The majority of IT projects fail unnecessarily by Thomas Coles, MD of MSM Software on 20-Jan-2012

UK businesses are wasting valuable IT budget and resource by failing to set sufficient briefs for their IT projects. Despite budgets continuing to be constrained (meaning that when IT projects are given the go ahead it is even more imperative that they are made a success) many are still failing to set a sufficient brief to avoid failure.

At MSM Software, we have conducted research among over 200 IT professionals involved in IT integration projects. The results show that two thirds fail because the brief changes after the project has begun. In addition, two thirds of respondents said they have been involved in IT projects that have not been as successful as they could have been.

Statistics from the British Computer Society show that between 1998 and 2005 across the European Union, only one in eight IT projects were considered successful. The rest were cancelled, suffered significant cost or time overruns.

Software projects are resource intensive and complex, and have a reputation for being both expensive and risky. This reputation is all too often validated by an abundance of projects failing. Yet, the failure of an IT project due to a changing brief is completely avoidable.

In my view, the success rate of IT projects would be significantly increased if businesses and suppliers worked more closely and transparently at the discovery phase of a project. By doing this, long-term business processes can be established and technology designed specifically to support the individual business requirements. Collaborative working in this way is fundamental as the success or failure of a software project can also determine the future (or failure) of a business.

For more information or to contact Thomas, please visit: www.msmsoftware.com.

Tweets by @biz_works