Studies into the failure of IT projects almost always make reference to poor requirements as a leading source of failure. Requirements are of course a vital part of any project. Without knowing what you’re building how can you build something of value? Although I agree that getting the requirements right is a central pillar of project success, I do have a problem in pinning project failure on poor requirements.
As those who have run IT projects know, establishing requirements can be a tricky ...
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Revisisting Deming
Most people who have been through basic management or quality management training will have been exposed to the work of Edwards Deming. Known particularly for his work in helping Japanese companies establish a quality culture, Deming is regarded as a founding father of the quality movement. Although Deming is best known for his use of process improvement as a tool for improving quality, Deming’s thinking covered a considerably broader view of the organization.
One of Deming’s greatest contrib...
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The Process Fallacy
As many readers will know, the idea of “continual process improvement” is a pillar of the quality management movement. By improving processes, the root cause of problems that allow mistakes to be made can be eliminated, thereby allowing the organization to produce higher quality goods and services.
Although the idea of continual improvement started in the manufacturing sector, in the mid 1990’s the idea gained ground in the IT sector as well. Models such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM)...
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Steering Clear of Shoddy
Although home renovation projects and IT projects may not appear to have much in common, there is one regard in which they are striking similar, both suffer from undesirably high failure rates. In Canada, TV personality and master contractor Mike Holmes draws attention to failed home renovations projects in his show “Holmes on Homes”. Each week Mike visits a home owner who has been the victim of a shoddy contractor and exposes the poor workmanship they left behind.
The problems in the home re...
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Push and Pull
Although I’m not a great fan of taking concepts from the manufacturing sector and bending them so they can be applied to the IT sector, the idea of “push” versus “pull” processes is one that is worth considering. The concept of push versus pull comes from the field of lean manufacturing and is used to identify who in a chain of manufacturing processes is requesting work to be done. In the factory environment work is broken down into discrete processes which are linked together in a chain. Raw ma...
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Rickety Retrospectives
Lesson learned: Seek out root-causes of project failures, not just surface symptoms.
Category: Retrospectives / Organizational learning
The following post is a “Lesson Learned” that comes from the analysis of the failed projects documented in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” or from the experiences the editorial team have had working with clients around the world. The post is published here to spark discussion and help individuals and organizations think about what it takes to improve project ...
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Template Tunnel Vision
Most organizations have templates for creating project proposals, project plans and other project deliverables. There’s no doubt that templates are a useful starting point when creating documentation. They help ensure consistent presentation and in theory, prompt people into thinking through the different issues relating to the project.
Unfortunately, in practice templates sometimes have the opposite effect. Rather than prompting people into thinking, templates sometimes lead to a pattern of ...
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And “Voila”
Implementing a process improvement initiative within an organization is an activity fraught with difficulty. On paper it sounds easy. Define the new process, document it, publish it, do some training and voila. In practice, most organizations struggle with the “voila” stage.
Of course the problem comes down to culture change. Culture change is the dark place where deeply entrenched patterns of behavior do battle with the concept of change. Unfortunately, in most cases “entrenched patterns” t...
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Disconnect Failures
Projects are about creating value but that simple fact often gets lost due to the emphasis we place on schedule and budget. Although schedule and budget are important, where they become a project’s primary focus we run the risk of triggering a “disconnect failure”. Disconnect failures occur when a project delivers its deliverables, but the connection between those deliverables and the actual creation of value gets lost.
Disconnect failures are unfortunately all too common. Likely because sche...
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Beginner’s Mind
At the recent Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Lisamarie Babik of Menlo Innovations gave an excellent talk entitled “Beginners Mind”. For those not familiar with the expression, the term refers to the open and receptive state of mind that we have when we’re beginners at something. The concept is based on the observation that beginners approach things differently from those who see themselves as experts. Where beginners are receptive to new ideas, try to think...
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