I agree with the comments so far that point out that a headline number for "IT" "failures" is questionable and out of context. To get to any estimate like that you have to make many assumptions and estimates that can always be called in to question. As I have learned from exercises like this, definitions also matter A LOT. This author has done a great job creating a headline-grabbing figure that gets the blood pumping. Nothing succeeds like hyperbole.
Definitions matter, and this is something that often gets over-looked. While I have not read the white paper I'm going to guess that important concepts like "cost," "IT" and "failure" are either completely undefined or defined poorly because, well, we all know what these words mean, right?
Let's start with "failure." Who is the arbiter of whether or not an IT initiative succeeds or fails? Is it the IT team? The line of business? Some executive or corporate team that was not involved in the project? These different groups almost always have different criteria for success and failure. For example, the very different criteria for success:
IT: We plugged it in and turned it on. We pinged it on the network. It worked.
Line of business: We incorporated it into our business process and it delivered the desired improvements to our effectiveness or efficiency.
Corporate Finance: The project delivered returns that could be measured in currency in excess of the cost of the capital spent to buy and implement the solution on the breakeven timeframe that we designated.
Next, let's look at the question of "IT." In the context of complex business activities this label is applied to a particular organization and professionals applying a set of tools and principals. IT does not operate in a vacuum, and many of the so-called failures of IT are the result of poor process and communication between IT and the rest of the business.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by August Jackson.
"IT Failure" is neither IT nor failure... discuss.
I agree with the comments so far that point out that a headline number for "IT" "failures" is questionable and out of context. To get to any estimate like that you have to make many assumptions and estimates that can always be called in to question. As I have learned from exercises like this, definitions also matter A LOT. This author has done a great job creating a headline-grabbing figure that gets the blood pumping. Nothing succeeds like hyperbole.
Definitions matter, and this is something that often gets over-looked. While I have not read the white paper I'm going to guess that important concepts like "cost," "IT" and "failure" are either completely undefined or defined poorly because, well, we all know what these words mean, right?
Let's start with "failure." Who is the arbiter of whether or not an IT initiative succeeds or fails? Is it the IT team? The line of business? Some executive or corporate team that was not involved in the project? These different groups almost always have different criteria for success and failure. For example, the very different criteria for success:
IT: We plugged it in and turned it on. We pinged it on the network. It worked.
Line of business: We incorporated it into our business process and it delivered the desired improvements to our effectiveness or efficiency.
Corporate Finance: The project delivered returns that could be measured in currency in excess of the cost of the capital spent to buy and implement the solution on the breakeven timeframe that we designated.
Next, let's look at the question of "IT." In the context of complex business activities this label is applied to a particular organization and professionals applying a set of tools and principals. IT does not operate in a vacuum, and many of the so-called failures of IT are the result of poor process and communication between IT and the rest of the business.