chin, 2003) Overlooking any of these variables can lead to project failure.

When is a project a failure? A project can be considered a failure if it deviates too far from original specifications, doesn't meet key user requirements, and is late or over budget. In some cases, a perceived project failure can be a subjective issue. (Chin, 2003) The project's designer may regard a technical advancement that goes over budget as a success, because the work could contribute to the design of a better system in the future, while a budgetary manager may call the work a failure, purely and simply based on the bottom line.

Thus, there are varying degrees of failure. Project death, the most extreme case, or total project cancellation, is hard to define in any positive way. So is overrunning initial cost estimations, over- or underestimating project schedule, and miscalculating work to personnel ratio, as no potential 'good' can really be gleaned for anyone, with an over or under worked staff. IT managers must be especially careful upon a project to coordinate different teams of users, workers who know the business processes of the project's needs, who must be held accountable "to clearly express their requirements and provide feedback on each project deliverable," and developers, "who know what technology can be used to put those business processes into place" and who "need to ask the right questions and not make any assumptions on what they think the users mean." (Chin, 2003) Communication, as always, is key, especially when different project teams may speak different technical and managerial languages.