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Real Research on IT Projects

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by j.lupo

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Hi everyone at TR. First, I want to say thank you for the suggestions. I appreciate the willingness of the community to voluntarily participate in my research.

Here's the scoop since I never seem to get back to my blog. BTW some of this is on the first page of the survey website. ;-)

Did you know that in 2002 Morgan Stanly released a report that indicated an IT project overexpenditure of 130 billion dollars? The researchers found that misalignment of the business and technology was at the root of the problem. The purpose of this study is to survey 120 business and technology leaders to consider the influence pre-partnering activities have on information technology/systems project outcomes.

You are invited to participate in a study of pre-partnering activities and project outcomes on information technology projects. The survey is for business and technology leaders who have completed an information technology or information services project within the last 5 years. This includes software development, networks, hardware/software migrations, telecommunications, etc.

The survey can be found at [b]www.jrlupo.net[/b] . The closing date is currently July 31, 2006, but may move if I don't have enough respondents by then. I hope to publish the results upon completion of the research at the end of 2006/beginning 2007. You may request the results if you would like or wait for publication.

Thank you all again. This is a real research project and participation is completely voluntary.

Sincerely
J. Lupo
Doctoral Candidate
Senior IT/IS Software Engineering Consultant

4 replies

by tig2

I will be very happy to participate. I have been a Project Manager focused on educating IT on business requirements, and helping Business to write more comprehensive requirements. The goal is always to provide a quality IT solution that speaks to both the tactical and strategic goals.

You are welcome to peer me if your would like additional understanding.

I appreciate being given the opportunity to participate in your work!

by j.lupo

and yes I am always interested in more, but I have to be very careful not to skew the results of the survey. Once I am finished and have defended the work, I want to get an article or two published about it. I think this is very important work.

You have mentioned only one small part of the complexity of the issue. The CHAOS report describes the problem as too complex to have any easy solutions. What I find interesting whenever I discuss the issue with colleagues is that everyone agrees it exists, everyone agrees what needs to be done, but then no one seems to do it.

I actually remember a PM Training class that I went to with my director several years ago. The presenter was really good and was taking some of our real life situations and showing us how to manage it better. I remember the Director saying to the trainer, "This is really great but we don't do things this way" Urghhhhh, Why spend the money on the training if you werent going to be open to another way?

All I know is that I found I could make my business partners happy and have a motivated IT staff. I am not sure what I was doing that worked, but we were beating our deadlines and controlling our budgets. Clients would ask for my team. For 9 years now I have been trying to figure out why it worked, what we did right, and so on.

What really got me going though, believe it or not, was some articles I read here at TR about the project outcome issue and what to do. It was interesting and I have been a member of TR since.

J

by tig2

Just a very quick thought from a tired brain-

The biggest challenge I find is that business not only doesn't understand what IT is capable of doing, but they don't read the requirements sd IT understands them and they don't as for clarification when out of their depth.

I was asked to write requirements for a support application in an instance where the product I needed to support didn't exist yet. And wouldn't exist for a long period of time. the right answer- use existing products and processes- was discarded by business out of hand as too simplistic. That is the solution currently in play. From one peprspective, IT failed because we didn't deliver a new solution. From another perspective, IT delivered a no-cost perfect solution that meets all of the stated requirements. Who is right?

What you did that worked is the same thing that I do that works- CLEARLY define project scope, requirements, and deliverables. Trust your team when they give you an estimate. Manage to what you have promised. Provide a strong team structure. Communicate changes and the impact of changes.

Your personal personality has a huge impact. I know a guy with the right certifications but is brain dead when it comes to managing people and personalities. No one wants to work for him because he is perceived as a schmuck. he is known as a loser that no one wants to work on a team with. His projects go over budget, have dissatisfied teams and cause attrition.

Some things can't be taught. Ability to interact is one of them.

I am eager to see the results you garner.

by j.lupo

And you mentioned only a very tiny percentage of the issues that add compelxity to projects. The interesting thing is, it isn't only IT projects that have this complexity. My survey tool was provided by a researcher in the construction industry and adapted by a researcher in the PM field for IT.

I am anxious to collect enough participants so that I can finish the work. I have spent 5 years working on this and there is so much interesting information out there.

Sincerely

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