From: Howard Stearns Peter Crowther wrote: lots of good comments. (Thanks.)
Thanks for the response - didn't know how they'd be taken.
But the other side of the coin is that so many projects in this "easy problem" world are failures. A higher failure rate than the
clean-slate
hard problem world!
Yup. Because the (technically) "easy problems" are organisational nightmares, with vendor/customer politics, sales/tech politics, many stakeholders at the client who are using the system for political infighting and empire-building, and (in general) at least one key stakeholder who will do his/her best to sabotage the project as it's to their personal advantage to have it fail. And that's in a *small* project.
By contrast, the clean-slate projects typically have a few key stakeholders, clear and non-conflicting requirements, and less in the way of internal politics.
Consider the following (typical) example of an "easy" problem: - The client invites tenders for a specified system; - The salesperson wants their bonus, so deliberately tenders for less than they know the system will cost to develop; - The developing company wins the bid; - The salesperson gets their bonus, and moves on to the next sale; - The project *cannot* be a win for both remaining sides, as it is not possible to bring it in with all features and within budget - and that's ignoring requirements creep; - Somebody loses. Probably both sides lose: there's no profit in the job, and the end system doesn't do what the client wants.
Unless you consider the systems angle, you don't see the full system. The *full* system includes all the humans who interact to produce it, and therein lies a large chunk of the problem.
I want to understand why the three-tier projects fail. And how to avoid that. I know that there are people who can make them succeed despite the math, using leadership and operations
research
and charm and ruthlessness and lots of money, or whatever. But that's not my domain. I may not have the choice to always pick the right tool for the job, but I do want to try to understand what makes something the right (or wrong) tool.
From observation (perhaps with charcoal-tinted spectacles), I think
you're looking at the end of the problem that can make a few percent of difference. If, instead, you look at all the messy leadership, charm, ruthlessness and money side, I think you're looking at the side where most of the difference in the success of a project is *actually* made. It's possible to do so, but you need to apply the principles of systems analysis... and competition, of course. Even if your company is sensible and bids at a level where they can do the job, they'll be undercut by a lying salestoad from a company who (eventually) can't.
Cynical? Moi? :-)
- Peter