An interesting conversationette with @coe62 on Twitter this morning, prompted by a link to a story about how the government is wasting money by not killing projects, and a question about why people in organisations find it so difficult to end failing initiatives.
The public sector for years had been villified by the press for the seemingly perpetual failures of (particularly IT) public sector projects. It really gets my goat, and for a few reasons:
1) "public sector" IT projects are run by private sector systems integrators and consultancies. They are private sector projects being run with public money.
2) most IT projects fail for human, not technology, reasons. These are usually as a result of inadequate (or non-existent) organisational change management. In the public sector this is often as a result of politicians issuing edicts of change for which they take no responsibility or accountability. A non-accountable project sponsor is a recipe for project failure.
3) we only hear about all of the project failures in the public sector because the private sector isn't accountable to the National Audit Office. I have no reason to believe that the private sector is in any way intrinsically better at running IT projects than the public (and believe you me I have seen some fairly disastrous private sector projects in my time).
Which brings us back to the question of why projects aren't killed off when they should be. Putting aside other issues like bonus structures and stupidly "buttoned down"contracts, it feels to me like an issue of psychological motivation. It's like waiting for a bus… when you've waited longer than it would have taken you to walk, you'll wait even longer to make up for the lost time already invested (or is that just me?). That combines with the shame of non-delivery.
It's a challenge, though. How can you define an organisational culture that motivates people to delivery, and yet also praises failing project termination? Answers on a postcard please…
mmitII 