6 years later, IT projects still can’t cope with change
I read in Ars Technica that Most IT projects in Europe are late. According to the article,
The main reasons for delays, according to the survey, were outsourcing, changed project goals, and poor managerial coordination
The numbers listed in the original BBC article, suggest that the European country more likely to deliver on time is Sweden, where 44% percent of IT projects make or time. Spain and Russia are at the bottom of the list, with only 4% (!!) of IT projects delivered on time.
This is June 2007, more than 6 years after the Agile Manifesto was published. And we still can’t manage the volatile nature of IT requirements. Apparently we can’t really manage much in IT, anyway.
I wonder why is that? Is it really all that difficult to manage customer expectations and work in nearly-continuous-re-planning mode, adapting to changing priorities and requirements?
There are successful IT companies that hardly ever need to push a deadline, so it is definitely possible to do a good job of an IT project and to do it on time, too. So is really the majority of the IT industry so incompetent?
June 8, 2007 Filed under: management, programming
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The easy answer is: YES. The IT industry is widely incompetent. But this theme could be the seed of a really long conversation
. There are a lot of problems that create a delay, mostly regarding to management. Greedy clients, stupid data suppliers, unprofessional freelances, cloudy requirements (that change faster than hummingbird’s wings), crazy market… so many things, so many “pollution”.
Of course all of them are excuses, but when you are NOT allowed to manage any of them (due to your company rank), the only thing you can do is… fight!
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. On-line servers on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched pages of code changed in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like the deadlines of the projects. Time to die.”
[...] Most IT projects don’t make it on time, and neither does the Tesla: Well, five years after its founding, Tesla has shipped about 70 electric roadsters, and the car does in fact turn out to be a classic Silicon Valley product—it’s late and over budget, has gone through loads of redesigns, still has bugs and, at $109,000, costs more than originally planned. Tesla’s first 40 roadsters went out of the factory with a drivetrain that needs to be replaced. (Tesla will do the rip-and-replace for free.) Its second car, a sedan, has been delayed until 2011. [...]
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