The Untold Secret: To win over BAIF!

Episode 7: BAIF. The numbers say it all!

Before I tell you the rest of the story, I should explain what BAIF stands for in case you haven't heard it before: Business Application Implementation Failure.?

Introduction: Episode 1 Link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/untold-secrets-win-over-baif-ramanathan-subramaniam

War Started: ?Episode 2 Link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/untold-secret-win-over-baif-ramanathan-subramaniam

Losing one more: Episode 3 Link : https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/untold-secret-win-over-baif-ramanathan-subramaniam-1c

Same War and New General: Episode 4 Link: Episode 4 : https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/untold-secret-win-over-baif-ramanathan-subramaniam-2c

Working with wounded Tigers: Episode 5 Link : https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/untold-secret-win-over-baif-ramanathan-subramaniam-3c

Winning war with wounded Tigers by RS: ?Episode 6: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/untold-secret-win-over-baif-ramanathan-subramaniam-4c

My linked in profile: linkedin.com/in/srnathan

Receiving negative feedback on an implementation partner can often be beneficial in gaining insight into the other client's problem as well as the partner's overall response and behaviour.

Not only is it okay, but it's also very encouraging to see how some of the partners dealt with problems and how they solved them.

If only you knew how to spot, investigate, and use information from project setbacks, it would work in your favour and help your organisation avoid similar mistakes and save Time and Money.

Organisations should look at and plan for the next ten years when they see the product and technology since there is no short term because every implementation, especially a big one, takes months and perhaps years.

The organisation should methodically consider everything in the long term, including but not limited to the product roadmap, technology, flexibility, clients who use it, regional and worldwide partners, product skills, and technical and functional availability in the open market.

Other aspects to consider are focusing on minimal or no customisations, partners' databases, add-ons available for specific business solutions, future upgrade capabilities, and licensing models, among many other parameters.

We can see why no one individual can manage projects, technology projects, particularly well. Are technical project management tasks complex? Why are there so many mistakes being made?

A research on project management efficiency (PM) demonstrates that there are 7, 9, or even 10 causes for initiatives to fail. There might be more; there always will be more! According to the Project Management Institute, only 23% of firms apply standardised project management methods across the entire organisation, and only 58% of organisations fully comprehend the value of project management. These figures imply that everything would improve if more businesses valued or used project management tools and processes, but other factors may be at play.

Why do project management skills only matter to 58% of businesses? Why is this a difficult task? Could it be that companies don't value or employ project management because they don't think it's effective? Or are there other factors at play that warrant the abandonment of standardised project management tools and techniques?

According to a Harvard Business Review (HBR) survey, IT projects often run 27% over budget, a staggering 200% as cost overruns in some cases, 70% behind time, and 17% potentially endanger the company's existence.

Projects Fail Because of People

One PwC study shows that only a tiny number of companies, 2.5%, completed 100% of their projects successfully. This study examined over 10,640 initiatives. Only 40% of projects at IBM satisfy the organisation’s three primary goals, schedule, budget, and quality, to give you a sense of the appalling success rate of most projects. (Steve Andriole, December 1, 2020, 1:33 p.m. EST. from a Forbes.com story).

TechRepublic, a top website for IT professionals, and Gartner, the leading business technology analyst in the world, conducted a study on business performance challenges with technology implementation.?In September 2000, they surveyed 1,375 IT professionals in North America (Ref: Drew Douglas or Lisa Wahrmund at Corporate Technology Communications at (312) 832-9300).

Project Management – Critical cog in the wheel!

Findings from the study include the following:

·???????Roughly 40 per cent of all information technology projects fail to meet business requirements.

·???????On average, an IT project is discontinued after 14 weeks of its 27-week planned duration, resulting in an annual expenditure of at least $1 million on IT work that does not produce positive business benefits.

·???????10% of the IT workers in the IT organisation are working on tasks that have no value to the business.

Inability to dissuade failure of IT projects by stakeholders results in project cancellation within a few weeks. "In an era when organisations are judged on their ability to use technology to improve efficiency and gain additional revenue, research reveals some areas for improvement." Information technology is said to be one of the world's most influential and fastest-growing industries.” Note that information technology is one of the fastest growing and most important segments of the worldwide economy.

Project failures affect more contemporary technology, including AI, Big Data, IoT, and other emerging ones. The low success rates for AI, data science, analytics, IoT, big data, and BI projects are alarming. Even worse, the statistics throughout numerous annual studies are mostly the same.

The fact that many of these challenges revolve around "technological solutions in search of a problem" interests me. It is clear throughout businesses that companies cannot correctly describe what analysis, data, IoT, AI, Bigdata, Blockchain, or RPA is expected to perform for end users or the business; in particular, the absence or inadequacy of applying methodology, risk assessments, and comprehensiveness.

On a concluding note, remembering that "there is always a better way of going about things" is essential. We learn this with each new project we take on.

It's been a couple of weeks since I began expressing my opinions on the topic. To sum up, the following are necessary for any Enterprise Project: Plan in depth, Benefits, Justification, and Realization, Stakeholder Commitment, Solution (Product/Service) selection that is nearly ideal in every way, Risk/Issue Identification, Assessment, and Mitigation Planning; respect time and other resources; have plenty of patience; follow Change Management procedures; respect the project's resources and costs; do not compromise on quality; ensure proper testing; have a clear understanding of the project's scope; justify any customizations; and know for sure that they integrate and depend on other parts of the project. Create a long-lasting setting by including workers in the change management process.

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed creating and delivering it to you. I plan to share more of my experience in the field that may be of interest to you. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require assistance with your implementation. As previously stated, I am always ready and happy to engage!