25 million euros wasted, project failed

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Yet another big IT project in dutch government failed. A 25 million euro project was cancelled. Lots of press and discussions:

Why did they spend 25 million before declaring the project failed? Shouldn’t they be able to detect earlier that what is being build isn’t going to help the users? Or that it’s going to cost a lot more than estimated?

Most government projects are using Prince 2, a project management method created by a British government institute. It looks like this isn’t working, for whatever reason. Maybe they’re not using it right, maybe it isn’t the right tool to create succesful products.

Mary Beijleveld recently pointed me towards another method created by a British governement institute: System Error. This approach advises to use Agile methods for project management.

Looks like a good time to read it.

As far as i’m concerned the biggest problem is not understanding the difference between product development and product manufacturing, and the different types of management you need for these two.

  • http://www.deltalounge.net/wpress Peter Paul

    There is another interesting mechanism at work here called “aanbestedingen”. In order to prevent overspending the feedback cycle between user and development team becomes even greater. In case of a change all kinds of contractual and rules for fair competition come into play. These make feedback and adaption even harder.

    By the way my experience is that these government bodies use Prince 2 in name. They don’t actual do or act as prescribed by Prince 2. Imho sticking to Prince 2 would raise the success rate of their projects.

    I would value it even more if they would reduce the feedback cycle…

  • http://www.andrejkoelewijn.com/ andrej

    Very true, aanbestedingen isn’t improving the situation.