June 15th, 2009
Pentagon kills $6.3 billion missile technology project
The Pentagon canceled Northrop Grumman’s Kinetic Energy Interceptor program amid accusations by Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, that the system’s design would not accomplish key military objectives.
It’s not an IT failure, per se, but certainly a great example of poor fit-to-purpose between technology and business requirements, leading to project abandonment and failure. Northrop Grumman had completed approximately $1.2 billion of work at the time of cancellation.
The Pentagon said it terminated the project for the “convenience of the government” and not because of problems with Northrop.
Northrop Grumman describes the system:
KEI is the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) element that is being designed to destroy enemy ballistic missiles during their boost and early midcourse phases of flight. It is also the first ballistic missile defense weapon system to be developed without the constraints of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Reuters said Gates stopped the program because:
June 5th, 2009
Kill your dead horse failures fast!
Some projects will never (as in no chance, baby) achieve intended goals, despite substantial investment of time, resources, and political capital. Even so, many organizations find it difficult to terminate these inevitable failures because of fear, denial, shortsightedness, or lack of consensus.
A post from the Self Improvement Revolution blog hits directly on difficulties associated with ending failures mid-stream:
But the resulting mindset for the project effort can often be so focused on getting the project back on track that it pays no attention to the fact that the project may very well be a dead horse that is still being flogged. It is wise to be open to the possibility that the project is a like a horse that will never run again. So stop flogging it!
It often takes courage to close a project prematurely because often you are likely to upset someone further up the hierarchy. Closing a project early is not for the faint of heart who are afraid to upset the boss, which is why independent consultants often step up to the mark and do the necessary.
There are many large smelly projects that were the brainchild of a C-level executive still laying in dark corners of companies. They have often become irrelevant, expensive and a complete waste of time and effort. No one has the courage to get the executive in question to face up to the fact that their project was not the best idea after all.
There’s truth hidden in the hyperbole of this excerpt.
Allowing a dead horse project to run its course means greater expense, more wasted time, and continued investment of political capital. As a result, the consequences of termination only become worse over time. For your own sake, kill these failures sooner than later.
[Image via iStockphoto.]
June 4th, 2009
Reviewing Sapphire, user interfaces, the Devil's Triangle, and IT success
This guest post was written by Jon Reed, an accomplished blogger, SAP expert, and author of the website jonerp.com. Jon interviewed me following SAP’s recent Sapphire conference, and we discussed a variety of topics that are of interest to readers of this blog. Listen to the recording by clicking the player at the top of this post and read Jon’s summary of our interview. Jon originally posted this as an article on his blog.
SAPPHIRE 2009, BUSINESS BYDESIGN, AND ERP PROJECT FAILURE (AND HOW TO AVOID IT)
Written by: Jon Reed
Interview Date: May 22, 2009
In the first installment of his “Sapphire in Review” podcast series, Jon Reed of JonERP.com welcomes special guest Michael Krigsman, President of Asuret and popular ZDNet blogger and Tweeter. Michael’s focus is evaluating the keys to IT project success and failure, so during this twenty-eight minute podcast, Jon gets Michael’s take on how project failure applies to ERP vendors and SAP specifically. Jon also gets the skinny on Michael’s investigations of Business ByDesign at Sapphire, and why he sees SAP’s focus on UI improvements and BI enhancements as important to ERP project success. In closing, Michael shares an inside view on what it’s like to be part of SAP’s Blogger Relations Program, mixing it up with SAP executives.
Podcast Timeline:
1:01 Michael’s work at Asuret and ZDNet, and how it all ties back into examining the dynamics of IT project success and failure. Asuret provides consulting and software on business transformation projects; on ZDNet, Michael analyzes case studies of IT project failure and evaluates why they aren’t achieving project objectives. He also looks at related issues pertaining to organizational dynamics, business and IT communication breakdowns, and the cultural issues that contribute to project success or failure.
2:32 The highlights of the keynotes from Michael’s perspective. Two things stood out: first, Michael got the sense that SAP was making an attempt to bring in more consumer-oriented, end-user interfaces into their software. This is way overdue, but an essential area of improvement. A more human-oriented enterprise will yield more successful projects. Michael also enjoy Hasso Plattner’s keynotes - all his years of experience have put him in a position “beyond reproach” where he can speak his mind and cover topics that interest him.
May 29th, 2009
IBM's Devil's Triangle: An enterprise software soap opera
IBM faces lawsuits and public embarrassment in the Philippines over a failed government project involving the company’s DB2 database product. The situation offers a textbook example of the Devil’s Triangle, and demonstrates the tensions and conflicts that arise between technology vendors, customers, and system integrators.
Background. The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), a Philippine agency responsible for managing the pensions of government employees, installed DB2 in 2006. By early 2008, the system began showing signs of weakness. Local newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, describes what happened:
[GSIS chief legal counsel Estrella Elamparo] explained that the software started showing problems in early 2008, particularly in handling voluminous chunks of data.
