“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso
It is an old story: about 30% of IT application projects succeed, 45% are “challenged,” and the other quarter fail altogether. That’s the consistent result over the years of the Standish Group Study of Project Outcomes. Jorge Dominguez, here, displays a chart of the remarkably similar results since 1994. Not a pretty picture, right? Some question the validity of the Standish studies, but Scott Ambler parallels the Standish story in a recent Dr Dobbs column called “Lies, Great Lies, and Software Development Project Plans,” which itemizes the strategies commonly used by IT project managers to “stay out of trouble” when schedule/budget results don’t match initial estimates. For example, “18% change the original schedule to reflect the actual results”. Continue reading »