This is a follow-up to the post named “Why IT Projects Get Killed.” I began to wonder at what stage IT projects get killed. In other words, when they are canceled. Most of the projects I’ve worked on have been successful, but I’ve seen my fair share of canceled projects.
For this post, I decided to take a guess at when I felt IT projects are canned. Of all the canceled projects, these are my guesses at when they occur. I have no detailed surveys to back up my assertions, just a little experience. So, here goes… Post a comment and let me know what you think.
25% In the investigative stages
50% In the requirements gathering stage
10% In the development stage
10% In the final QA stage
5% In the pre-sales marketing stage
25% In the investigative stages
This one’s fairly obvious. A project passes the “good idea” stage and passes into the “due diligence” stage to learn its true value. That’s when it dies. Not all good ideas have true merit, or can be marketed effectively with the given resources. It’s common for projects to die here.
50% In the requirements gathering stage
Here, the project members are interviewing customers and collecting information. They may even be building prototypes to prove the concept. But just as in the investigative stages, the idea may die because it cannot meet requirements or marketing expectations. Again, lots of possible reasons for cancelation, but most of these are because the idea wasn’t feasible.
10% In the development stage
By the time it’s gotten to the stage where development resources are committed, it’s probably proven to be viable or too highly visibility to cancel. By this stage, the project stakeholders may never cancel it, even if it isn’t viable. Egos and persistence are at play here.
10% In the final QA stage
Sometimes products never meet customer expectations, or will cost too much to do so. The project may have gone terribly over budget, and customers hate it.
5% In the pre-sales marketing stage
Surprisingly, some get to this last stage, and still die. I was once involved in such a project in 1995. It was killed after two years of intense development, before a single sale was made. That’s right! We finished a two-year death march, only to find the product pulled from marketing. There were too many competitors and not enough customer value. That fiasco, and a few others like it, eventually killed the entire company.
–ray