Early Warning Signs of IT Project Failure

20% of IT projects are cancelled before completion and less than a third are finished on time and within budget with expected functionality.


In a recent article in the journal Information Systems Management, a survey of information technology projects experts was undertaken to establish the early warning signs of IT project failures.


The research team first searched the literature extensively to develop a preliminary list of early warning signs.


Next, 19 IT project management experts were asked to assess the list.


On the basis of their feedback, a list of 53 early warning signs was developed.


Finally, the research team invited 138 experienced IT project managers (including the original 19 experts) to participate in rating the 53 early warning signs using a scale from 1 (extremely unimportant) to 7 (extremely important).


In order of importance the listing is as follows (with the average rating noted):


1. Lack of top management support or commitment to the project 6.59 (out of 7)


2. Functional, performance, and reliability requirements and scope are not documented 6.58


3. Project manager(s) cannot effectively lead the team and communicate with clients 6.38


4. No change control process 6.33


5. Project stakeholders have not been interviewed for project requirements 6.32


6. No documented milestone deliverables and due dates 6.30


7. Undefined project success criteria 6.28


8. Project team members have weak commitment to the project scope and schedule 6.17


9. Communication breakdown among project stakeholders 6.17


10. Key project stakeholders do not participate in major review meetings 6.16


11. Project team members do not have required knowledge/skills 6.16


12. Project resources have been assigned to a higher priority project 6.12


13. No business case for the project 6.11


14. No project status progress process 6.11


15. Schedule deadline not reconciled to the project schedule 6.09


16. Early project delays are ignored — no revision to the overall project schedule 6.04


17. Subject matter experts are overscheduled: retain all prior duties yet expected to provide substantial participation to the project 6.04


18. No planning and estimation documentation 5.96


19. Project managers have poor training 5.94


20. Key stakeholders do not review and sign off deliverables on a timely basis 5.93


21. Project stakeholder decision delays have caused due dates to be missed 5.93


22. No due diligence on vendor(s) and team members 5.91


23. No written commitment for the project outside of the project team 5.88


24. Significant goal, scope, or schedule requirements change immediately after project kickoff 5.85


25. Team members have undefined roles and responsibilities 5.83


26. No project communications plan or resources devoted to managing and communicating project expectations 5.80


27. Project team members are overscheduled 5.77


28. Users are not willing to cooperate 5.75


29. No team member experience with the chosen technology 5.73


30. No project management methodology 5.67


31. No project charter document at early stage of project 5.65


32. No risk analysis documentation and process 5.65


33. Failure to gather requirement via joint application design 5.63


34. No documented analysis of business strategy alignment 5.61


35. Major new risks are identified after the project kickoff 5.59


36. No performance and reliability requirements metrics tracking process 5.57


37. Approved project budget less than budget estimated by the project team 5.56


38. Budget, schedule, scope, and quality all mandated from outside the project team 5.56


39. Project manager(s) have never managed a project of this scale before 5.55


40. Deliverable due dates missed during the first 10 percent of the project schedule 5.54


41. IT operations infrastructure and network infrastructure problems have major impact on project team productivity 5.52


42. Difficulty in determining the input and output of the system 5.51


43. Cultural conflict among organizations involved 5.50


44. No contingency budget for known risks and rate of changes 5.50


45. Unstable organization environment (such as changes in senior management or restructuring) 5.49


46. Project team member(s) have low morale 5.48


47. Key team member turnover after project kickoff 5.45


48. Key stakeholders have not signed the project charter 5.36


49. Large number of interfaces to other system required 5.30


50. Users cannot get involved because of lack of understanding of new system capabilities 5.29


51. Project involves implementing a custom or beta version of hardware or software 5.10


52. Users or technical support team feel threatened by a project to replace their legacy system 4.80


53. Earned value systems not in place or used to control program 4.56

The History of the Humble Suggestion Box

The humble suggestion box – whether real or online – remains one of the most powerful process improvement and risk mitigation tools.


The first recorded suggestion program was implemented in 1770 by the British Navy. They realized the need for a process for listening to every individual in the organization – without fear of reprisal.

At that time, the mere mention of an idea that contradicted a captain's or admiral's opinion was likely to be punished by hanging.

The first physical box to collect ideas appeared at William Denny & Brothers shipyard in Scotland in 1880.

It was intended to collect ideas from all employees and to pay a 'fair' reward for each implementable idea.

This approach of the suggestion scheme spread rapidly through the country following government reports on the project’s success.

In 1892 NCR became the first US company to implement a company-wide suggestion program.

The concept was the 'hundred-headed brain', developed by John Patterson, their infamous CEO. He realized early in his business career that employees had valuable ideas but that management structures tended to prevent these ideas from spreading through the company.

Employees complained that there was no point giving ideas to their supervisors as the best ideas were stolen, and the worst ideas used as a pretext for their dismissal.

Suggestion boxes became popular in the manufacturing sector in WWII and the post-war years. They became part of the total quality movement and an integral part of cost, safety and quality improvement initiatives over the following fifty years.

They are still the mainstay of corporate suggestion programs, be they physical boxes or virtual boxes on company intranet web sites.

These programs are grounded in the premise that workers know more about their immediate surroundings than anybody else, and are smart enough to spot defects in products and procedures and to figure out solutions to them.

