American CIOs show how it's done

Could UK CIOs learn a thing or two about managing IT projects from their American brethren?

When an IT project is late and corporate profits are threatened, most UK managers (63 per cent) said they would reduce the project's scope. The next most common responses were to increase the budget (45 per cent) or reduce quality and performance testing (31 per cent), research from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and HP reveals.

Across the pond in the Americas however, the most common response was to increase automation of manual IT processes - 41 per cent of North and South American IT leaders chose this option compared to less than one-fifth of UK respondents.

About 40 per cent of American CIOs would reduce the project scope and 38 per cent would increase the budget, the survey of of 1,125 IT chiefs reveals.

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Dave Clarke, HP software pre-sales manager, said the differences between the UK and the Americas could be cultural with the New World having more of a "hire and fire" work ethic.

Clarke added the American IT chiefs may set out a project's requirements better than their UK counterparts - or simply not admit when they scale down a failing IT project.

But lateness appears to be a problem around the globe. More than one-third of all respondents admitted 25 per cent or more of their IT projects were late.

Clarke said: "The consequence from the industry is the demands on the IT department have outstripped their ability to deliver."