October 10th, 2008
Nine steps to IT post-mortem excellence
Conventional IT wisdom holds that post-mortems are essential to ensuring future project success. Sadly, many corporate post-mortems are a waste of time, accomplishing little besides finger-pointing and assigning blame.
Here’s what StickyMinds.com says about the post-mortem issue:
Most teams don’t use postmortems. The teams that do don’t always get value from them. Frequently, postmortems have a habit of either turning into “the blame game” or whitewashing mistakes. A bad postmortem can create dissension and institutionalize mistakes.
On the other hand, well-run post-mortems help a project team create a culture of continuous improvement. Embedding a culture of ongoing, positive change inside a project delivery organization is the best way to ensure long-term success.
Post-mortems are an important link in this chain of positive improvement.
Running a successful post-mortem isn’t magic, although it does require thoughtful planning. Consultant Mike Gunderloy offers a list of nine steps to post-mortem excellence:
October 9th, 2008
Robert Scoble and sexy enterprise software
Big name blogger, Robert Scoble, has again forayed into enterprise software territory. This time, it appears he’s finally recognized that enterprise software is sexy.
During a previous enterprise-land journey, Robert baited the Enterprise Irregulars and created a blogging firestorm by claiming enterprise software is not sexy. He also complained that big companies foist enterprise systems on unsuspecting users:
Some CIO somewhere else made that decision and forced us all to use [insert your favorite enterprise software vendor here]. That doesn’t exactly make us warm and fuzzy about the computer sitting in front of us on the desk.
Fast forward, almost a year later, and Robert seems to be climbing on-board the enterprise train. In a recent post about enterprise email, he addresses fundamental business value issues:
I am looking for companies that solve REAL pain in enterprises and that deliver real benefits to bottom lines and productivity.
In another post, Robert discusses enterprise-class scalability and suggests a strategic business perspective:
[H]ow to build scalable and performant Web services, especially given that tomorrow’s services are probably going to be glued together from a variety of services?
October 9th, 2008
London Stock Exchange website reports incorrect prices
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) website displayed incorrect prices for the important FTSE 100 index yesterday morning. The problems were less severe than previous London Stock Exchange failures, which actually interrupted trading.
- Also see: London Stock Exchange hit with ‘connectivity issue’ and London Stock Exchange (LSE) system failure stops trading
According to Online Financial News:
The website reported inaccurate points movements for the FTSE 100 from the start of trading until the price ticker was removed from the website later in the morning… The LSE said the exchange’s data feeds to professional traders…worked perfectly all day and technical glitch on the website had been fixed.
When an exchange reports incorrect stock data investors can be hurt, which damages market confidence in that exchange. As one trader said, “This is not the kind of mistake we needed today.”
October 8th, 2008
Categorizing failure and lining up ducks
To really understand IT failures, it’s helpful to organize, categorize, and line them up like ducks. I’m considering a scheme that groups IT failures into management process tribulations and technical glitches.
The management process tribulations category covers technology implementation projects that go awry. For example, when you read about the latest government project fiasco, with millions down the drain, you’re talking a management process tribulation.
J.Crew’s recent website fiasco is a great example of an implementation project gone wrong. Here’s how the company described its problem:
During the second quarter of fiscal 2008 we implemented certain Direct channel systems upgrades which impacted our ability to capture, process, ship and service customer orders. As a result, our Direct sales growth rate was lower than recent quarterly trends. We expect the impact of the systems upgrades to continue into the second half of fiscal 2008.
Rather than a single, bounded point of failure, the mess resulted from breakdowns during a larger implementation process. In this case, management seems to have pressured IT to release the site before completing full scalability testing.
Most project-related failures fall into the management process tribuations category.
October 7th, 2008
Google is NOT your friend
ZDNet Education blogger, Christopher Dawson, wrote a post titled, “Google is your friend.” Dude, I can assure you that Google is not my friend. Trading partner? Sure. Sometime ally? Maybe. Back-stabbing neighbor? Now we’re getting closer.