“IBM upgraded its database system purportedly to enable it to handle unlimited volumes of data,” Elamparo said. “However, the reported upgrade only worsened the problem because instead of fixing the problem, the database began mishandling data and prevented the simultaneous use of data.”
The government threatened lawsuits in response, according to the paper:
May 27th, 2009
VC perspective: Can enterprise software companies do SaaS?
Recent discussions (including a great summary by Bob Warfield) questioned the impact of established enterprise software companies in the software as a service (SaaS) market. Therefore, I decided to seek the views of an experienced venture capitalist, who is actively investing in SaaS, for another perspective.
Mike Fitzgerald, founder and Managing General Partner of Commonwealth Capital Ventures, has been around the VC block quite a few times. His firm’s conference room is lined with mementos of companies in which it has invested, including Aberdeen Group, Akibia, Centra Software, Compete, Constant Contact, Direct Hit, i-Logix, Tally Systems, Zoom Information, and many others.
I asked Mike whether he thought enterprise companies, such as Oracle, IBM, and SAP, could be successful selling SaaS software. His answer was definite and unambiguous:
These companies don’t get it, won’t get it, and never will. They are hooked on big deals and have a culture oriented around big deals. That culture can’t understand $1000 per month subscription fees.
Mike drew a comparison with previous generations of computing, describing the evolution from mainframe to mini, then to personal computers and smart phones:
May 15th, 2009
Understanding SAP's Business byDesign SaaS strategy
At this week’s Sapphire conference in Orlando, SAP spoke at length about the status and trajectory of Business by Design, the company’s on-demand, software as a service (SaaS) offering.
To learn about SAP’s SaaS strategy, I talked with several current customers and the following five SAP executives:
- Pascal Brosset - Chief Strategy Officer
- Rainer Zinow - Senior Vice President for ByDesign Innovations
- Jeff Stiles - Senior Vice President of SME Marketing
- Christoph Behrendt - Senior Vice President for Midsize Enterprises
- Frank Iannotti - Vice President for Business ByDesign, North America
During these interviews, I repeatedly cross-checked the main points, explicitly trying to uncover irregularities and inconsistencies. Despite my attempt to find discrepancies, the conversations yielded a consistent picture in several important areas.
Commitment. SAP remains deeply committed to the Business byDesign platform and product. In response to my direct question on the commitment topic, Jeff Stiles answered, “Categorically yes,” and added:
SAP is 100 percent, unequivocally committed to bringing Business byDesign to market for the long haul.
Business model. For the low cost economics of SaaS software to work on a sustained basis, subscription software vendors generally strive to accomplish three goals:
May 5th, 2009
CA releases packaged services for project portfolio management
As part of a broad strategy to deliver on-demand project portfolio management (PPM) applications, CA announced two new “productized” implementation service offerings.
In a discussion with Carl Landers, VP Marketing for CA Clarity PPM, and Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist, the company said the on-demand product is “100 percent feature-complete” with respect to its on-premise counterpart.
Here’s a screen capture of the Clarity browser-based product; click the image to see a larger version:
The Essentials edition is suited to organizations with little experience or maturity in managing a portfolio of projects. Folks in this category need a low-risk, relatively uncomplicated way to learn about and adopt PPM. Essentials implementations last five days and cost $15,000.
The Best Practices Edition adds functionality, along with complexity, to the Essentials version. This middle tier is best for organizations that already possess some experience with formal project management processes. CA implements the Best Practices edition in 30 days with a fixed-price of $75,000.
March 14th, 2009
UK prison IT: Massive and 'spectacular' failure
The UK National Offender Management Information System project (called C-NOMIS) failed amid scathing attacks, accusations of mismanagement, and vast budget overruns. The project offers an excellent case study relating failure directly to inadequate governance and oversight.
The project was supposed to create a single database allowing UK prison authorities to track and manage offenders while they are in custody and following their release. After a three-year delay and doubling of costs, authorities abandoned the critical, single database concept.
A National Audit Office (NAO) analysis of this project concludes:
February 28th, 2009
Ryanair website bug: blogger called 'idiot and liar'
Just as I was bemoaning my growing cynicism to buddy, Vinnie “keeping ‘em honest” Mirchandani, this crazy thing crosses my desk.
Blogger Jason Roe tried to book a flight on Ryanair, only to discover a website bug resulting in zero-cost fares. Here’s his screen capture:
Well, bugs happen and it’s not the end of the world, but then an apparent Ryanair employee made these comments:
February 26th, 2009
20 cynical project management tips
Ever wonder why so many projects fail? Well, here’s your guide to the seamy underbelly of IT project management.
From Tony Collins, who writes a well-researched blog on government-related IT failures in the UK:
- Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don’t get approved
- The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the progress report
- A user is somebody who rejects the system because it’s what he asked for
- The difference between project success and failure is a good PR company
Michael Krigsman is CEO of Asuret, Inc., a software and consulting company dedicated to reducing software implementation failures. Click here to discuss this post with him on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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