Project Planning and Failure in the Mid-Market

In an article on SearchCIO, several CIOs discuss project planning as a driver in making mid-market IT projects successful. A few quotes:

Experts say project management brings clarity and can help keep everyone on the same page. Without a project manager, expectations that are not constantly tweaked and adjusted can quickly get out of alignment.

“Projects have to have milestones to meet,” said Marvin Stone, CIO at New Century Title Co., a San Diego-based title insurance firm. “You have to have deadlines, and consequences if they’re not met.”

Still, many midmarket companies are just starting to realize the value of a good project manager — most of them learning by their mistakes.

“Most ERP projects fail because of the lack of a plan,” [Jesus Arriaga, former senior vice president and CIO of Spirent Communications] said. “CIOs need to communicate that plan.”

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“Project management is not only an undervalued skill,” said James Woolwine, former CIO of Majestic Insurance Co. and now CEO of Bradford Enterprises, “it’s the rarest of IT skills.”

“Sure, they have their certificates, blah blah … that’s just process. It’s an art as well as anything else,” Woolwine said. “A project manager should be assigned [to every project]. But it’ll be hard to find one. If you find one, pay them more money.”

The obvious implication is that many mid-market companies do not understand the connection between IT success / failure and project planning. That’s a shocking statement, even to someone who writes about project failures every day.