Government IT Projects - Part 2

I recently wrote a post about Government IT Projects and talked about articles that came down on failed and expensive projects. And just the other day I read an article in the Herald about failed government IT projects. Schools IT scheme a 'stuff up'.

It's often the media and political opponents of the current administration that are the first to blame the government - as though the current leaders personally chose Project Managers and Vendors. In fact Government Projects in general are very prone to failure because of the nature of bureaucracy and red tape. In fact a consulting firm called Calleam Consulting has a global "Catalogue of Failure" also grouped by "Classic Mistakes" for failed government projects.

I think it's important to emphasise again - IT projects are generally prone to failure and the larger the project the more likely it is to be delivered late and over budget. In reading a recent article on Project Community Online about Mega Projects I discovered an interesting statistic - 65% of projects valued over $1B fail to meet their initial parameters often blowing out in budget and time by large amounts.

IT projects are emergent - the more parts that interact and the more people they have to interact with - the more unexpected properties emerge from the systems. It is perhaps a failure of modern day project management and IT development methodologies but there is no sure fire way to develop a solution that does what it's supposed to and at the same time estimate how much it will cost or how long it will take before it's done.

Often the sales person, deal maker or BDM who put the solution together gets the blame as the front face of the consulting firm when it is the fault of poor project management, project teams or lack of co-operation by the client. Often it's the project managers who get blamed and then sacked because the salesperson involved in the project over sold the consulting firms capabilities.

Next time you see the failure of your tax dollars to deliver an effective IT solution just remember - projects are hard to deliver. This failure should not encourage MORE oversight because it is the red tape that likely contributed to the failure. Like a commercial organisation, perhaps governments need to factor in risk in taking on any project and measure the cost-benefit or benefit-risk ratio and decide - is it worth putting the money in even if the project fails. It's also important to keep track of how many projects fail and why.

In the end the media is always going to make a big deal out of government failure and the opposition is always going to use it to win votes. But IT innovation is the way of the future. In my opinion it's worth taking the risk because the risk of getting left behind is worse.