Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
AtricleZine - Late and Over Budget - Why IT Projects Fail
My Mom got scammed again. Don't let this happen to you.Taking online paid surveys has become a very popular way to earn extra money from home. It is not hard to see why... all you need is a computer that can connect to the Internet and an email account. You signup with as many companies as you wish and then sit back and await the arrival of surveys in your email inbox.Since most surveys pay between $5 and $25 dollars each, you can easily earn several hundred dollars a month for just a few hours work. In fact, there are many people who earn enough each month to pay for health insurance or even their entire mortgage.Even the threat of layoffs isn't qu
Over Budget Projects
Late projects cause costs. There are two ways to deal with this; accept the increase in cost, or reduce the scope so that the project fits into the budget and accept that it will not be finished. The balance to find is where the increase in cost justifies the end product, and that the lat
Are you one of those millions out there hooked on the viral video craze? This article describes the opportunities that viral videos offer to internet marketers.It’s actually just like a disease. It’s already more of an epidemic rapidly spreading over the cyberspace. Despite the many worries of this world, people just can’t seem to stay away from video clips of people doing typically nonsensical things. People can’t seem to keep their fascinated eyes off the wildest and oddest videos available. People certainly can’t resist passing on these ‘nonsensical’ videos to other people by posting these videos in their personal homepages, other websites and emailing them to t
It is a fact – IT project failure rates are among the highest across all industries. This should not scare anyone away from embarking on large scale IT projects, but it is important to understand why IT projects fail, so that even if one cannot avoid becoming part of these statistics, at least some measure of success can be enjoyed.
Part of the reason why the 'failure' rate is so high is due to the complexity and intangibility of software. It can not be seen, touched, or evaluated beyond actually interacting with it. Behind the scenes it is such a complex interaction of pieces, each built upon the other, that it can quite often not be understood fully by a single individual.
It is often said that an IT project can be late and finished, on time and unfinished, or within budget. At most, one can have two out of three, but an IT project that is complete, on budget, and delivered on time is almost unheard of.
Late Projects
There are many things that can cause a project to become late. Late projects are usually over budget simply by virtue of the fact that they cost more (in terms of actual wages paid) or that they cause higher costs due to their delay.
One of the most common causes of true over-running is that the client introduces unnecessary changes along the way, as they discover new features that they might like to add to the project as it progresses. This is easy to minimise – it is up to the client, and the contractor should not be held responsible for late delivery if the goal posts keep on moving.
They can, however, be blamed if the lateness is caused by a bad estimate. Some might point out that bad information causes the bad estimate, but it is the responsibility of the contractor to make sure that they have correctly understood – which is why a third party project manager is quite often useful in providing an interface between the two parties.
This also helps in the planning and crisis management, as well as making sure that the project stays within scope. Since the third party is acting for both sides, and usually paid for by both sides, even if not directly, they are able to help both sides. This is useful if there is a danger of communications becoming fraught, as many projects fail simply as a result of a deteriorating relationship between client and contactor.
One legitimate cause of late projects is the change in scope or technology. While these need to be allowed, simply due to the nature of IT, they must be kept to a minimum, unless a rolling project can be set up in which new technology is always taken advantage of, and the project never really finishes.
Over Budget Projects
Late projects cause costs. There are two ways to deal with this; accept the increase in cost, or reduce the scope so that the project fits into the budget and accept that it will not be finished. The balance to find is where the increase in cost justifies the end product, and that the lat
Poor James Frey. His A Million Little Pieces will no longer be made into a movie (I wonder if he wll have to give the money back to producers), he was publicly discredited by Oprah (which should sell another million copies for him), and he's put the whole publishing industry under a cloud. Questions about who knew what when will be circulating for months. It seems that no one associated with his book checked the facts. No one had discovered that he had originally tried to publish Pieces as a novel.The question arises: When does factual inaccuracy become actual lying? As we all know, two people can witness the same event and come up with totally different accounts of wha
It is often said that an IT project can be late and finished, on time and unfinished, or within budget. At most, one can have two out of three, but an IT project that is complete, on budget, and delivered on time is almost unheard of.
Late Projects
There are many things that can cause a project to become late. Late projects are usually over budget simply by virtue of the fact that they cost more (in terms of actual wages paid) or that they cause higher costs due to their delay.
One of the most common causes of true over-running is that the client introduces unnecessary changes along the way, as they discover new features that they might like to add to the project as it progresses. This is easy to minimise – it is up to the client, and the contractor should not be held responsible for late delivery if the goal posts keep on moving.
They can, however, be blamed if the lateness is caused by a bad estimate. Some might point out that bad information causes the bad estimate, but it is the responsibility of the contractor to make sure that they have correctly understood – which is why a third party project manager is quite often useful in providing an interface between the two parties.
This also helps in the planning and crisis management, as well as making sure that the project stays within scope. Since the third party is acting for both sides, and usually paid for by both sides, even if not directly, they are able to help both sides. This is useful if there is a danger of communications becoming fraught, as many projects fail simply as a result of a deteriorating relationship between client and contactor.
One legitimate cause of late projects is the change in scope or technology. While these need to be allowed, simply due to the nature of IT, they must be kept to a minimum, unless a rolling project can be set up in which new technology is always taken advantage of, and the project never really finishes.
