Apprehending the Future by Bryan Alexander

I agree with the author about the ever changing trends in Technology. It is almost as though your newly implemented technologies become obsolete as soon as the organization has learned to adapt to them. This constant change creates instabilities in the organization. The Standish Group conducted four subsequent surveys in the United States during the years 1995, 1998, 2004 and 2009. The interviewed executive managers reported the alarming success rate of Information Technology investment projects at sixteen percent, twenty six percent, twenty eight percent and thirty two percent respectively. Success was defined as completing the Information Technology implementation projects within the planned time and budget (Standish Reports: Chaos, 1996, 1998, 2005, 2009). Fortunately we see an improvement in project management, but we still have a long way to declare mastery of Information Technology implementations.
Despite this, Executive Management must constantly keep an eye out for new technologies that will improve their internal efficiencies and hence competitive advantage. To improve the success rate and ROI of their Information Technology projects, management must have a deep understanding of the technical, political and cultural environments in which their new Information Technology investment(s) will be implemented. These technical, political and cultural forces are ubiquitous and powerful. If ignored, these forces impose challenges that may eventually suffocate the life out of the IT investment project, and the people involved. On the other hand if these forces are examined, understood and strategically accommodated during the project planning, the project will most likely succeed (PMBoK, 2004, Mulcahy, 2005, Tichy, 1983, Fombrun et al, 1984). In a nutshell, the technical, political and cultural environments are the waters that investment projects sink or swim, all depending on the management’s expertise in strategically maneuvering through these powerful environments to align them for equilibrium.