In a world where more and more businesses are investing more and more in Technology,
why do so many run over budget, fail to meet expectation and take longer to deliver than
planned?
Why IT change projects should not fail!
I recently saw this piece of information on the web:
‘Half of IT projects over £15million run 45% over budget, nearly 10% over time and deliver
56% less functionality’
We know that IT systems are becoming an ever more important competitive element in
(almost) any business in any industry, from finance to design. Many businesses seek to
improve or grow their businesses through better use of Technology. But are IT change
projects worth the risk, and do they meet the dream?
‘’Technology projects are getting larger, touching more parts of the organisation, and posing
a risk to the company if something goes wrong,’’ according to a McKinsey paper. And as we
see too regularly, things often do go wrong.
Having worked on many change projects over the years, IT often plays a part in the overall
change process, if not the focus of the change itself.
I recently worked for a client on a project change and implementation of a new IT system
(approx. £3.5m) which was running behind schedule. The client wanted to understand why it
was running late and what needed attention to ‘get it moving’. The process we delivered
included interviewing (coaching conversations) a selection of people in the project and wider
business, and completing a robust diagnostic. The process gave us a number of reasons and
concerns about the poor progress of the project, including:
Employees not engaged early enough in the process
Lack of clarity around needs and expectations
Management’s desire for something new and shiny outweighing practical needs
Lack of, or low user engagement (People not feeling understood or involved)
Management not communicating appropriately or in a timely manner
Lack of belief in the process
Lack of belief that the change will be properly monitored and reported openly
Blame culture
It seems that the biggest challenge to delivering this IT change on time and within budget
was poor ‘soft skills’ such as communication, leadership, engaging people and exploring
expectations openly, rather than technical or financial matters.
In this day and age, this unacceptable. Most of you will agree that these points are hardly
revolutionary. Therefore they were probably known to people in the business before the
project started. And yet the business failed to identify, understand and attend to them.
Compare these real concerns against Kotter’s (Harvard) widely accepted, if somewhat
general, model to delivering change:
Create Sense of Urgency
Create Coalition of Advocates
Clarify purpose, ambition & strategy
Communicate the message
Empower broad based action
Create short term wins
Consolidate gains and produce more change
Anchor new approaches in culture
This demonstrates that even following Kotter’s simple approach – or using it as a check list –
will unquestionably save time and money and improve the process. Note that Kotter’s
approach benefits from attention before, during and after the change, and it’s the ‘before’
element that in my experience is often undervalued or too lightly skimmed over by clients.
Given the statistics that 70-80% of change projects – be that IT or otherwise – fail, the sad
reality is that your project will likely cost more, take longer, be more disruptive and deliver
less than you expected.
But it does not have to be that way, this number of change projects should not fail.
Some 50-70% of potential that exists in people, in business, remains untapped. Access that,
and you will significantly tip the balance of success in your favour by harnessing the
creativity, knowledge and experience that exists in your business before you start.
Here’s our proven Five Step Process to help you access that potential, identify and reduce
risks and hurdles that might slow or derail change, and greatly improve the likelihood of
successful change. We call the proven process EXACT, which delivers clarity and control by:
· Envision the future, how will the project add value, who will benefit
· eXtract what the organisation needs to do in order to achieve its goal or change
· Where management’s Attention now, and where do you need to refocus attention and
resources to improve performance. Identify and map potential hurdles to delivering the
project or strategy using out MAE diagnostic.
· Cognition: Shaping and support the organisation and leadership
· Transform the organisation by managing and delivering the necessary projects in the right
way
If the figure stated earlier ‘half of IT projects over £15million run 45% over budget’ is
anything like correct, then investing £100k in understanding specifically what potential
pitfalls or risks might derail or slow your project, so that you can identify where you need to
pay precise attention to move more efficiently and effectively to value, makes great business
sense. Even on a £3.5m million project, taking this time up front will return significant value,
not just the Tech Change, but in the culture, learning and behaviours of he business.
