CIOs blame failures on poor monitoring

More than 90 per cent of chief information officers (CIOs) believe IT projects are not being properly monitored by the business, and failing systems are wasting valuable resources by being allowed to run on too long.

A 2007 census carried out by industry user group CIO Connect, says just nine per cent of CIOs take rapid corrective action when a project veers off the rails.

Clear project governance is the solution to the problem, says Nick Kirkland, managing director of CIO Connect.

‘It is about understanding who is responsible for delivering the business benefits, how the project team is going to work together from their different disciplines, and making that stick,’ said Kirkland.

‘This is a governance issue that can be best addressed by the CIO and their business counterpart working absolutely hand-in-hand.’

According to the report, 76 per cent of UK CIOs say business managers are failing to record and report IT project returns back to the boardroom.

Betfair CIO Rorie Devine says projects would not continue running within his organisation if they were unsuccessful.

‘Every week the company’s executive committee uses a red/amber/green dashboard to review the status of all the important projects being conducted by the various business teams,’ said Devine

There is often insufficient connection between IT and the business, says Neil Ward-Dutton, analyst at Macehiter Ward-Dutton.

‘There is no real perception of what counts as a failing project,’ he said. ‘In most cases the connection between IT and business isn’t good enough to communicate whether projects are delivering value, particularly long running projects,’ he said.

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Further reading:

IT managers worst at finding info