Failed IT Projects Cost Billions: Train wreck in slow motion

Regardless of whether you are developing a new application, website, or implementing a new software system, failures and setbacks occur.  It happens.  It's inevitable.  It costs.  Billions.  This article from the Globe & Mail (Canada) talks in depth about the scale of IT failures and some of the potential "whys" .

Let's lay some groundwork here:

The UK public sector alone spends circa 22.6-billion pounds each year on IT, and some reports suggest that 1.5 billion-pounds have been wasted on failed IT projects since 1997. A 2004 report from the UK Royal Academy of Engineers and the British Computer Society estimated that only 16 per cent of these projects succeed, and confirmed that billions of pounds each year are wasted on them — throughout the EU.

Indeed, statistics suggest that 50 per cent of all IT projects fail, while 40 per cent are late and/or over budget, and ultimately delivered with reduced functionality.

These various controversies have led to a major reform of how the Government in the UK and Ireland handles large scale IT projects, but the jury is definitely out, and public trust in elected officials has visibly eroded.

But lest we get smug here in North America, it is abundantly clear that such wanton waste is not just an EU concern. It is a global pandemic that needs urgent attention. And Canadians have plenty of home- spun examples to call upon.

In the US, the FBI recently disclosed that a post-911 IT project that has cost $170-million (U.S.) to date has been an abject failure, and that they will have to start again. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was quoted in Wired magazine as describing the whole fiasco as "a train wreck in slow motion."

Source: Globe & Mail: GlobeTechnology

You're not going to read any smug "it's never happened to me" lines here.  There are still a few projects I'm sure we all wish we had never started.  Several projects that, although they were eventually completed, were over-budget or somehow short of expectations.  So the question remains, why.

Ready, set, Scrum!

In rugby the Scrum is like the huddle in American (or Canadian) football. It represents the team frequently coming together discussing common goals and then going off to achieve them.  Agile software development concepts are having great success in developing software rapidly and with high quality.

Discussed as part of this eWeek article, the Scrum method is winning advocates across IT, including Microsoft itself.  Steve Ballmer feels that Scrum and agile development in general are ways for Microsoft to turn out final products faster.

I found this section of the eWeek article to be a very good explanation, at a high level, of Scrum:

Robert Galen, principal consultant at RGalen Consulting Group LLC, Cary, NC, said Scrum "comes from the rugby notion of the scrum, which is to have the entire team get together and huddle, and then break and do their individual tasks."

Galen said a typical scrum team is made up of between five to 10 people, although there could be more. The team then works in Scrum "sprints" of about 30 days to complete a particular task or set of tasks for a particular milestone.

The team meets daily for 15-minute standup meetings and then they go off to work on their portions of the project. And although there is a "scrum master" or project manager-like position on the team, "self-organization is key to scrum," Galen said.

Scrum efforts do not work well with "a General Patton, but more of a Bill Belichick," Galen said, speaking of the New England Patriots head coach who is known for fostering teamwork.

Meanwhile, at the Software Test & Performance conference earlier this month in New York, Galen said he has used the Scrum process not only for developing applications, but also to test them for quality assurance sign-off.

Interestingly, I think I've been scrumming for years.  In past efforts my teams would often share responsibilities for key portions of development giving each person ownership of the entire project. It works extremely well at shortening timelines (or making up lost time when something has gone off the rails). Regardless, this kind of distributed team effort certainly appears to have a lot of promise.

Technorati Tags : agile, agile+software+development, Microsoft, .Net, scrum

Sun's new chip "eco-friendly"? More oomph, fewer watts

Been to your server room lately?  A little warm?  Yeah, you think your desktop and laptop gets hot?  Servers are in a league of their own.  That's why, as you know, server rooms have cooling plans separate and more intense than the rest of the building.

(As a side note, in a Harrowsmith Country Life I read some time ago, a guy who heated his house with wood found that the two desktop machines, monitors, printer and small copier kept his home office pretty comfy)

The key of course is power.  Use less, heat less.  Draw less power, save money.  InformationWeek talks about the new UltraSparc T1 which has eight processing cores, but uses only 70 watts of electricity (compared to 150-200W competitors -- Intel and IBM).

