Do you want to know how to prevent IT projects that have
failed due to reasons that could have been prevented? What is a Project Manager? It is to deliver and do so in a way that
benefits the sponsor and lives up to their expectations such as; progress, cost,
quality, performance, cash flow, safety, health & environmental standards,
regulatory, reporting and risk to name a few of the obvious. This book by Natalie will tell you by her
experience why Project Managers have failed and why and then it will prove that
all of them could have been prevented from failure. It makes me wonder why the Project Managers
are not improving their skills by learning how to proactively take charge of a
project, communicate better and then lead the project team to a complete
success. After ten years of research
Natalie has decided to focus her book on the IT industry. This is a book that existing
and future Project Managers will need to read and learn the lessons she did to
take preventative measures in their own projects and helps businesses from
failing in the future. We all learn from
our mistakes. People want "instant
gratification" and want the product and services faster and cheaper than
the competition. In the future supply
and demand for Project Managers, the IT industry will not suffer in the area of
employment. With technology changing at the speed of lightening all around the
world. What I learned to be of most value to myself
as a
Technical Manager Degree master is that J.P. Morgan Chase & Company in
2012 had its biggest failure due to an Excel spreadsheet with formula's that
miscalculated market advice with incorrect calculations copied over throughout
the spreadsheets and if the Chief Investment Officer was more careful the
person would of verified the calculations and instead did not and the project
produced a loss in trades around six billion.
Since then the failure has now lead to wide spread improvements across
the board.
Most common reasons Projects Fail:
System and user requirements which means their needs to be
adequate and Clear requirement so the project will not fail as in the past.
The Gap is another one, which means that the IT system’s
requirements and what is expected of it needs to be a priority.
Non-compliance which mean that Project managers need to know
the current laws in order for it to not fail.
The laws needs to be laid out so the company will really know what it is
getting into so that no legal troubles come down the road to cost more money
for the business.
Failing to consider integration which involves analyzing the
project from an enterprise level. This
means that Project manager need to take into consideration how the IT project
will work with important business processes.
Most important businesses need to consider how well the program it uses
if it will work with the project a whole and keep it running smoothly as a
whole from start to finish.
Not bringing in experts, think about it the experts are
needed when coming up with an IT program's requirements, time needs to be taken
with designing a system's projects. The
only solution is to bring in Subject Matter experts.
Looking for a problem which for an IT project to be a
success the requirements need to solve a problem that businesses and companies
have in the first place which is cost effective. The solution is that stakeholders of an IT
project need to know what problems need to be solves so they can cater their
product to those specific issues.
Drifting is when the requirements simply do not go with the
business case, and IT project can be going the wrong direction. Keeping projects on tract at whatever the
cost needs to be the goal.
Architecture is controlled by Requirements which means that
this can slow down an IT project. The
requirements will do its job and tell what the architecture will need in order
for the project to become successful.
Misguided priorities which means that a company’s priorities
need to be accurate for the success of an IT project. In conclusion to help the
failure of IT projects there are things that can be done to help the company to
either lessen the impact or failure of the project. This means that the committee should be led
by a senior business executive who does not serve also as the chief information
officer but also includes senior staff members whose occupations are from areas
or lines of business that would be affected by the system created, if not the
business changes should delivered in such a way that meets expected benefits.
Book Review written by Jackie Paulson © 2016 requested by
Author Natalie Disque
