Project Failures and Project Management Failures

Information Technology Project Management

CIS 9480 UFA [62952]

Computer Information Systems Department

Bernard M. Baruch College

The City University of New York [pic 1][pic 2]

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Project Failures and Project Management Failures

Project success consists of two separate components, project management success and project product success^[1]. There are different layers in project success. According to figure 1, we can distinguish between those two components^[2]. Project management failure means that project manager fails to execute the project efficiently. The project manager cannot meet the triple constraint (project scope, time, and cost goals) or facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and expectations of project stakeholders. Project failure means that neither the project management success component is achieved, nor the output of the project, a product or a service, creates value. It has not delivered what was agreed, satisfied quality expectations, meet organizational needs and achieved the desired outcomes. [pic 6][pic 7]

A project is considered a ‘success’ when it delivers what it said it would, on schedule, within the agreed budget and to the expected quality standards. The product produced by the project creates significant net value for the organization after the project ends. If not, a project is considered a ‘failure’. There are many causes of project failure and every failed project will have its own set of problems. It may be a single trigger event that results in failure, but in most cases, it is a complex set of issues that combine and cumulatively lead to the project failure. Main reasons that frequently contribute to project failure include lack of a project charter, lack of user involvement, poor scope definition, scope creep, and inadequate testing etc. Projects have beginning and ending, are unique in nature, and involves a variety of team players. It is not easy to systematize and to develop perfect methodologies and processes for projects. This is why so many projects fail nowadays.

Using Four frames to Describe BBC

The BBC is a corporation, independent from direct government intervention, with its activities being overseen by the BBC Trust. General management of the organization is in the hands of a Director-General, who is appointed by the Trust; he is the BBC’s Editor-in-Chief and chairs the Executive Board. The BBC operates under a Royal Charter. The current Charter came into effect on 1 January 2007 and runs until 31 December 2016. Each successive Royal Charter is reviewed before a new one is granted.  The 2007 charter specifies that the mission of the Corporation is to “inform, educate and entertain”. It states that the Corporation exists to serve the public interest and to promote its public purposes.  The 2007 Charter made the largest change in the governance of the Corporation since its inception. It abolished the controversial governing body, the Board of Governors, replacing it with the BBC Trust and a formalized Executive Board.

 About the Failed DMI Project

The Digital Media Initiative (DMI) was a British broadcast engineering project launched by the BBC in 2008. It is a technology transformation project designed to allow BBC staff to develop, create, share and manage video and audio content and programming on their desktop, and intended to improve production efficiency across the BBC. DMI was a strategic investment in infrastructure, people and production processes that supported both the BBC’s creative vision and its technology strategy to standardize the production, storage and use of digital content across TV, radio and online. After a protracted development process lasting five years with a spending of £98 million between 2010 and 2012, the project was finally abandoned in May 2013. Figure 2 indicates the timeline of DMI development^[3].[pic 8][pic 9]

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Failure to align with the Business and Its Requirements

There is a poor engagement between IT and the business at many stages of the project. One of the biggest challenges facing the project was the changes to requirements requested by the business. The project has suffered from a lack of clear and consistent direction with respect to the business requirements and priorities. There isn’t enough power for the business representatives to make decisions on behalf of the whole production community. The frequent changes in business directions and requirements have impacted the efficiency of programme delivery. Delays in the project result in the fact that off-the-shelf software available on the market caught up with the capabilities expected from DMI.

Three Key Constraints

The DMI project managers strived to meet the following triple constraint (scope, time and cost goals) and also facilitate the entire process to meet the needs and expectations of the DMI project stakeholders. DMI was required to deliver:

• A data management system with a structured format for data, and a catalogue database that listed all archived projects and content;
• A digital archive to store all new BBC content;
• Production tools, such as desktop editing tools;
• Common enterprise services underpinning the above. [pic 11]

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What’s more, DMI is required to deliver a standard set of process across the BBC which required a significant change in operational and cultural ways of working.  Figure 3 lists the original timeline for each release^[4].

Costs associated with the delivery of each release were not given in the business case. Cumulative cost data for DMI was not available either.  The following analysis in figure 4 was created to analyze the budget and cost^[5].

Costs should be tracked against either delivery milestones or components of the solution delivered. However, there was no evidence that this was the case. It is difficult to understand costs spent against progress achieved. Providing estimates of cost to complete is a normal practice. Due to the lack of these estimates, DMI would not have been able to determine whether the totality of the Business Case could be delivered for the budget that had been delegated to it by the Director General’s Finance Committee. This is one of the most important reasons for failure which will be discussed later.[pic 13]