Major Reasons for IT Project Failure
This task is based on the concept of reasons for Information Technology project failure in some cases. Today IT is used at every work place to do various business activities, projects and to get quick and accurate outcomes. Various software solutions have been developed by IT professionals for business purposes and for other usages. Before start working with IT technologies, it is necessary to get basic knowledge about them. There are several projects where Information Technology has proven itself right by providing successful results to its users. But on another side, some projects of IT have failed (Communications, 2017). Now in this report, we will emphasize on reasons of IT project failures, strategies that can be used to avoid these reasons and examples of scenarios that describe unsuccessful IT projects. By knowing major reasons for failure of Information Technology projects, users can avoid those things and can use potential security solutions (Ibmsystemsmag.com, 2017).
In this segment of report, we will elaborate above discussed topics in detail.
No one likes failure and it is tried by everyone to avoid it. It is common topic of discussion that why IT project fails? What are the major reasons for this? In answer of this question some essential reasons are found that fails IT projects. Every project manager should be aware about these reasons and try to ignore these reasons (Forbes.com, 2017).
Poor Communication
Improper Definition of Problem
Poor Planning
Use of Wrong Technologies
Little Testing
Weak Project Management
Try to enhance cost of Project
In development of an IT project, multiple people have involved and it becomes difficult to keep communication open between all these people. It is a negative point for project development. As much as lack of communication will be in team members of a project, increase confusion and conflicts. Besides this, poor communication will lead to lack of clarity of responsibilities and roles of every team members, understanding about project requirements and management of project requirements (Ecaminc.com, 2017).
It is often encountered that businesses rush into finding solutions to a problem without understanding issues. In this case, sometimes they fail to take into account necessary considerations during examination process that can change the nature of problem. If a project development team does not have a good way to handle problem, they it cannot get good solution.
It is commonly said that proper planning prevents poor performance. It is considered true for IT projects. These projects require a lot of planning to be successful. But unfortunately, there are some tech departments that don’t take time to resolve problem, figure out common issues of project and to make appropriate decisions. It leads to poor planning and major problems that find in their planning process are improper scope and objective of project and fail to identify sufficient time and cost for project.
Strategies to Avoid IT Project Failure
There are also some technical issues that are responsible for IT project failure. The two main technical failures of IT projects are listed as below:
The wrong choice of any programming tool that is required in project development is a big technical issues. It is very much important to use best programming language, tools and other resources while making any IT project.
All those technicians who are working on project must have proper knowledge to handle technical issues. If technical staff will not be skilled then project will lead to failure.
The testing process is very important in every project development because it helps to identify errors or bugs into project development that further leads to poor functionality of project. Without a regular and proper testing, it is difficult to identify problems or issues in a project. There are various cases where just due to improper testing project was failed.
It is crucial responsibility of project manager to be able to deal with all logistics of a project. It is not right to only concentrate on one aspect. The management of time, cost, effective leading of project, decision making and performance measuring are essential aspects to take into account by project manager.
The cost is most important factor of project development. Every project manager should try to maintain overall cost of project so that no overrun occurs. No planning and allocation of adequate funds for project lead to over budget and cause quality issues in IT projects. Therefore, it is cleared that if we want to get best then we have to pay enough money for that.
These above discussed reasons can fail whole project. So it is accountability of project manager to take care of all these reasons and prevent IT projects to get fail (Globalprojectstrategy.com, 2017).
To get prevention from IT project failure, it is necessary to use some strategies to avoid described reasons of IT project failure.
The project leader plays a very important role in project development. An effective leader can guide and aware team members about usage of new techniques and tools to make project successful. So first strategy should be selection of a skilled and intelligent leader for developing and controlling project issues (Project Smart, 2017).
With the changes of time, market trends are also changing for IT technologies. Therefore, project manager should have knowledge about new trends and technologies and select best possible choices for project development. This can be only done if project manager or leader to know about actual requirements of project (gianarosetti, 2017).
Real-life Examples of IT Project Failure
The implementation of project development cycle for IT projects is a good decision. This development cycle covers every essential point that is necessary for successful project development. Every step of development cycle should be completed with its all requirements before moving towards next step. Most of the reasons of project IT failures will be controlled under this project development cycle (Tripathi, 2017).