Here are some really interesting sections from the article:

"We can enable (customers) to provide more services within the same envelope of space, power and cooling that they have today," said Fred Kohout, vice president of marketing at Sun's scalable systems group. "They don't have to add more space, more power and more cooling to add more services or run more activities on the Web."

Sun also is touting its new chip as "eco-friendly." It said removing the world's Web servers and replacing them with half the number of UltraSparc T1-based systems would have the same effect on carbon dioxide emissions as planting 1 million trees.

"It's time the technology industry took a stand--tripling your datacenter performance shouldn't mean tripling your power bill and needing more coal-fired plants," said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president.

Eco-friendly?  Okay.  You know this makes sense and I can buy it.  In fact think about how much cooler your server room would be and how much electricity you might save.  Not bad.  Okay. ready to write the check?  Holidays are coming ... has your IT department been naughty or nice.

Regardless of these claims, being able to squeeze more oomph into a chip and draw less power, that's something to crow about.

Technorati Tags : Sun, UltraSparc

Keeping the lights on ... how to keep programmers happy

No matter what sector of IT you're in you are going to deal with programmers and developers at some point.  Even if you're "just" a business person, you will likely work with a development team at some point.  Dealing with programmers isn't a black art, but it can be tricky.

Programmers are a interesting breed.  Focus, attention to detail, creativity, these are some of the core traits of programmers, especially good programmers.  Often though, programmers get a bad wrap.  Let's put inherent geekiness aside, things like being petulant, prima donnas, and more than a little abrasive with users who "don't get it".  Scoble notes a very key point that I personally know helps keep programmers—heck everyone for that matter—happy:

 

The guys who stare at a blank black or white screen and start typing   and start creating the things we all find magical just want us to see their work in our hands. Is it more complicated than that?

We all like to see our work as being valued.  We like to see the fruits of our labor enjoyed by an audience.  Come on, you've just cooked something really awesome (grilling steaks counts) and doesn't it feel great when people's eyes light up at the first bite?  Programmers are no different.  They want to work on cool stuff that makes it to users.  There is nothing more frustrating to a programmer when project after project that they have been working on gets killed or cut.  Talk about feeling under appreciated!  Sure it happens.  If you've been in business long enough you know this.  You might not like it, but you know it.  Maybe the lesson to learn is that when you do have to cut a project, make it about the project, not the work.  If it is about the work, well that's a different discussion altogether.

Maybe these thoughts will help us keep our developers happy.

Technorati Tags : Scoble, programmers, programming, Visionpace

Doh! The worst all time software bugs.

I love this article by Wired on the all time worst software bugs.  Inspired by the recent Toyota Prius recall Simson Garfinkle goes through some of the worst.  Sadly many of them involve medical devices and people getting hurt or killed.

Besides shaking your head at some of the bugs (including the first "bug" ... which was a moth ...), think about the lessons in these bugs.  Many of them were caused by bad assumptions.  Software developers not getting into the heads of the users.  Others were sloppy work.  One was out right sabotage (I wouldn't call that a bug).

What's to learn here?  Never release?  Heck there are always bugs in code.  No, I think part of it is having good processes in place to check work.  The other part is to think like the worst user you've ever come across, do what they would do.  Maybe intentionally hit control key combinations that are strange, but might happen if someone has large fingers or isn't looking.

I remember a story of a senior programmer checking a junior's work.  The kid said that the program is solid and works great.  The senior guy smashed both hands down on the keyboard and hit lots of keys in the process.  The app crashed.  Big time.  The kid responded ... No one would ever do that!  The senior guy said ... Wanna bet?

Bugs aren't UI issues.  Bugs are things that shouldn't happen ... the user is following the correct steps and the wrong result comes up.  Maybe it was triggered by something else, but that's it.

So, what are the worst (best?) bugs you've seen?

Can IM help with software support and rollouts?

My techie roots are really in tech support.  Ever since my college days I've been the guy who fixes computers and teaches newbies some of the tricks of the trade.  One of the problems, of course, is that sometimes problems crop up when you can't get there (for me it seems to be when dinner is on the stove).  I also work from home and from an island so helping my friends at the spur of the moment, could be challenging ... but it isn't.  Why?  How?  My secret?  Instant messaging (IM).  Yep.  Simple, easy, free.

