Getting better all the time?

So....

You see the smiling, optimistic, fresh faces of the Beatles in the previous post? I want to believe, really, really want to believe, the numbers from PMI's survey. And I do, to some extent.

However, I wouldn't be "fair and balanced" if I didn't provide some recent news which seems to contradict, or at least contrast strongly against the PMI survey.

I'm referring to CHAOS. Not the top-secret bad-guy organization that Maxwell Smart (Agent 86, see recently-declassified photo on left) is always fighting along with his colleagues from CONTROL, but rather the reports issued periodically by the Standish Group of West Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

The latest report - in quite some contrast to the PMI report - shows a sustained upward trend in failed projects. The report organizes 'finished' projects into 3 categories, Successful (on time, under or at budget), Challenged (missed either the time or budget constraint, or both) and Failed (canceled and/or did not provide the scope they promised).

A press release about this from the Standish Group is here: http://www.standishgroup.com/newsroom/chaos_2009.php . What you see above is my representation using their published data. You'll note that the percentage of failed projects not only increases, but kicks up in slope in this last measurement - which is, as my Ducth friends would say, niet goed!

This begs the question: why the disconnect? I really don't have the answer, although I have some very strong beliefs (which I will share later) about the reason for this uptick in project failures, beginning around the year 2002.


It also begs another question, one on which one of my blog viewers has already commented: can one be very "mature" in PM and still have a high failure rate? And, if so, what does that tell us about the value of PM Maturity?

I know I raise more questions than answers here, but I would like to challenge folks to reconcile the different views of PM that these sets of data represent?

Thoughts?

Getting better all the time...

"I used to get mad at my scope, my PMO just didn't cope. Holding me down, turning me 'round, right at the end of my rope.

Now I admit, it's getting better, it's getting better all the time..."


...apologies to The Beatles, from their song "Getting Better All the Time". To see (and hear) the real version, go here.


Why the flashback to the Sixties? Just got my latest edition of PMI Today. The feature story is about the latest survey on project performance, and there is the reason for the flashback - it's getting better all the time. What is? Project performance. A little better. Projects finishing on time moved up from 53% to 55% and projects finishing within budget edged up from 55% to 58%. The glass, however, is still just barely over half-full. These numbers are not great. Some other numbers were more impresive - 65% of respondents reported an increase over 2006 in projects meeting goals and business intent.

How about scope creep, the namesake of this blog? Well, unfortunately, that little slug is doing just fine, and is quite healthy, thank you very much. 51% of projects experience it, say the respondents. So....more work needed there.

What's nice about the survey is the positive correlation identified between PM maturity or project management culture (centered around a PMO) and project success rates. For example, One chart shows that if an organization has high PM maturity, on-time-ness and on-budget-ness go from 43% to 75% and 48% to 73%, respectively. And strikingly, scope creep affects 36% of projects for organizations that have achieved higher maturity levels but over 59% for those that have lower levels of PM maturity.

And how about this one - the frosting on the cake and a good justification in and of itself - for efforts in PM maturity: the increase in percentage of projects that met their goals (in other words, the whole reason for doing the project in the first place). It goes from 51% for low-maturity organizations to a whopping 80%, for those organizations with high PM maturity levels. Speaking of "being mad at your school", that's like going from an F to a B. Okay, a B-minus, but hey - it's still a B!

I'm trying to find a direct link to the survey, but in the meantime, you can go here to read the article. If you're pushing for increased PM maturity at your organization, this is good backup data for you.

So hopefully, for you as well, it's getting better all the time...