It’s not just the UK…

January 31st, 2005

I’m really not sure whether this should come as a suprise to anyone, but it’s not just the UK government that has problems with their projects, according to this story in Wired.

Although there is an interesting quote which goes some way to getting government off the hook (or at least to put their problems into perspective):

…while government technology blunders frequently make headlines, large-scale computer upgrades in the private industry fail almost as often. But these corporate blunders aren’t publicized by congressional committees, federal investigators and inspectors general…
Filed under Project Management |

2 Responses to “It’s not just the UK…”

  1. Richard on February 4, 2005 8:57 pm

    Two observation:

    The increased visibility in government does not appear to drive overall improvements, as you would think it would. In my experience, there are more troubled programs now than ever.

    Corporate blunders stay under the radar because the CFO and other business executives don’t understand the technology, and shareholders have no way to see the blunders in the financials. There is no Sarbanes-Oxley for IT.

  2. Tim on February 5, 2005 6:45 am

    I’m not too sure about your first point - the more exposure there is of disasters, the greater the eventual pressure for change in the way that the projects are run. Maybe this is something that takes time, while a newer, more effective generation of managers is trained/bred/found from somewhere.

    I’d agree with the second point, unless it’s so high-profile that you can’t help but notice it, e.g. Sainsburys. Although even there you have to question whether the technology was the problem…

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