Management Toolkit

Story: Microsoft: Failing IT pros should be struck off

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A risky business

Jerry Fishenden draws a long bow when linking IT project failure with the incompetence of a technologist. Project sponsors and senior stakeholders with overly ambitious expectations ask a PM to build a project team from a limited pool of resources to meld bespoke software and bleeding edge technologies together in such a way that the end-user (who had little input in to the whole process) is satisfied. So who's to blame if in the testing phase the whole thing unravels with time and cost overruns??

The issue here is that IT projects inherently carry a large degree of risk. Failings are more often related to poor management and lack of effective communication than poor technologists. In this immature industry failures should be expected, and the "lessons-learned" loop completed so we all learn from failure and do it better next time.

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