Management's role in IT project failures: senior managers obviously have great interest in seeing that projects become successful. Yet despite best intentions, all too often they wind up playing a pivotal role in ensuring project failure

Healthcare Financial Management, Oct, 2004 by John Glaser

How does this happen?

Frequently leadership contributes to failure by permitting poor project management or by abdicating its roles as Business sponsors and business owners. Of course, such errors apply to any project that attempts to accomplish a moderate to significant degree of organizational change. Information technology (IT) projects are particularly vulnerable, however, because they are often the catalyst for such change or they require change if they are to be implemented well.

Below are other common missteps managers make that can contribute to driving a project into the ground. Do you recognize any of these weaknesses in your own organization's approach to IT planning and implementation?

Unclear purpose. Any project or initiative is destined for trouble if its objectives and purpose lack clarity. Sometimes the purpose of a project may be only partially clear. For example, the organization may have decided that it should implement a computerized medical record to "improve the quality and efficiency of care." However, it is not really clear how the record will be used to improve care. Will problems associated with finding- a patient's record be solved? Will the record be used to gather data about care quality? Will the record be used to support outpatient medication ordering and reduce medication error rates?

Even if all of these questions can be answered "yes," the organization may never go beyond the slogan of "improve care quality and efficiency." As a result, the scope of the project is murky. The definition of care improvement is left up to the project participants to interpret. And the scope and timetable of the project cannot possibly be precise because its objectives are too fuzzy.

Doubt. There are times when objectives may be very clear, but the members of the organization are not convinced that the project is worth doing. Because the project will change the work life of many members and require that they participate in design and implementation, staff need to be sufficiently convinced that the project will improve their lives or is necessary if the organization is to thrive. They will legitimately ask, "What's in it for me?" If not convinced of the need for the project, they will resist it. When projects are viewed as lacking legitimacy by a large portion of the organization, they rarely succeed.

Insufficient support from leadership. When members of the leadership team vote in favor of a project, they need to be upfront if they have reservations about the utility of the project or the way it is put together. Otherwise, once problems are encountered in the project--and all projects encounter problems--their support will evaporate and silent reservations are likely to become public statements, such as "I knew that this would never work." As dissent becomes clear, tough project decisions are likely to be made in a way that reflects a leadership lacking seriousness to match its rhetoric.

In addition, leadership not only needs to be committed to the undertaking privately, but also must demonstrate that commitment publicly. Project failures often arise when leadership does not devote sufficient time to the project or when it sends subordinates to meetings. Such actions broadcast to the organization that the leadership has "more important" things to do.

Organizational inertia. Even when the organization is willing to engage in the project, inertia may hinder it. People are busy. They are stressed. They have jobs to do. Some of the changes required for implementation may be threatening because they can bring change that staff might believe leaves them in roles that are less instrumental or with reduced power. Projects also can be seen as threatening because people may have no idea of what to expect and will give in to thoughts that an uncertain outcome cannot be a good one.

Contributing to organizational inertia is worker overload. Projects frequently add work and stress on top of already overburdened and stressed people. As a result, despite the valiant efforts of leadership and expenditure of significant resources, the project slowly grinds to a halt because too many members find ways to avoid or not deal with the efforts and changes required by the initiative.

Organizational baggage. Organizations have baggage, and baggage comes in many forms. Some healthcare providers are not competent at making significant organizational change and have never learned how to mobilize the organization's members. Perhaps they do not know how to handle conflict, or they are unsure how to assemble and leverage multidisciplinary, teams.

They may never have mastered staying the course during the execution of complex agendas over several years. These organizations are "incompetent." Although this incompetence probably extends well beyond IT, it clearly will include IT initiatives.

Having an organizational track record with large projects that is less than stellar also contributes to failures. When similar initiatives have failed in the past or when proponents of the IT initiative have failed at other initiatives, it can significantly undermine the credibility of the proposed initiative and help to ensure that organizational acceptance will be weak. People have very long memories and may even be thinking something like, "The same clowns who brought us that last fiasco are back with an even better idea."