I think one of the biggest issues is that so many project managers still think you can plan IT projects like you plan building a bridge. The difference with a bridge is that you can specify what’s needed, and it’s unlikely to change before you finish building the bridge.
Unfortunately though, that’s also how the people funding it look at it. They want to know what it will cost before they start. Somehow, we have to get project planning to match reality. At present, when there are variations from the plan, that’s seen as a problem, and seen as unexpected. But the reality is that it’s totally expected. The problem was the idea that bridge-style planning is appropriate. Regards, Greg Dr Greg Low 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax SQL Down Under | Web: <https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sqldownunder.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csspahelp%40microsoft.com%7C1f0ea4d6b97e4d897f3708d666d1e890%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636809449091516274&sdata=SLHeEGAMmWUY5YIwcC4oAPYr%2F9RIZdi4MNASsdzwX2I%3D&reserved=0> www.sqldownunder.com | <https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgreglow.me%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csspahelp%40microsoft.com%7C1f0ea4d6b97e4d897f3708d666d1e890%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636809449091526278&sdata=IU8tnAITCjBxWafi3A9XpO9lF3PIwZJ8ad3t36lnxvs%3D&reserved=0> http://greglow.me From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com <ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com> On Behalf Of Ken Schaefer Sent: Sunday, 27 October 2019 9:38 PM To: ozDotNet <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> Subject: RE: [OT] Fines Victoria crisis deepens Depends on how your measure success. By the typical bottom-line, most projects aren’t “successes”. However, lots of organisations have: a. Arbitrary limits on how much contingency can be included – which then doesn’t reflect the true level of uncertainty in the project b. Requirements change c. Vendors, systems integrators etc. go bust, change direction or what-have-you d. Your project competes with everyone else’s for scarce capital, so everyone has an incentive to downplay cost, and upsell benefits e. Technological cost estimates can be done relatively accurately, but large-scale projects include significant organisational change which is much harder to estimate/cost up-front. By my guess, about 15-20% of large IT projects ($50-100m+) are successful. Maybe 20-30% are real failures. Everything else is in a bit of a grey area where they are failures based on initial cost/time/features criteria, but might have been successful if business cases were allowed to be more realistic. Regards, Ken From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com <mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com> <ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com <mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com> > On Behalf Of g...@greglow.com <mailto:g...@greglow.com> Sent: Wednesday, 23 October 2019 2:25 PM To: 'ozDotNet' <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com <mailto:ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> > Subject: RE: [OT] Fines Victoria crisis deepens Not sure about that. I endlessly hear that the success ratio for large IT projects is around 30%, not up around 70 or 80%. It’s quite appalling really. Regards, Greg Dr Greg Low 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax SQL Down Under | Web: <https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sqldownunder.com%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csspahelp%40microsoft.com%7C1f0ea4d6b97e4d897f3708d666d1e890%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636809449091516274&sdata=SLHeEGAMmWUY5YIwcC4oAPYr%2F9RIZdi4MNASsdzwX2I%3D&reserved=0> www.sqldownunder.com | <https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgreglow.me%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csspahelp%40microsoft.com%7C1f0ea4d6b97e4d897f3708d666d1e890%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636809449091526278&sdata=IU8tnAITCjBxWafi3A9XpO9lF3PIwZJ8ad3t36lnxvs%3D&reserved=0> http://greglow.me From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com <mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com> <ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com <mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com> > On Behalf Of mike smith Sent: Wednesday, 23 October 2019 12:45 PM To: ozDotNet <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com <mailto:ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> > Subject: Re: [OT] Fines Victoria crisis deepens Success stories don't seem to make it into MSM. pity, because you'd think there's more successful outcomes than failures On Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 12:24 Greg Keogh <gfke...@gmail.com <mailto:gfke...@gmail.com> > wrote: Interesting front page article in The Age newspaper today <https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/fines-victoria-system-collapses-leaving-massive-hole-in-state-budget-20191022-p5333d.html> about a Victorian government IT disaster. IT disasters are routine (I'm sure we've all caused a few!) but it's interesting that they actually name the software as VIEW from a company called Civica. The article is a bit vague about what's actually wrong, it just says "[it] doesn't work", "the system was absolute chaos" and systems are not "talking to" their computers. Does anyone have inside gossip about what really happened? There was another vast IT disaster a few years ago related to the education system I think, where dodgy contracts were being awarded to mates, and I think the loss ran into the hundreds of millions. That story vanished from the news and I never found out what happened. Greg K
