November 07, 2008

- © 2008 by Warren S. Reid. All rights Reserved

Abstract

Part I: Riskipedia 2.0 – Failure Factors that Fly Under the Radar: Hidden, Yet Debilitating, Software Project Cripplers!
© 2008 by Warren S. Reid All rights reserved

So much has been said, written and testified about why systems & software projects fail … and what can be done about it. Yet, TODAY, despite all of this knowledge and new tools, methods & project manager (PM) approaches – 1/3 of large systems projects are still challenged (i.e., substantially over budget, behind schedule, delivering less than full functionality, etc.), and 1/3 are still scrapped altogether.

Why is this still happening? While many PMs have learned to estimate better, attract better trained staff, push-back impossible mandated schedules and embrace industry best practices, there is something more that our industry is missing – something that turns otherwise project success into failure!

As a PM, consulting firm partner & expert witness in software project failure disputes, I see a second level of project cripplers that were silent, but deadly -- that were always present, but dormant, and only became visible and active when the traditional project wisdom and failure fixes of the past 20 years were implemented. This set of hidden failure factors is quite different from the risks PMs and others typically focus on (e.g., the typical clashes between constituent parties 1 regarding such issues as: scope creep, bad contracts, poor staffing, non-use of automated tools, failure to follow best practices, inappropriate training, bad data conversion, untested interfaces, etc.). They are not addressed until they surface late – and create a crisis!

These concealed roadblocks to project success, are within each constituent (called ”goals divergence” or “conflicts”) and not between constituents (“clashes”). Such conflicts include constituent organization:

• structures and goals
• long-term business strategies; and short-term realities, needs and goals
• staff hiring and retention policies; departmental and employee incentive programs
• annual budgets and budget process; investments into R&D
• top mgmt under-appreciation of how each dept. contributes alone, and in concert with other departments, to its multi-faceted strategies, plans and objectives
• internal competition, risk & confusion from unclear, contradictory & changing philosophies & values.

Conflicts within constituents include such issues as:

• user departments can’t agree on implementation sequence or date(s)
• users unable resolve current or new work flow and rules definitions
• each user department believes that its requirements should have highest priority
• new in-house developed system is implemented and turned over to under-trained, under-staffed, under-budgeted and under-tooled In-house Maintenance Group
• Vendors “steal” their own best people from one project and move them to a “more important project”

Clashes between constituents include such issues as:

• Acquirers’ change budgets at will, yet prefer “rigorous” contracts; vendors prefer fixed fee for defined requirements, that may be incomplete, wrong or ambiguous; users want right to change requirements without a cost or schedule penalty
• Vendors need the “best” SMEs to help determine requirements, yet the “best” SMEs are fighting operational fires and are unavailable for long periods of time
• No agreement on: estimates or estimates-to-complete, critical path, or refinement/signoff of HOW each requirement will be implemented, making for unreliable project status reporting and finger pointing
• Vendor skips part of testing methodology to stay on schedule or because Customer does not want to pay for the extra steps required (such as regression testing)

My presentation on this topic will cover the following in a very interactive style with the attendees:

• What clashes plague virtually every large systems and software project?
• What risks and clashes are KNOWN before every project starts based on experience?
• What can you do to mitigate and minimize such clashes and risks?
• Why IT best practices fail to improve software project development/implementation successes?
• Define and explore the concepts and extent of constituent conflicts and goals divergence.
• Explain through real examples/cases, the inherent inconsistencies, discrepancies of principles, and disparities in goals that complicate completing projects on time, on budget and on target
• Brainstorm possible approaches to better understand and unearth & mitigate these factors

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1

1. Acquirers: Board, CXOs, Steering Com, Counsel, CFO: those resp for overall corp success to meet biz objectives.
2. Outside IT Resources: includes vendors, developers, integrators, consultants, software houses, etc.
3. Users: characterized as employees w company responsibility for day-to-day operations; have varying degrees of experience in their dept functions, org workflows, where their group fits in and in IT and systems.
4. Inside IT Resources: Internal IT department which I break into the Development group(s) and the Maintenance group. (operations, technology, help desk, standards, DBA etc. are not discussed in this presentation)

Part II: “Requirements: Why So Difficult Still?” [60 minutes]
© 2008 by Warren S. Reid All rights reserved

In the second part of the presentation, entitled: “Requirements: Why So Difficult Still?”, Warren will present and lead an interactive talk, featuring your experiences and mine, as to why “poor requirements” continue to plague projects and are typically one of the most powerful factors contributing to creating devastating cost and schedule overruns, substantially under-featured delivered systems, poor quality /under-tested systems, and fuming stakeholders.

