Introduction:
This month’s blog entry explores the complex relationship between project success and project leadership. Risk of failure is potentially higher for IT projects than commonly acknowledged and, by all accounts, it would appear that success hinges less on strict adherence to methodology than on leadership. Leadership, of course, assumes manifold forms, but in the context of this discussion I narrow it down to its core: the moral/ethical responsibility of project managers to "tell it like it is," so that appropriate decision-makers can make effective decisions in a timely manner.
This entry will be published in 3 parts:
- Part 1 will discusses some of the long-term trends in project management, that have been recorded over the last 15 years. Given the ever-growing emphasis on rigorous management of IT projects, the interpretation of these findings continues being debated, but the conclusions are unambiguous.
- Part 2 will shine the spotlight on ethics in the context of project success. Ethics in project management elude rigid definition, particularly as the PM discipline has evolved to encompass truly global projects, but even so, project management success is not synonymous with project success.
- Part 3 will make the link between success, leadership, and ethics explicit.
I’m curious what experience others have had in this regard. Are there other aspects of leadership that play a pivotal role in your projects? Are ethics a primary driver of decision-making in your organization… or an ancillary consideration? What effect have these played on the successful delivery of your projects?
Please feel free to comment below.
Part 1: Growth of PMP certification in the context of long-term IT project success trends
The Standish Group's annual reports, "CHAOS Summary 2009" being most recent, document some worrisome trends in IT project success rates over the last 15 years. Though, overall, the number of software development efforts categorized as ‘successful’ (ie: those, according to Standish Group’s narrow definition, which have been delivered on time, on budget, and with required features and functions) has doubled, a shocking 24% of such projects still fail, a statistic which has not measurably improved since 2000. "The [latest] numbers represent a downtick in the success rates from the previous study, as well as a significant increase in the number of failures", says Jim Crear, Standish Group CIO, "They are low point in the last five study periods. This year's results represent the highest failure rate in over a decade.”
Standish Group's "Chaos Summary 2009", IT project historical success/failure rates
While the economic conditions over the last 12-24 months had made the business environment highly volatile, potentially negatively impacting IT projects, which might have, otherwise, been successful, there is a disturbing negative correlation between the statistics from the Standish Group and a trend reported by PMI, the Project Management Institute. In January 2003, when there were some 50,000 PMI-certified Project Management Professionals (PMPs) worldwide, the Standish Report was published, claiming only 34% of IT projects were successful. As of June 2009, there are now 359,973 PMP-certified individuals, and yet the Standish market research demonstrates that only 32% of IT projects can be deemed ‘effective’.
PMI Membership, 1969-2008: 2008 PMI Annual ReportThe number of certified project managers is growing, says Steve DelGrosso, director of IBM's Project Management Center of Excellence and the IBM Global Business Services' Project Management Competency, because clients want them on their projects. "The marketplace in the U.S. is demanding the PMP or other project management certification," he says.
In a 2006 survey, PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that "higher-performing projects are significantly more likely to be staffed with certified project managers and 80% of projects classified as high-performing use a certified project manager."
Of IBM's 300,000 employees, 25,000 are classified as project management professionals, and more than half of them --14,000-- hold PMI's PMP certification. But even IBM, which has collected eight years of internal data on certifications, can't say that there's a direct correlation between certification and better project outcomes.
"We've never been able to say unequivocally that putting a certified project manager on a project will give you better results," according to DelGrosso, "because we can't get that data point clearly.”
Personally, I find this trend particularly worrisome. The IT industry has committed a lot of resources to formalizing its processes and training development Teams in the adoption of these methodologies, yet organizations are not seeing success-rate improvements that could reasonably be expected. Even more puzzling is that any correlation between the two remains elusive.
Part
2: PMI Code of Ethics & the Definition of Project
Success, Redefined
Part
3: The Definition of Leadership
