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09/05/2001 Archived Entry: "5-September-2001 -- When Bad Things Happen to Good Projects"

When Bad Things Happen to Good Projects (CIO Magazine, May 1997) -- "The other failure factor that goes hand in hand with scope definition is scope creep: mid-course project changes that often lead to cost and time overruns. In traditional construction projects, proposed revisions are subject to a strict review and approval process-they require formal change orders. Not so in IS projects, where unchecked changes often wreak havoc on deadline and budgets." (Comments: Interested in this topic? Read Them Changes.)

Replies: 1 comment

I'm involved with both I/T and Facilities. It's tvery true that I/T projects suffer from uncontrolled changes; but this is NO DIFFERENT from construction projects. The same urges to mess with the specifications exist. There is one key difference - - many (but not all) construction changes are physically visible and hard to ignore. In software projects it is much more difficult to "see" the changes unless you read the code, and very few managers and users do this. Also, the average person has much less understanding of the cost/schedule impact of a software change than a construction modification.

Posted by MCW @ 09/06/2001 11:55 AM EST

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