In 5 ways to prevent IT failure, I found five important reasons that IT projects go down the drain:
- Lack of preparation.
- Business misfit
- Unilateral decision making
- Inflexibility
- Scope creep
Boy, do they remind me of some projects I had to endure. Especially the explanation of the last point, scope creep, hits home:
Lack of preparation typically begets the kitchen-sink syndrome, where project leaders add in every kind of feature and the kitchen sink to boot.
A project that doesn't have a clearly defined goal will most certainly be frustrating. And it will hurt the company since it'll be far from effective.
The ZDnet article also talks about what you can do to make sure the problems above don't occur. Let's ask the audience: When you're taking part in projects, what do you do to prevent those project killers?