Faster purchase, no better results.

The software market has changed, particularly in the past few years. I’ve been in the software industry for over 30 years and I’ve witnessed that companies that are buying business software today are now doing much more preparation. They narrow down their options and choose possible short lists of solution providers before vendors even know they are looking.  Previously software buyers would rely on outside consultants to do up to 90 percent of the research and present a potential solution to a company. Companies searching for business systems have reversed these figures by now doing 75 to 80 percent of the research themselves.  The purchase time has been sped up. Despite taking more control over the purchase cycle, the success rate of new software projects has not improved.

If you are familiar with the regularly updated Standish (Chaos) report, you it is one of the definitive reports in the software industry. The report shows that 31.1% of projects are cancelled before they are completed. Basic math tells us the remaining 68.9% are completed at some point but the report indicates that only 16.2 % are actually completed on-budget and on-time. What happened to the other 52.7%? From this report and many others published on the internet, ‘Challenges’ is a word that can only begin to describe what companies encountered while completing their projects. Based on my research these statistics are no different today than they were in 2005.

Using a Smartphone has helped to improve our ability to research new apps. With our mobile device we are empowered to make our own decisions on software and app applicability to our needs with little financial or productivity risk. When dealing with business systems that touch most areas of a company, that sense of empowerment through our research can create a dangerous perception. The challenge with the 52.7% of projects that did not go per plan, is we also mistakenly made the assumption that the software was as simple to get running as a phone app. Wow, did we get that wrong!

I found some other interesting statistics about project success.  Most organizations (97%) believe that project management is critical to business performance and organizational success. (PricewaterhouseCoopers) However, 80% of the PM’s assigned do not know how their projects align with the company’s business strategy. (Changepoint) Both business and IT executives believe that their software projects either will fail or are ‘doomed from the start’. (Geneca)  Are companies trying to fail?

From my 30 years’ experience doing software projects, I have witnessed this shift.  Unfortunately, the general attitude of a lot of organizations is cost and speed, not on knowledge and success.  In most projects, the project manager is appointed by the software vendor. If that is the case, whose project does this become? Companies need to be wholly accountable for their systems. Companies need their own dedicated project manager to make sure the company’s goals are met.

I understand when senior management says that they don’t have that much time or that they are distracted by some other aspect of the business. That provides the perfect opportunity to assign someone else full time to ensure a project’s success. Hire an external specialist for this one time project. They’ve lived through many projects and know how to avoid the issues. They can help to get success for you.

There are a simple few things executives and managers, however, do need to do and understand themselves:

First, get your staff on board with the project and the goal that is desired. Show them it is a corporate priority and of value to them. If you can’t get this done, then the project will fail. Remember telling someone is not the same thing as getting their buy-in.

Second, do NOT focus on trying to get EXACTLY what you have in your existing system. If that is what you want, stay with your existing system. Functionality and reports may all be different in the new system; that is why you are switching, isn’t it? Information content and result are what you need, not the same formats.

Finally, stay away from any customizations, initially. I know that there will be things that you did customize in your old system. That being said, if you customize a new system BEFORE you know it and work with it for at least 2-3 months, you might as well be throwing money away. The new system will do things differently. You need to know how it works before deciding what might be improved.

Remember, high-performing and focused organizations were proven to successfully complete 89% of their projects, while low performers completed only 36%. (PMI.org)  Don’t just buy quickly, implement wisely too.