How do I consult to a non-Requisite Organization, one whose very organizational structure means that they will not succeed at this change? I can’t in good conscience tell them that whatever I suggest will have much of an effect on their performance as a group.
Simplifying Project Costing & Staffing with Requisite Organization’s Time Span of Discretion
I don’t think that I am going out on a limb when I say that short time horizons of project managers, sponsors and planners is the leading cause to the disastrous failure rate of IT projects… As Michelle says, “you want a consultant whose current capability at least equals that called for by the entire project, not just the time span of the planning phase.””
Using Time Span of Discretion to Price Consulting Services?
The issue of how to price consulting services perennially agitates IT consulting companies. The issue of market price never quite seems to fulfill the need: what a client will bear is often as close to free as they can get. All too often, customers get shafted with a too-high price for twenty-somethings but can’t see the value of the older, …
Risk Taking, Risk Management and Software Project Management
Since IT projects are particularly prone to ignoring risk and escalation of commitment, reviewing some of the research on how we make decisions will benefit any IT manager or PM.
The Abilene Paradox of Escalation of Commitment: How We Can All Agree To Go Over the Cliff
When a project starts heading south, you would think that the rats would start abandoning the ship and the sponsor would quickly pull the plug to minimize losses. But that’s not what happens. Sponsors’ commitment to projects going bad actually seems to grow. The literature is littered with examples of sponsors continuing to spend money on a project that is …
De-escalation of Commitment to Projects
There is a large body of work dealing with the escalation of commitment in IT projects, how managers continue to throw good money after bad, increasing their commitment to a project that has little chance of succeeding. For example, Gustavo Dimello has an interesting summary (“To Pull or Not To Pull the Plug: When Managers Commit Themselves to Failure”) of …
Succeeding at Software Projects
Software projects are almost always late and underdone. Most executives take it for granted nowadays that developers will turn in something other than what was requested for more than was announced. They even admit that this is one of the biggest reasons that they outsource, because the contracts with outsourcers force the organization to develop software in a rational way. …
Rules for Organizing for Project Success
Even though they are continuing to spend millions every year, the project has almost no chance of success for entirely organizational reasons.
Project Management Methodologists vs. Theorists
Project management in software is hard for a variety of reasons. In the December 3, 2003 edition of the Application Developer Management e-newsletter, Scott Withrow tackled “Selecting a Project Manager”. While he is speaking of specifically ones for software development projects, his thoughts could represent the thinking of a range of business functions. Unfortunately, he gets a couple of points …
Why Information Technology & Software Projects Fail, part 2
I wanted to make an addendum to Why IT Projects Fail, part 1, which contains the bulk. Here are a few more reasons for further development. Risk management is not part of our vocabulary. We want people who are optimistic, not trying to find reasons why something will fail. IT does not understand that the change that they are introducing …