KPMG highlights IT project failures
Poor project management reduces value of IT according to KPMG survey
A quarter of the benefits of IT projects are being lost by organisations
across the globe because of management failures during a project’s lifecycle,
according to new research.
KPMG International’s survey of 600 organisations across 22 countries revealed
that 86% of respondents reported the loss of up to a quarter of their targeted
benefits across their project portfolios.
Nearly half of respondents reported at least one project failure in the past
year, an improvement from KPMG’s 2003 survey where 57% experienced one or more
project failures in the previous 12 months.
Chris Gumn, a partner in KPMG’s IT advisory group, was surprised to find that
59% of organisations had no management process to measure benefits.
‘The loss of benefits is particularly important in the changing definition of
success. With an increased focus on governance issues, board and executive
involvement has increased, and our results show that boards are approving up to
40% of business cases,’ he said.
‘Success is increasingly being defined as achieving the promised benefits, as
opposed to the traditional focus on time and budget measures.’
He also stressed that a robust governance framework was vital to reducing
project failures, while a project management office could oversee key areas such
as risk management.