Over Budget Projects
Late projects cause costs. There are two ways to deal with this; accept the increase in cost, or reduce the scope so that the project fits into the budget and accept that it will not be finished. The balance to find is where the increase in cost justifies the end product, and that the lat
If you have chosen to sell your home yourself, or purchase a home via FSBO, then conveyance is a process that you might want to educate yourself on. Conveyance is the actual process whereby a home is transferred from the old owner to the new owner. By the process of conveyance, the buyer of the home will eventually, after the contracts are complete; have clear and authentic title to the property in question. This is a process that under normal circumstances is seen to by the involved realtors and a number of attorneys and other legal professionals, including the mortgage lender.While the actual act of conveyance has different elements depending on the State that the pro
One of the most common causes of true over-running is that the client introduces unnecessary changes along the way, as they discover new features that they might like to add to the project as it progresses. This is easy to minimise – it is up to the client, and the contractor should not be held responsible for late delivery if the goal posts keep on moving.
They can, however, be blamed if the lateness is caused by a bad estimate. Some might point out that bad information causes the bad estimate, but it is the responsibility of the contractor to make sure that they have correctly understood – which is why a third party project manager is quite often useful in providing an interface between the two parties.
This also helps in the planning and crisis management, as well as making sure that the project stays within scope. Since the third party is acting for both sides, and usually paid for by both sides, even if not directly, they are able to help both sides. This is useful if there is a danger of communications becoming fraught, as many projects fail simply as a result of a deteriorating relationship between client and contactor.
One legitimate cause of late projects is the change in scope or technology. While these need to be allowed, simply due to the nature of IT, they must be kept to a minimum, unless a rolling project can be set up in which new technology is always taken advantage of, and the project never really finishes.
Over Budget Projects
Late projects cause costs. There are two ways to deal with this; accept the increase in cost, or reduce the scope so that the project fits into the budget and accept that it will not be finished. The balance to find is where the increase in cost justifies the end product, and that the lat
Building a permission based subscriber list is the first step in developing strong emarketing tools. While in most forms of marketing span and quantity are critical measurements, in emarketing a loyal, permission based subscriber list is a key factor and quantity takes a secondary position. Putting together your email list is simple: List the email address of every person with whom you have an existing business or personal relationship. That could be hundreds of people…clients, friends, people you’ve met at meetings, people that have given you their business card.Ask each of your employees to do the same and in very little time you could have an ema
This also helps in the planning and crisis management, as well as making sure that the project stays within scope. Since the third party is acting for both sides, and usually paid for by both sides, even if not directly, they are able to help both sides. This is useful if there is a danger of communications becoming fraught, as many projects fail simply as a result of a deteriorating relationship between client and contactor.
One legitimate cause of late projects is the change in scope or technology. While these need to be allowed, simply due to the nature of IT, they must be kept to a minimum, unless a rolling project can be set up in which new technology is always taken advantage of, and the project never really finishes.
Over Budget Projects
Late projects cause costs. There are two ways to deal with this; accept the increase in cost, or reduce the scope so that the project fits into the budget and accept that it will not be finished. The balance to find is where the increase in cost justifies the end product, and that the lat
In order to run a successful online business blog, you will have to think about making it more SEO friendly. It will help you to gain more traffic and therefore encourage more sales. So just what exactly is SEO and how can you add it to your blog?What is SEO?SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is used to make your website rank higher in search engines. You do this by using certain keywords that show your site on search engines such as Google and Yahoo. However, it can be difficult getting your website noticed on the major search engines as they usually prefer your website to have been up for at least a year or two and having it linked to from other w
Over Budget Projects
Late projects cause costs. There are two ways to deal with this; accept the increase in cost, or reduce the scope so that the project fits into the budget and accept that it will not be finished. The balance to find is where the increase in cost justifies the end product, and that the lateness associated with that does not cause indirect costs to rise.
One of the most difficult aspects of ETM is explaining to other people exactly what is going on. For example, ETM requires that interruptions are managed such that they do not interfere with the daily plan made first thing. This means that electronic mail will not be tackled until the mornings tasks are complete, telephone calls will not be made until the end of the day, and that people interrupting the flow will be asked to come back later.
These indirect costs will be likely to include a rise in staffing costs for those members of staff dependent on the successful outcome of the IT project to perform their daily tasks. Of course, the project management staff should have dealt with these at the outset of the project, and should be able to help minimise them.
Another root cause of budget over run is the employment of more staff to try and make sure that the project is delivered on time, and with all the required features. Sometimes, the client is not even aware that the budget has been over shot until the bill arrives. This is a symptom of bad project management, and can be avoided.
Finally, any late cycle changes in hardware or software specifications will cause a project to run over budget. These need to be avoided – even if it is a result of seeing an opportunity. Of course, if the client has been made aware that their request will cause an over run, then this might be acceptable for the benefits that the new development brings.
Summary
Proper planning prevents poor performance. This is one of the golden rules of any undertaking, but is even more important for IT projects. A complex system needs more planning than other, simpler, ones.
Proper communication prevents poor planning. By communication, we mean the ability of the parties to understand what it is the other is trying to put across. Sometimes a third party is needed to facilitate this communication and get the right project planned and executed, as opposed to just executing the wrong project correctly.
A project can succeed even if it is late and over budget, if it delivers enough benefits to the client. Understanding and communicating the benefits and costs are key to the success or failure of a project, and even in cases where the cost was higher than expected, a client can still come ba
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.atriclezine.com/article/168703/atriclezine-Late-and-Over-Budget--Why-IT-Projects-Fail.html">Late and Over Budget - Why IT Projects Fail</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.atriclezine.com/article/168703/atriclezine-Late-and-Over-Budget--Why-IT-Projects-Fail.html]Late and Over Budget - Why IT Projects Fail[/url]
Related Articles:
Make Great Gifts with Grocery Bargains
When Not To Refinance Your Home
Work At Home Jobs Or Work At Home Scams?! Keep Your Eyes Open!
Bookmark it:
|