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Guess why so many Information Technology Projects fail... |
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What's wrong with this picture: The lead company technician has done an outstanding job building the initial technology infrastructure. Let's reward the effort by making the technician a project manager!
How could the scenario above possibly relate to industry statistics that indicate over 70% of technology projects are late; or over budget; or they just plain fade away into a budgetary black hole? Could it be that successful technicians; or successful software developers; or successful anything else's do not have the right stuff to be project managers?
Don't start crying "foul" quite yet. There is a solution to this universal problem--at least a potential one. Read on for details!
The first hurdle you will need to get across is that most people believe that project management is nothing more than "management". While project managers do, indeed, manage, they also perform an incredibly complex series of hidden functions to bring a project along to successful completion.
Smart Step One: Learn everything you can about "real" project management. Find out what makes projects fail as well as what goes into making them succeed. You don't need to become a project rocket scientist, but you do need to gain a higher level of perspective because you--you--need to begin educating your fellow employees (and management--especially management) about the foundations of managing successful projects.
The second hurdle you may need to consider is that--and please don't get all crazy on me--the average technical expert (or software developer) has a certain consistency in their general character makeup. In general--very general--technical people tend to like their tech toys--their own little tech-based universe. Successful project managers are first and foremost communicators--people people, if you will.
Smart Step Two: Getting the average technical person out of their cube and away from their comfort zone can easily spell project management disaster. We're not saying that techs aren't capable of becoming successful project managers but, you just plain gotta be aware of the personality traits. Otherwise you'll invest more time, money, and frustration in preparing a generally not quite so round peg to fit into a definitely round hole.
One more hurdle then I'll shut up. Industry figures show that fewer than 25% of information technology personnel have received genuine project management training. Enough said?
Get your project personnel--both the project managers and project team members trained. Project management is not a wing-it activity. If you want specific results from your project personnel than you will have to ensure that they are well prepared--personally and professionally--to play with your money. Based on industry track records, you don't have to invest too much to gain a significant improvement--but you DO have to invest if you want success.
Is there more to discuss? Absolutely! But this isn't the forum for a long diatribe. If you want to be more successful than your competitors than you have to be more prepared than they are. A cost-effective project management environment requires everyone in the company to become more involved in serious objective definition and focus.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know and we'll follow up. Want more information on project management training? Take a look at our accredited project management professional development programs.
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