project failure

Study: Poor governance = project failure

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:01:39 -0400

IT governance initiatives are generally deployed only within the IT department, leading to a lack of coordination between the IT part of the project and the overall management of business transformation initiatives. This type of poor IT governance leads to project failure, increased costs, data security risks, problems with regulatory compliance and inefficiency, according to a report from consultancy Butler Group. Much of this, the report says, is due to a lack of awareness of IT in boardrooms, although it is generally believed to be the board's responsibility to ensure that large capital expenditures are managed properly. The solution is creating a separate IT governance committee with non-IT executives to oversee and scrutinize large IT projects. This committee can also ensure that risks are identified and mitigated and that transparency exists.

Learn more about the effects of poor IT governance:
- read the article at Silicon

ALSO: read this on the importance of IT governance

Exploiting rapid technology changes

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:01:38 -0400

Managing the pace of technology change requires strong leadership. Because technologies like wikis, blogs and social networking are accelerating into the enterprise so quickly, companies need leadership teams that can handle the governance for all products. Without that, you'll fail. Part of the strategy includes becoming more agile and dynamic. Instead of viewing technology as an enabler, look at how it can drive the business. If pricing is shifting or competitors are going in a different direction, you have to be able to quickly adapt. Also, companies have to adapt their approach to project failure, accepting defeat when it's necessary and moving on.

Learn more about the importance of agility:
- read the article at ITWeek

Tales of projects that crashed and burned

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:01:35 -0400

If you and your organization recently experienced a major IT project failure, just remember that you're in good company. As an interesting article details, some of the biggest corporations today have lost hundreds of millions on tech projects that went nowhere fast--but hit the bottom line like a lead weight. Get a peek at eight big failures that haven taken place at some of the biggest companies in business today.

For more on eight huge tech failures:
- check out the feature at InformationWeek

SPOTLIGHT: FBI debuts second try at investigative database

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:01:34 -0400

A scan of this year's headlines proves that the federal government hasn't had much to boast about when it comes to IT security, data protection and overall cyber security technology success. But that's slowly changing as the FBI debuted its new Investigative Data Warehouse, which features 659 million counter-terrorism database functions. Describing it as "enormously scalable," the feds are hoping it will erase the memory of the highly publicized database project failure that ended up costing the agency nearly $200 million dollars before it was shelved. Article