80% of large UK computing projects fail

[Retro]

That's 4 out of 5 large UK computing projects failing one way or another, with the current Fujitsu Post Office IT scandal being the latest and most public due to its severe miscarriage of justice over its victims.

So, if you've had the general sense that these things routinely go bad, you're not imagining it.

Imagine if four in every five bridges built in Britain fell down. There would be national outrage. The companies building those bridges, the civil servants who ordered them and the ministers in charge would all likely pay with their jobs or worse.

Fortunately, the majority of bridges do not tend to fall over. But there is one area that suffers such rates of failure.

Twenty years ago, researchers at Oxford calculated that 84pc of large IT projects in the UK failed in some form – either by being cancelled, failing to deliver, arriving late, or going significantly over budget.

Software and bridges are not the same. But growing anger about the Post Office Horizon scandal has shone a new light on the dismal record in building IT systems.

Why Horizon is just the tip of the iceberg for Britain’s crumbling IT

Imagine if four in every five bridges built in Britain fell down. There would be national outrage. The companies building those bridges, the civil servants who ordered them and the ministers in charge would all likely pay with their jobs or worse.

uk.finance.yahoo.com

 

[TheURL]

Bear in mind that the Horizon scandal is quite unique. True, it's one of the c80% of expected failures, but the monumental scale of this particular failure was due to the alignment of many separate issues.

a. Horizon was one of the early PFI initiatives that Blair was keen to promote as part of New Labour policy. It was a very prestigious project which, unlike certain Defence projects, they hoped could be freely be sung the praises of in public. As such it HAD TO succeed - there was much to lose if it did not.

b. EY, and later PwC, used an auditing model that succumbed to the "Prosecutor's Fallacy", which meant that even their scrutiny of the PO still failed to highlight serous issues from early on.

c. the PO could afford to exploit the right to bring Private Prosecutions (IMHO itself a suspect feature of UK Law), which avoided another layer of Governance.

d. All 4 stakeholders, the Government, the PO, Fujitsu and the Auditors made mistakes, and it was in all of their interests to collude and cover up, hoping it would all just go away.

There may even have been some "masonic practices" at play (even if none of them were actual card-carrying members) - time will tell.

Another reason these things fail is that at work, most people feel unable to say "No". The Boss asks, "Can we have X by the end of the month?" And the Team Leader says "Yes" by default, because they think their promotion or job security depends on the Boss hearing what they want to hear. Then You have to work late to get it done for them.

Some Fujitsu boss probably asked a Development Team Leader, "How's it going?", and the Team Leader said "Everything is fine" - just because they felt they should. But of course it wasn't And because the concurrent circumstances and the environment in which Horizon sat, low ranking employees were forced to contribute to the PO profit-margins and suffer terrible personal trauma over two decades.

I don't think this happens so often with Bridges, but if it does I hope the TV companies will tell us about it.

 

[Retro]

Another reason these things fail is that at work, most people feel unable to say "No". The Boss asks, "Can we have X by the end of the month?" And the Team Leader says "Yes" by default, because they think their promotion or job security depends on the Boss hearing what they want to hear. Then You have to work late to get it done for them while management get the credit along with the pay rises and bonuses.

Great post, great points and ftfy one small section.

 

[TheURL]

Damn! I should have thought of the "bonuses" addendum! You are spot on.

 

[Crims]

I had this conversation just yesterday. I spent the better part of the past 10 years around London working in more reliable tech, and routinely talked with people at startup places like WeWork. At tech places they have zero collaboration or putting their heads together, and no foundation as a result in the scene. I was keeping an eye on a tech startup that was improving a lot which apparently sold for the aforementioned reasons. No longetivity in UK computing