This white paper by IDC shows how an investment in training improves the likelihood of an IT project chances for success through enhancement of team skills. The white paper provides an analysis of a comprehensive survey with 144 senior IT managers examining the impact which training and skill level had on the success of 377 IT projects.
W H I T E P AP E R S k i l l L e v e l a n d T r a i n i n g K e y F a c t o r s i n I T P r o j e c t S u c c e s s Sponsored by: HP Peter McStravick Cushing Anderson October 2006
I D C O P I N I O N Recent IDC research indicates that during the past 18 months, on average, moc. companies have managed close to three significant IT projects. IDC's latest market cdi. forecasts suggest that this trend is expected to continue as investments in IT ww hardware and packaged software are expected to grow in 2006 by 6.7% to w $692 billion. Investments of this magnitude require CIOs and IT managers to be 510 diligent about the investments they make and about being certain that every effort is 4.5 made to ensure these projects are successful and pay dividends despite their 39.8 complex nature. Under pressure to control the cost of projects, IT managers 05. sometimes look to reduce or even eliminate spending on team training because it F appears to be an unnecessary project cost. To the contrary, IDC research shows a 002 strong, undeniable link between training, team skill, and project success. 8.278.8 Other findings from this study include: 05.P ! Projects that met most or all of their objectives typically provided each team AS member with twice the amount of training as those teams that achieved little or U 1 partial success. 0710 A ! Projects where 7% of the project budget was spent on training were significantly M , more successful than projects where only 4% of the budget was spent on mah training. gnimar ! IT managers who provided their project teams with more training report their F t teams to be more highly skilled. eertS neep I N T H I S W H I T E P AP E R S 5 :sr This white paper provides an analysis of a comprehensive survey with 144 senior IT etr managers examining the impact training and skill level had on the success of 377 IT auq projects. It also addresses the phenomenon of knowledge leakage and how training dae can be used to combat the ongoing degradation of skills that affects all IT H la organizations. bolG This document is based on information reviewed and/or published by IDC as of August 2006.
S I T U AT I O N O V E R V I E W I T P r o j e c t S u c c e s s S t i l l E l u s i v e
A recent IDC survey of 144 IT managers reveals that over the past 18 months, companies on average have managed close to three significant IT projects. With IDC forecasting the IT hardware and packaged software markets to grow by 6.7% in 2006 to $692 billion, it is evident that CIOs will continue to make sizeable investments in company infrastructure and software over the next year. For IT managers, these ongoing investments mean they can expect to continue to oversee IT projects of varying scope and complexity in the coming months.
The goal for IT managers is to ensure that these projects are completed successfully and support company objectives. But how does one define success? For the purposes of this study, IT projects were considered successful if respondents indicated they achieved most of the following metrics:
! The project met its stated objectives
! The project was delivered within budget
! The project was delivered in a timely fashion
! The project met internal specifications
! The project met stakeholder objectives
As Figure 1 shows, IT projects still hold a risk of failure. Overall, only 75% of projects met most of the project objectives.
According to IDC's survey, operating system upgrade, shared print services, and service/help desk and operating system migration are low risk. Business and disaster recovery planning projects only met most of their objectives half the time. Higher risk projects tend to be those where IT organizations do not have the embedded skills necessary to effectively carry out the project plan. These projects tend to be around "newer" solutions or techniques — such as server virtualization, high-availability infrastructure, and even IT consolidation. For projects where the process is both well defined and team experience is relatively high, the success ratio is correspondingly higher and the overall pr... [download for more]