***
At 2:15 on a Friday afternoon, as the production lines churn out pens, razors and cigarette lighters, 15 employees of the Bic Corporation abruptly leave their posts and file into a conference room.

Machinists pull up chairs next to their managers at the table.

Charlie Tichy, an hourly employee with a tattoo left over from his service days, takes a seat at the head of the table.

''Everyone ready?'' he asks, although he has their attention.

Mr. Tichy, who holds the title of employee-involvement administrator, begins reading aloud from the slips he has pulled during the last week from the plant's suggestion boxes.

The ideas range from buying a $2 ''gutter scoop'' for cleaning underneath a pen-point machine to redesigning the factory's packaging area, with a hand-drawn diagram showing how.

Whenever the group voices its support for a proposal, its slip is passed down the table to the appropriate supervisor, who has 10 days to put the change in place.

This is no management gimmick to stroke workers' egos, either. Bic, which is owned by Societe Bic S.A. of France, takes what it calls its employee-involvement program very seriously, viewing it as a way to spur morale and productivity and ultimately bolster corporate profits.

At Bic last year, 577 employees out of 684 hourly manufacturing employees, wrote 2,999 suggestions, and every one was mulled over at a meeting like this one. Some 2,368 were carried out.

The employees were not necessarily looking to cash in; the most coveted award, Suggestion of the Month, nets the winner only a modest after-tax bonus of $100 and a reserved parking space.

Baggage Mountain - Heathrow Terminal 5

The failures in final project delivery will badly impact on Heathrow’s already challenged reputation for many years to come.

London Heathrow Airport is the principal and biggest airport serving the United Kingdom.



Heathrow is also Europe’s busiest airport for passenger traffic, and handles more international passenger traffic than any other airport in the world.



The possibility of a fifth terminal at Heathrow emerged as early as 1982. The proposal for T5 was formally announced in May 1992. A public inquiry began in 1995 and lasted until 1999.

Finally on 20 November 2001, more than eight years after the initial planning application, then-transport minister Stephen Byers announced the British government's decision to grant planning permission for the building of a fifth passenger terminal at Heathrow.

Queen Elizabeth II officially opened Terminal 5 in a ceremony on 14 March 2008.


***


On the day of the terminal opening for passenger traffic, British Airways cancelled 34 flights due to "teething problems" and was later forced to suspend passenger check-in.


A malfunction in the new baggage handling system meant that flights took off without bags, and people faced delays of up to four hours as a result of waiting for baggage.


On Thursday 27 March and Friday 28 March, 100 flights were cancelled whilst delays continued for a third day on the following Saturday.


On 31 March 2008 Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said that over 28,000 bags owned by passengers were "missing".


On 2 April 2008 British Airways reported that they were to send 15,000 of the delayed passenger bags destined for mainland Europe to Milan for sorting and return to customers.


British Airways said today that the chaotic opening of London Heathrow airport's new Terminal 5 was set to cost the airline about 16 million pounds ($A34.82 million).


British Airways added that the terminal would operate a full flight schedule on Saturday for the first time since it opened one week ago and that to date the airline had cancelled 300 flights owing to logistical problems.


About 14,000 bags have still not been returned to their rightful owners, who may not see them for another week.


***


The new terminal had officially opened to traffic at 3am on Thursday 27 March 2008.

British Airways' first woman pilot, Captain Lynn Barton, 51, was at the controls of first flight in — a service from Hong Kong that touched down eight minutes early at 4.42am.


The first flight away from the terminal was a BA flight to Paris, which left on time at 6.20am.


After a good start to the day, with the first flight arriving eight minutes early and no luggage delays, problems accumulated.


First, staff had problems with the car park and at security points, then a computer problem led to some departing flights having to leave with no luggage aboard.


Downstairs in the giant building, passengers off the first Hong Kong flight all got their bags in quick time.


But soon it was clear there were major problems with baggage reclaim, with some passengers having to wait as long as two-and-a-half hours to collect their cases.


By lunch time the knock-on affect of all the problems led BA to cancel 20 flights – a figure which later increased to 34.


In early afternoon, a huge queue wound back from the cancellation flights desk as people lined up to try to get away on other flights or get refunds.


To add to the difficulties the luggage belt in one part of the departure lounge failed and passengers were moved further down to a workable area.


Then at around 5pm, BA decided to suspend the checking in of all luggage going into the hold.


This left passengers already at the airport with the choice of either flying with just hand luggage, getting an alternative flight or getting their money back.


Baggage handlers were unable to log on to the system, which had been hailed as being capable of handling 12,000 bags per hour, after computers failed to recognise staff identities.


One of BA’s main worker-focused tools designed for use at T5 is a staff allocation platform staff allocation platform, which is intended to quickly screen staff in case of high-pressure events.


Although staff familiarisation processes have been carried out for a year prior to the opening, BA blamed its own training as one of the reasons for the disruption.


“You can train staff as much and as long as you want, but the when it comes to the people element of processes you can never achieve perfection,” said the BA spokesman.


“So while these faults cannot be expected, we hope that they can be accepted and that the public will bear with us,” he said.


In its pre-opening simulations, British Airways tested the terminal with as many as 2,000 people.
On its first day of operation, some 40,000 people crowded the terminal.