The CIO’s Changing Priorities: Part 3

My latest series of blogs have focused on the recent CIO Survey 2016 published by Harvey Nash & KPMG, which has described how the role of the CIO is changing.

The survey reports that project success rates are declining, however I firmly believe that there is also ‘perception of failure’ because benefits are not captured clearly and a considerable number of projects do not manage ‘scope-creep’ well. Additionally, changes should always be clearly documented and subject to the same benefits analysis before being approved.

One area that is bucking the failing projects statistic trend outlined in my introduction is Infrastructure roll outs. A 70% success rate in this area is very encouraging. The question is ‘are companies growing talent in this area or using external specialists to help them deliver?’

An area of IT that is struggling to achieve success is the delivery of new Finance systems, which report a measly 40% success rate - an unacceptably low level of success. Applying a Change Management approach rather than an IT system implementation approach really will increase the success rate, getting the stakeholders involved right from the outset and keeping them engaged throughout. Educating the stakeholders on their roles and responsibility, while monitoring whether they are fulfilling their responsibilities will almost guarantee success.

In Summary

The reports suggests the change of focus from ‘IT projects that SAVE money to IT projects that MAKE money’ is the big change happening, however, to raise the success of achieving this there really has to be a ‘Top down innovation approach.’

Clarity on the strategy, continual communication of the strategy, customer engagement, investment in the right SMEs with the technical and communication skills backed up by strong delivery focused leadership will bring significant value add to any project delivery team.

CIOs that do not have this strategy in place need to get it otherwise the statistic reporting that a third of CIO’s had moved roles in the last year could very well increase!

DeborahBale