Shock news - Public Sector IT Projects Getting Better
A bit of comfort for beleaguered project managers in the public sector. Despite what the press may suggest, things are getting better.
This article, published just a few days ago by ITProPortal starts with a shock headline: "NAO warns of chronic failure of major government projects".
Apparently, the NAO have warned that "37 of the 106 projects scheduled during the aforementioned timeframe are “in doubt or unachievable if action is not taken to improve delivery.”"
That's Much Much Better Than It Used To Be
That means that government projects are now at least twice as successful as they were 12 years ago.
What the article doesn't mention, is that the historic failure rate for IT projects in general (not just public sector) is closer to 70%. In fact, the NAO itself compiled evidence about the rates of success and failure in 2003, which you can read here, where they set out the many problems faced by IT projects in general, and public sector IT projects in particular.
Always Read the Detail
This highlights for me the importance of going back to source, rather than simply accepting the headline from a press article. The NAO update report, published last week, provides some justified criticisms of current government IT projects. In particular, it highlighted issues over portfolio management, turnover of Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) and definition of success criteria.
However, the report made clear that things were better, much better, than they had been before and that many of their previous recommendations had been implemented.
Pity the public sector project managers, even when they do better, they still get a bad press.
What is the "Right" Failure Rate?
IT projects almost always involve introducing something new or innovative. If they didn't, there would be no point in doing them. New or innovative things involve the risk of failure. It is inevitable that a certain percentage of IT projects are going to fail in one way or another.
If you try to remove the risk of failure from IT projects, you also remove the potential benefits that come from trying out new and innovative approaches.
So the question is not: will some IT project fail? But what proportion of IT projects should you expect to fail?
10%?
20%?
30%?
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