Requirements are a people problem more than a technical problem. Users who have never been through a requirements process before, or who have been though a failed one, or one different from the process being used this time have no basis for knowing what to do and how to do it! The old user mantra response of “Just don’t give me less than what the current system provides … and, oh yeah, please fix these (printer) problems I’ve been having over the past week!” does not cut it! It never did!! But with today’s more tightly coupled and integrated systems, the requirements elicitation process is more critical than ever.

Topics to be covered, time permitting, will include:

• Who are the stakeholders – and what stake do they really have?
• What are some of the good requirements elicitation (RE) techniques? Tools? And skills required?
• What risks does a good RE process minimize or mitigate?
• Requirements freeze -- Why it does not work? How do you control the inevitable and healthy requirements changes – because you are not going to be able to stop them?
• What are requirements anyway? What are good requirements? What are “commercially reasonable” requirements? What are “workmanlike quality” requirements? What are the “best practices” in RE?
• What’s wrong with our vendor selection process? What’s wrong with our integrator selection process and working relationship?
• How should we read and interpret proposal responses to your RFP – as they relate to requirements phase and RE process?
• How should we manage our Stakeholders? … our RE subproject?
• Do the ideas and answers to the questions above differ when performing the RE steps for a System of Systems (SOS) project?

Your Presenter: Warren S. Reid: Following a distinguished career as a management and computer technology consultant and partner at an international consulting firm, where he designed and implemented dozens of systems, and consulted on approximately 75 contracts for software development, systems implementation, software maintenance, hardware procurement, outsourcing and more. At Arthur Andersen & Co. (now Accenture), Mr. Reid wrote the 1st volume of the 1st draft of Andersen’s “Method/1” methodology, considered by many as the granddaddy of all commercially available SDLC methodologies. He asks you NOT to hold that against him! Warren S. Reid founded the WSR Consulting Group, LLC in 1988. He has been engaged in developing and implementing large-scale systems and turning around systems in crisis situations, such as helping create and launch the Federal Energy Office for President Jimmy Carter in 75 days, and overseeing the testing and acceptance of California’s Lotto Lottery games in just 100 days, and helping to resurrect the Malaysian MESDAQ Lottery which failed on opening day.

For more than 20 years, Mr. Reid has also been actively engaged in litigation matters internationally as a consultant and expert in cases involving the failure of large-scale systems and related projects including those embracing computer, internet, enterprise, point-of-sale, robotics, and Y2K systems technologies and platforms. He has testified in U.S. State and Federal Courts, and has been engaged as an expert by a “Who’s Who” in the world of international business including: the U.S. Department of Justice and President William Clinton; an Asian Stock Exchange; PepsiCo; Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of England; CompuServe; Fortune 500 retailers; and ERP software developers –just to mention a few.

Mr. Reid graduated with highest honors from Baruch College in New York City and earned his M.S. and M.B.A. degrees from the Wharton Graduate School of Finance. He is also guest lectures at USC in their Software Engineering Graduate School programs and at Southwestern Law School in their 2nd year Software Contracting course. Mr. Reid is a highly published author and has appeared on radio and CNN as an expert in systems technology.

Contact Info: Warren S. Reid, Managing Director WSR Consulting Group, LLC
Office: 818-986-8842
Fax: 818-986-7955
e-mail: wsreid@wsrcg.com
website: www.wsrcg.com
blog: blog.wsrcg.com

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Logistics

Location: Northrop Grumman E2 Presentation Center (in tall building off of Entrance 2), Redondo Beach, CA (formerly TRW) - 2299 Marine Ave., Redondo Beach, CA 90278
Directions: Take the 405 Inglewood exit (southbound it's the exit after Rosecrans East, northbound it's the exit just after Hawthorne) and go north on Inglewood Avenue (southbound, turn left at the end of the ramp, northbound, turn right). Turn left at Marine. Continue West under the freeway past the railroad tracks three lights to Simon Ramo Drive. E2 is on the tall white building to the LEFT, past the shorter presentation building. (See page 733 A5 of the Thomas Brothers Guide.)
Time: 9 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Admission: Free
Reservations: No reservations are necessary, except for Foreign Nationals.

Please Note: Foreign Nationals, including Northrop Grumman foreign employees, must contact Warren Scheinin (warren.scheinin@ngc.com) at least three (3) days before the meeting so NGC can process the paperwork for visits in a NGC building in accordance with Department of Defense regulations. The usual identification (passport, green card, student visa) will be necessary on the visit day.

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