I do acknowledge all the wonderful things Google provides — search services, Google Earth, Picasa, and so on. However, it’s important to recognize two facts about Google being your “friend:”
- Whether or not they realize it, all Google users engage in an implicit business deal with the company. Those amazing, so-called free, tools come at the cost of your privacy. Google hoards your data for use anytime, anywhere its voracious heart desires. The clever company is always thinking up new ways to slice and dice your personal data in service of its corporate profit.
- Google’s warm, fuzzy image (you know, all the pretty colors) can turn on users, and violate their trust, for good reasons or for no reason at all. For example, just read about the angst one user suffered when Google disabled his account without warning. It’s pretty ugly.
Unfortunately, ugly seems to be Google’s style. For example, read this New York Times comment in response to yet another user’s forced account lockout:
October 7th, 2008
Why Agile development matters [podcast]
Lengthy IT projects are more prone to fail than shorter ones. Agile development is one technique some organizations use to increase project success by shortening development cycles and rigorously enforcing closer ties, and communication, between developers and users.
To learn how Agile development improves IT project success, I met with OutSystems, which provides a software platform for helping companies run business web development projects using Agile. During the interview, CEO Paulo Rosado, and VP of Worldwide Marketing, Mike Jones, explained how Agile helps prevent IT failures.
![Why Agile development matters [podcast]](http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/images/outsystems.jpg "Why Agile development matters [podcast]")
According to Mike, Agile is an iterative process through which business users provide rapid feedback to software developers. By bringing users and developers closer than would otherwise be possible, Agile ensures that the technical team actively addresses business requirements:
Developers provide a working application at the end of a short time period, called a sprint, usually two weeks in our case, at the end of which business users can evaluate, provide feedback on, and change rapidly…. This iterative approach helps align IT and business users.
October 6th, 2008
Project tradition and IT culture [cartoon]
Picking up on my post about failed IT culture, Oliver Widder has drawn another great Geek and Poke cartoon:
![Project tradition and IT culture [cartoon]](http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/images/projecttradition-2.jpg)
Sadly, this cartoon describes the norm in many organizations, where projects are uncontrolled spending machines: defined poorly, executed abysmally, and ultimately headed for inevitable failure.
See your company reflected in the Geek and Poke project mirror? If so, leave a talkback to share your experience.
October 6th, 2008
Improve your failed IT culture
The underpinnings of IT failure lie in culture, the unspoken rules governing an organization’s style and general priorities. Since most organizations pay little attention to project culture, it’s not surprising failure rates remain high.
New research by SAS sheds light on this issue. In a survey of 316 senior financial industry executives sponsored by SAS, the Economist Intelligence Unit explored the role of culture in enterprise risk management (ERM):
Creating a culture for risk management is a challenging proposition for most firms. One of the keys to successful risk management is embedding risk management within the company culture, but for surveyed executives this was the most widely encountered challenge, cited by almost one-half of respondents.
Although a bit hard to read, the following chart clearly shows most respondent’s organizations don’t have a high-priority culture around enterprise risk management. That’s a problem, given the importance of this topic:
October 5th, 2008
ZDNet editorial independence and blogging about politics [off-topic]
Last Friday, I posted a political cartoon that sparked a lively debate among talkbackers. In that discussion, some folks incorrectly suggested that ZDNet and CBS management have influence over blog content. That suggestion is flat wrong.
One commenter seemed to think ZDNet bloggers are part of a politically motivated “media machine:”
Seriously, what is this [political topic] doing on ZDNet? Oh, wait, I forgot, they got bought out by CBS and now they are just another outlet for the media to tell me what I should think. Vote against Obama and vote against the media machine!
Another commenter took issue with my implicitly taking a political position:
Michael, not your strongest post… saturated as we are with partisan politics in virtually every other media output, I had hoped that I could avoid political commentary here on your IT Failures blog.
These comments raise two questions:
October 3rd, 2008
Sarah Palin debate flowchart [off-topic]
To everyone trying to understand Sarah Palin, here’s your road map to last night’s debate:
[From Adennak. Via Zoli Erdos and Enterprise Irregulars.]
Michael Krigsman is CEO of Asuret, Inc., a software and consulting company dedicated to reducing software implementation failures. Click here to discuss this post with him on Twitter.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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