I don't think IM is used enough in the software development, rollout, and support process.  In the development process, just think ... push over a screenshot to confirm a layout ... the client has a question ... the install crew runs into a problem.  Personally I like Skype because the IM and file transfer is secure.  Also you can switch to voice with a click (very, very handy believe me).  Now if your clients and friends are spread out on all the available platforms ... try a multi-network client like Trillian (free/commercial), Miranda (free, open source), or (my fav) Gaim (free, open source).

Downside?  Yeah.  Sometimes you don't want to be (or can't be) disturbed.  I make use of Skype's do not disturb setting (DND) and the Jyve plugin for Skype to control this.  Also don't feel that you have to answer IM at 9 at night if you're not really working.  A nice, polite ..."Could you talk about this in the morning?" or "I'm sorry I'm taking a break from work right now."  lets people know while you are there and are listening to them, you actually have a life too.

Think about it.  Add IM to your mix.

BTW ... I'm not the only one bullish on IM ... Om Malik reports that IM use is up 25% this year.

Go ahead ... download Skype and ping me!

See if I'm online:

Technorati Tags : IM, tech+support, software+rollouts

When the Titanic turns ...

Gee, think something has been going on at Microsoft lately?  Naw, just a sea change.  Breaking news earlier today (following my standard let the news sit before I blog it policy) was the release of by Dave Winer of internal e-mails from Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie.  Mark Evans of the National Post (Canada) had some great commentary first thing (the benefit of being on the East Coast) and Scoble just gushed his enthusiasm ... which is a really good sign.

So, what's the fuss about?  Essentially Microsoft is embracing "Web 2.0" and it seems like the age of giant super apps is drawing to a close.  Ray Ozzie recognizes that the small, light app is key.  That extensible applications like Skype and Google Earth and Flickr are winning the day.  Why?  Because they are agile.  Rapidly deployed.  Slick.  Ray even said that the days of the complex app are over.  They suck up too much dev time.

I think this is truly the watershed moment of 2005.  I think this is similar to the announcement of IE getting serious attention.  Netscape ruled the day.  No one thought the first versions of IE were anything but dreck.  Now.  Now IE is top of the heap.  It's taken years for Netscape to come back to a point where they aren't Netwho?  But Microsoft saw the writing on the walls with Firefox.  Small, light, extensible app.  Doesn't try to do everything.  Let individuals and other companies go beyond the core functions.

Clearly Microsoft is betting on the .Net and related technologies horse.  AJAX and browser-based applications are going to be more and more common.  How about a "light" version of Word that does pretty much just the core stuff, but you can add on other functions like outlining or something?

Yeah, we're going to look back at this next year and think that this was a big moment.  Either that or we're going to think we were all nuts.

Technorati Tags : Microsoft, .Net, software+development

Hi, I'm Tris, I'll be your blogger this evening.

Before my first official post, I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself.  I'm Tris Hussey and I'll be contributing to this blog on a regular basis.  Now you might be wondering, just who is this guy (I am a guy, btw) and what is he going to bring to the table?  First off I'm neither a Net nor blogging newbie.  Nothing about, gee isn't this new fangled e-mail thing great!  No, I remember learning UNIX mail before Eudora had even stopping waiting at the P.O.  I remember hand coding HTML and thinking HotDog and BBEdit where the greatest gifts to web developers.

Currently I'm the Chief Blogging Officer and Product Manager for Qumana Software (www.qumana.com and blog.qumana.com), I have several blogs of my own (View from the Isle, A Quiver of Quills, & Problogging HowTo), and I also work with One By One Media and Bloggers4Hire.  So, yeah, I blog a lot.

I also came up the ranks of front line tech support and ran the Internet activities of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.  So I know a little about getting projects done, on time, on budget, and deployed (without going nuts in the process).

Here I'm going to report on news related to development, programming, software rollouts, and project management.  Yeah, I might through some fun stuff in too.  Come on, I'm proudly a geek so I like a little off beat humour.

In my spare time I like to be with my two kids, work on my Sci Fi novel (it's National Novel Writing Month), and IM with my girlfriend (yeah she's a blogger too).

Feel free to comment, ping me, whatever.  Trackbacks are nice too.

Now ... on to the good stuff.

Visionpace is a Kansas City-based software development company.