Monday, February 13, 2012

Gearing up for IT Project Failure!

You sometimes have to wonder why Government and even Corporates think that they are immune to the risks of IT project failures. One would think that prior to making such a massive IT investment decision they would at least have understood and applied the simple rule of IT success:
  "The 1st law of IT project outcomes" - Big budget & Long time frame = Guaranteed failure. You can choose one or the other - but not both.

Even where "Agile" or "Incremental" development methods are applied, they will also fail when the plan is extravagantly "Grandiose", typically with deep pockets, no plan and very likely no accountability. Even Prince2 or Gateway Methodology are not silver-bullets to solve such large-scale endeavors (as is evidenced by numerous UK Government IT Project failures).

History has shown time and time again that throwing big money at a big problem almost always end in tears (except of course for the beneficiaries of the tax payers' dollars who are cajoling Dunne down this doomed highway to Hell).

I am not sure how the IRD (Inland Revenue Department) come up with the figures and statistics or why the New Zealand Revenue Minister, Peter Dunne is apparently agreeing with the statistics and facts referenced in this article at http://budurl.com/q5yx, but this project is already on the road to Hell by virtue of his budget from Hell. 
Kind regards
Sarah Jane Runge