Naked CIO: How to make projects succeed

Both the public and private sectors have trouble delivering successful IT projects. The Naked CIO asks: could they learn something from each other?

A recent article on silicon.com about the way the public sector is trying to improve project delivery got me thinking about the drive to deploy projects successfully.

The public and private sectors both strive towards delivering effective projects on time and on budget. They both fail miserably but the reasons for failure are very different.

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The public sector has too much process and bureaucracy to be effective in its pursuit. This creates a lethargic system of approvals and steps that makes projects ineffective as needs change in the time it takes to get the necessary oversight and approval in place.

Another problem is deciding on a path before one civil servant is replaced by another and new ideals are brought in.

I have never been a fan of public sector IT and believe those that serve as CIOs in this area deserve to be commended. It is not an atmosphere that is conducive to innovation and rarely is driven towards people but rather born by process that stagnates and defuses good technology and ideas.

On the other hand I must admit the private sector has its own unique set of challenges - and successfully managed IT projects seem just as rare as in the public sector.

This stems from the lack of effective process to ensure key requirements are identified and articulated in a way in which projects can be delivered to meet requirements.

Business custodians generally have little time to look after projects and always want plausible deniability - and thus often intentionally convolute the playing field in order to have an excuse if it fails. This is not just reserved for business custodians; there are IT leaders that are guilty of this as well.

This frustrates me because there is no such thing as plausible deniability within IT. If it fails we are all to blame. The 'Teflon approach' doesn't wash with me.

When it comes to project management, normally I would refuse to admit the public sector has anything to offer private sector CIOs or IT organisations. But perhaps we can learn from each other.

If the public sector could learn to streamline processes and to rid itself of bureaucracy and instead drive process around performance, it could see much more success.

Equally if the private sector invested more in processes that enforce proper planning before execution, perhaps it could deliver better results.

The way I look at it, the public sector is 'ready, ready, ready, aim, aim, aim, fire' while the private sector is 'ready, fire, aim'.

To get the bull's eye we must just both concentrate on simplicity: ready, aim, fire.