The last thing any company wants or
needs is a technology train wreck — a
disastrous failure of its information processing systems. After all, a company’s
success is based to a great extent on how
efficiently and how rapidly it can process
and disseminate information.
Fortunately, companies can avoid technology train wrecks if they work with the
proper mix of internal and external business and information technology (IT) specialists to design, install, implement,
enhance and maintain state-of-the-art systems that are within their budgets and on
schedule. Companies should recognize that
it is communications, issues handling and
conflict resolution that dictate the success
or failure of a project.
Smart Business spoke with Paul Kanneman of Grant Thornton LLP to learn how
companies can avoid technology train
wrecks and keep their IT systems on track
without hurting their bottom lines.
Are technology train wrecks more likely or
less likely to occur in today’s sophisticated IT
environment?
About 20 years ago, the failure rate of all
technology projects was around 80-plus
percent, which means that they missed on
both budget and schedule. Since then, we
have had a whole industry created around
project management of large technology
initiatives. But, depending on which survey
you look at now, today’s failure rate is
somewhere between 70 and 75 percent,
with about 45 percent failing outright.
So we are not that much better off than
we were 20 years ago when it comes to
developing technology initiatives. The
potential for technology train wrecks still
exists.
What causes the disconnect between technology and business needs that leads to train
wrecks?
We are dealing with two competing
trends. Technology is getting more complicated, and the need for the rapid integration between it and different pieces of a
business is growing more and more necessary. The problem causing train wrecks, however, may not be the technology. It is
because all too often managers don’t have
the discipline to answer up front — before
they even acquire the hardware and software components — the necessary questions about what the technology can really
do for their business. They should be asking questions like whether the technology
is even required to do what they want and
how it can do it. Answering those questions before acquiring the technology components goes a long way to help prevent
technology train wrecks.
What else can help?
Three critical components for alleviating
train wrecks are a much tighter integration
between the business and technology communities, a focus on the organizational
changes requiring IT initiatives, and an
emphasis on project participants’ soft
skills.
For example, closing the ‘air gap’ between
the business and IT sides in a technology
initiative is essential. IT people may not
truly understand business needs, and the
business people don’t grasp the technology
and what it can and cannot do. They look at
IT as a world of wizards who can make
business solutions just happen. Misconceptions like that have to be eliminated.
Who should be working on technology initiative projects?
Companies that want to develop cost-effective, state-of-the-art information technology systems have to commit their top
business talent to a project. Those people
know what needs to be done and have the
credibility and credentials to make the
decisions required to make sure that it is. If
management does not make that commitment, it is abrogating business decisions to
IT specialists who may not be fully versed
in the company’s business side.
Conversely, the best-qualified IT people
should be assigned as well — and they
should have the required hard and soft
business skills. Overall, IT experts are getting better at understanding the business
side, but letting them make all the decisions can be a sure way to derail a project,
if not to cause an all-out train wreck.
Do soft skills play any role in keeping a project on track?
Yes. Everybody involved in a technology
initiative project should have two of the
most important soft skills: conflict resolution and issue communications. They have
to be able to resolve the inevitable conflicts
that will arise on projects. If project members cannot communicate and resolve
problems, all the well-designed project
plans available will be useless. What gets
projects completed successfully is communication and action, not plans. If the soft
skills are not present on the project, all the
bad assumptions, disagreements and conflicts will get put on the back burner just so
everyone can make progress. More often
than not, those issues never get resolved,
progress becomes an illusion, and the project fails.
The success or failure of a technology initiative project does not rest on what a computer can or cannot do. Rather, it depends
on defining what a computer can do, and
that can only be done through clear, concise and consistent communications.
PAUL KANNEMAN is regional principal in charge of business
advisory services with Grant Thornton LLP. Reach him at (214)
561-2256 or [email protected].