Lack of funds is a big barrier in success of project. As we have already discussed above that due to lack of funds, it is difficult to buy required advanced technologies that must be used in an IT project. Project manager should focus on funds management with the help of stakeholders and other investors (Cook, 2017).
In this segment of report we will discuss about real life examples of IT project failure.
It is a big example of IT project failure. Denver Airport Baggage System is most advanced baggage handling system. But due to IT issues, it has become a notorious example of IT project failure. The management of Denver Airport wanted to automate baggage handling system through entire airport. But system proved more complex than originally believed or expected (Base36.com, 2017).
The main problems encountered in this project of Denver Airport is poor project management with wrong time estimation and due to this airport sitting was idle for 16 months (Calleam.com, 2017). Due to delay, cost overrun also occurred and company bear loss of $560M USD. Other essential problems that encountered in this IT project were underestimation of complexity, complex architecture, requirement changes and improper estimation of budget and schedule. Besides this, backup and recovery process was also not defined properly by company (InformationWeek, 2017).
After knowing about major problems of It project failure of Denver Airport, it seems difficult that project can come back on track easily. But still, with all possible efforts, good project management and on the behalf of previous issues, problem of Denver project can be resolved.
According to this scenario, Nike Company encountered a big problem in its supply chain due to its supply chain software. According to company’s statement, unforeseen complications with the planning of demand and supply software are found and it will result in loss of $ 100 million. By implementing this software Nike was trying to cut its response time to change sales demand. This type of software rely on algorithms and models and use historical sales data.
Now the main problems with this project is that complexity of application without appropriate resources that are required for developing projects and use of big bang approach without testing.
The strategic action that can be taken to keep Nike’s project on track is implementation of suitable project development approach after doing full testing and by implementing effective strategic approach that can help to control issues of project cost and resources.
Conclusion
From above discussion, we got to know about potential and common reasons of IT project failure. Now it will be better to be careful about these reasons while developing project. In whole project development, project manager plays key role so he/should have knowledge about implementation of strategic approach for successful project development.
References
Forbes.com. (2017). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/09/13/are-these-the-real-reasons-why-tech-projects-fail/#c2a246673206 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Ibmsystemsmag.com. (2017). IBM Systems Magazine – Seven Reasons IT Projects Fail. [online] Available at: https://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/power/Systems-Management/Workload-Management/project_pitfalls/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Base36.com. (2017). 7 Reasons IT Projects Fail | Base36. [online] Available at: https://www.base36.com/2012/11/7-reasons-it-projects-fail/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
InformationWeek. (2017). 5 Steps To Avoid IT Project Failures – InformationWeek. [online] Available at: https://www.informationweek.com/it-leadership/5-steps-to-avoid-it-project-failures/d/d-id/1109495 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Communications, E. (2017). 6 Ways to Avoid a Project Failure. [online] Hospitalitytechnology.edgl.com. Available at: https://hospitalitytechnology.edgl.com/news/6-Ways-to-Avoid-a-Project-Failure74868 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Tripathi, B. (2017). How to Avoid Project Failure | Project Management Blog. [online] Project Management Blog. Available at: https://www.synquis.com/blog/how-to-avoid-project-failure [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Project Smart. (2017). How to Avoid Project Failure Through Project Planning and Effective Project Recovery. [online] Available at: https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/how-to-avoid-project-failure-through-project-planning-and-effective-project-recovery.php [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
gianarosetti, (2017). 10 tips to avoid a project failure. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/gianarosetti/10-tips-to-avoid-a-project-failure [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Calleam.com. (2017). Denver Airport Baggage System Case Study – Why Do Projects Fail?. [online] Available at: https://calleam.com/WTPF/?page_id=2086 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Cook, M. (2017). Case Study: Nike’s Adventure with Supply Chain Planning Software | Software Money Pit. [online] Softwaremoneypit.com. Available at: https://softwaremoneypit.com/case-study-nikes-adventure-with-demand-planning-software/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Ecaminc.com. (2017). Project Failure Case Studies. [online] Available at: https://ecaminc.com/index.php/project-failure-case-studies [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
Globalprojectstrategy.com. (2017). Project Failures. [online] Available at: https://globalprojectstrategy.com/projectfailures.php [Accessed 1 Apr. 2017].
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