Revive That Derailed Development Project (continued)
budgets for new projects. In 2004, however, the number rose to 18 percent and stayed steady in 2006. Johnson adds that in 1998 the project success rate was 26 percent, but by 2006, 35 percent of projects were delivered on time, on budget and in use.
Based on Johnson's "waste-to-value" ratio, companies are getting a better return on their IT investment. "For every dollar we spent on software projects in 1998, only 25 cents went towards value," explains Johnson, whereas by 2006, 59 cents went towards value. "I equate that to better project management, better project management techniques, smarter users who are able to articulate what their needs are and smaller projects that are more agile and done quicker."
Plan to Re-plan
"What sends a lot of software projects off track is poor initial conditions at the outset; mistakes get made fairly early in the lifecycle," says Peter Sterpe, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, in Cambridge, Mass. Software has a huge amount of variation and program requirements can easily change, Sterpe adds. "Estimating the scope of a project once and then never modifying it and sticking a team with it can really doom a project."
In the case of Benz's client, "There was no methodology. They were trying to solve lots of little tiny problems but they weren't looking at the whole picture," he says. The PCI project was low on the company's priority list and there was no plan for fixing all the problems that cropped up. (article continues)
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