It’s taken me a good while to get around to creating and hosting my own blog, it probably would never have happened if not for COVID-19. I have acquired a server and installed industrial-strength database, web-server and content management system on my home LAN. Having to get my head around CSS, HTML, PHP and even dynamic DNS has been peculiarly enjoyable but now the challenging bit starts; do I have anything to say and will anyone want to read it?
One thing that has amazed me over the years, more than anything else, is how many organisations are prepared to willingly put their very existence into jeopardy by placing mission-critical information technology needs into the hands of vendors, and recklessly trust in them to work their arcane magic, or staff whose experience has been limited to date with patching legacy systems. One reason could be that computers are still a mystery to many decision-makers who are content to move this area of responsibility to someone else.
If the opinion expressed above is true then what would we expect to be the result and is there evidence to support this view? The major impact would be that software implementations would fail to deliver the promised business value within quality, cost or time forecasts. There may be a number of excuses or contributory factors but ‘experts’ should have been able to foresee potential outcomes by calling on their skills and experiences. The Standish Group have been publishing their bi-annual well-respected annual CHAOS reports since 1994 and they document the uncertain path that has been followed by IT through the years. The 2020 edition gives well-reasoned statistics on project success of 31% were successful, 50% challenged and 19% failed completely.
I am hoping that the insight that I bring to the table might help towards improving the gloomy situation described above.