Administration September 14, 2007

IT Projects Running Long

September 14, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A new survey finds that most technology projects run over budget - and significantly so.
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In fact, the survey of 100 UK chief information officers by software management company CA found that a third of information technology (IT) projects carried out in the private sector run between 10% and 20% over their original budget.   Worse, one in four projects costs 50% more than it was expected to, according to the survey.

The main reasons for overspending include:

  • poor forecasting (50%),
  • project scope increasing during implementation (a.k.a. scope “creep”) (39%) and
  • issues of interdependencies and conflicts between multiple projects (36%).

Lack of Visibility

Nearly 40% of the CIO respondents said that they do not have clear visibility of projects and so do not know when they are close to running over budget.   Staffing is also an issue, with highly skilled workers being assigned tasks off-the-cuff rather than being strategically placed where they would be most effective, according to a  press release about the survey .

CA said the survey shows that chief information officers are still principally being judged on whether they deliver within budget rather than whether they deliver strategic value to the business.

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