Management Toolkit
Story: Seven in 10 government IT projects fail
IT projects need not fail with proper planning and testing
Sir,
It is not before time for senior government IT officials to wake up to the failure rate of public IT projects (“Seven in 10 government IT projects fail”, 17th May).
An enormous amount of money has been spent on IT projects, such as the NPfIT, that are more likely to be deemed failures than successes. The majority of problems facing public sector IT projects stem from a complete failure to plan properly prior to the implementation process. Frustratingly, it seems that failure is all too often accepted as pair for the course, when in fact it can be easily avoided. Rigorous testing prior to and during any software project can highlight problems before they become critical. Added to this, by thoroughly defining the objectives of the project at the outset, schemes can be run successfully and with fewer time delays and budget concerns.
Software development should be viewed as a managed business process, which can be successfully regulated like any other project within the business.
I very much hope that Joe Hawley’s comments lead to alert people to this issue so that the simple processes which would rectify this situation are put in place.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Gedney
MD, Borland UK
Full Talkback thread
