Why Are So Many IT Projects Failing?

A lire sur: http://www.cio.com/article/744168/Why_Are_So_Many_IT_Projects_Failing_

A recent study reports that 50 percent of companies had an IT project fail in the last 12 months. Business leaders who blame IT are missing the real project management issues.

By Sharon Florentine 
Wed, December 04, 2013

CIO — Fifty percent of businesses had an IT project fail during the last year, according to a survey by cloud portfolio management provider Innotas. The primary reason, according to 74 percent of respondents, was a lack of resources to meet project demands.

Where have all the project managers gone? Is the IT industry suffering a shortage of employees with these skills?

Not necessarily, says Dice.com's president, Shravan Goli. Both supply and demand for project managers has remained consistent, with the number of available positions currently available on Dice.com staying at about 3,200, he says.

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Growth in project management as a category also remains stable, with a depth and breadth of demand across almost all vertical markets and with positions available in 46 of 50 states across the U.S. Salaries remain well above average -- $106,000 per year average compared to an average IT salary of $85,000 for all other tech professionals, Goli says.

Project Managers' New Role

What has changed is the qualitative side, Goli says, as project managers' roles shift, they are expected to take on additional responsibilities above and beyond the fundamental scope of managing each IT project.

"The role has evolved over time, and there are a few trends that may be infringing on the project manager's core job description," Goli says.

"The fundamental, core job description remains management and monitoring of project scope, communication between groups, motivating teams to drive delivery," he says. "But the emergence of the Agile development methodology means that project managers must also take on the role of development lead."

For companies that adopt Agile, many do see an increased need for project managers to drive delivery of an increasing number of software-based technology solutions and applications. But instead of adding staff and resources, firms instead are delegating these roles to their existing project managers, Goli says.

"Project managers aren't just project-based, they're supervisors," says Innotas CEO Kevin Kern. "They are managing solutions and applications, as well as managing the software developers, and there aren't enough developers, ever. So, project managers are being asked to take on so many responsibilities that their job descriptions get blurred," Kern says.

IT Is Not the Problem

The shortage of resources could be one reason why many projects fail, says Kern, but there's also a pervasive mindset that IT is the problem, not the solution.

As organizations move to a more application-centric focus, the number of IT projects increases, and IT departments have trouble saying "no," Kern says, because of the risk of being seen not as a valuable business partner, but as an expensive cost center.

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