Doug Hadden, VP Products
Large IT projects are not for the feint of heart. Or, the risk adverse. Despite our high success rates in Government Resource Planning (GRP) relative to other solutions, I can tell you that implementations are rarely problem free
It was with interest that I read last month Chris Kanaracus‘s article “The scariest US software project horror stories of 2012.” I found 2011 and 2010 year-end articles about the largest ERP failures of the year from Kanaracus.
29 horror stories in total.
15 in the public sector.
That’s right: a touch over half.
In a market that is about 20% of the entire IT market.
So, if the stories are representative of IT failure, that means that public sector implementations are between 2 and 3 times more risky than the private sector.
Analysis
The culprits here are software and process. Software designed for the private sector and shoe-horned into government and custom-developed applications add significant risk.
The political nature of the public sector and the movement of public servants in organizations adds additional risk. FreeBalance has achieved success rates well above average with software designed for government AND business processes adapted to the government context.
Believe me, Project Management 101 is not enough.