Most businesses do not measure project success or failure. Without this they cannot even begin to evaluate their business position. If you cannot measure current performance, you cannot improve matters as you have no idea where you are going wrong.
It`s astounding to know that in today`s world, 84% of companies are unable to adjust their budgets with changing business needs more frequently than once or twice a year. This could be due to poor metrics, lack of portfolio management systems and poor business intelligence.
An equally appalling statistic shows that 84% of companies do not create business cases for any of their IT projects, or perhaps only provide a business case for selected or key projects. And 89% of businesses have no metrics in place for evaluating project success other than pure financial ones.
The latest results of research by The Standish Group, published in its report, The Chaos Chronicles, revealed that organisations have average cost overruns of 43% and schedule overruns of 82%. Only 52% of the required features and functions make it into the released product.
Lots of press and analyst attention has been focused lately on the severity of project failure. The statistics paint a grim picture. However, many companies are reacting to this by taking positive and actionable steps to avert failure.
The payback of enterprise project management (EPM) can be substantial. Current market research and statistics further validate this: improvements in the order of 20% in project/process execution, 15% in productivity, 15% in time to market, and an overall return on investment of 25% were noted by the companies surveyed.
An organisation can thrive or die based on its ability to achieve its strategic objectives.
Scott Beattie, business productivity solutions specialist, Microsoft SA.
The results are from two studies on the value of project management conducted by the Centre for Business Practices (the research arm of PM Solutions) from 2000 to 2002. More than 94% of the 166 organisations that responded stated that implementing project management added value to their companies. Most firms strategically rely on multiple coordinated project management improvement initiatives rather than only one or two. Organisations implemented initiatives that included project offices, project management methodologies, project management software and project management training. The exact value received by implementing enterprise project management will, of course, depend on a variety of factors: how well you implement it, how much executive buy-in you have, and the kinds of projects you implement.
An organisation can thrive or die based on its ability to achieve its strategic objectives. Accomplishing these strategic objectives requires focused efforts managed in the form of projects.
To put it simply, EPM enables companies to align its people and projects with its strategic objectives for business growth and efficiency.
Fulcrum Business Solutions sponsors ITWeb`s project management industry portal. These days successful project management goes beyond maintaining realistic expectation levels and completing projects within budget, scope, time and resource constraints. Find out what you need to know to get the best results here.
Share