Business Tech: Team members' behaviors more often reason for IT project failures

Companywide growth and efficiency stem from a seamless IT team deploying projects in a timely and efficient manner. Just about every modern business is scrambling to harness the potential of digital technology to gain a competitive edge in today’s market. Whether it’s improving the speed of delivery, scaling the business to increase revenue or enabling employees to innovate and deploy products quickly, businesses are engaging in abstruse array of initiatives. 

Human factors are becoming a major cause of IT project failure. As technology increases capacity while declining costs, the factors of technology being a failing point is drastically fading. Project team members’ behavior — be they directors, project managers, software developers or analysts — have more influence on the project outcomes than other factors such as risks or external constraints. Consider how to counteract the common human factors that ultimately siderail projects: 

Poor Project Specifications

Perhaps one of the most frequent reasons why projects fail, having unclear requirements creates a gap between what has been specified and what is the actual problem that needs to be solved. Usually, project requirements are drafted to inform the consultant or vendor exactly what the client thinks is required to solve a specific problem. The problem lies in that there is often little to no consideration given to the desired output, which may be different. Often, the output is not satisfied by the prepared specifications.

Another example of how poor project specifications results in project failure is when scope creep enters the equation. The project team provides a scope of work to be performed, it is agreed upon, yet the details are tweaked or changed drastically on the whim to accommodate several requests to cram more layers or features into a project. This usually results in a project that can no longer be executed in its entirety as initially specified, dooming the modified version for failure. 

Underestimated Implementation Requirements

Most projects are under some type of constraint, though it is rarely acknowledged. The most frequent constraint is financial, more particularly in the form of underestimated costs. Projects can also fail because of inadequate resources, unobtainable timelines, overlooked requirements or unanticipated issues, to name just a few. 

Not Enough User Exposure

Involving end users early and frequently in IT projects which are to be used by the wider organization is a critical process to ensure projects are not implemented in a vacuum. Often, users only interact with project outputs during the final stages of a project. Projects are unable to benefit from the users’ practical input on what their specific needs are and how they might use the solution which is being implemented. By bringing in end users toward the end of a project, more difficult challenges arise trying to change or adjust certain features which could have easily been altered had they been engaged at an earlier stage. This results in insufficient buy-in to the solution and to the extent which a project is considered a success. 

Insufficient Change Management

Lastly, if there are ever major changes to be introduced, equal consideration should be given to the corresponding change management process to transition employees from the current systems to the new one to be implemented. Managing the transition is all too often seen as an afterthought, when in reality, it mandates careful and coordinated implementation. If done too late, employees tend to already have their heels dug in, evidence that your implementation and adoption of new systems is doomed for issues.

There is no question that IT modernization is desperately required to stay competitive in business. Clearly defining requirements and setting expectations early can help eliminate the chances your IT projects encounter unwanted complications. 

David Black is the director of business development for Wasatch I.T., a Utah provider of outsourced IT services for small and medium-sized businesses.