London Ambulance Service Computer Aided Dispatch System Lessons Learnt Report

1. Why don’t information systems projects work out as planned? What causes the differences between the plan and reality?

Kay, D. (2012). Relationship Between Planning and Control Explained. Available: http://dailyojo.com/articles/relationship-between-planning-and-control-explained.html. Last accessed 19th Nov 2012

The key to a successful project is in the planning. Creating a project plan is the first thing we should do when undertaking any kind of project. A project plan can allow a Project Manager to complete a project within a specified timeline and a specified budget.Reaching these important goals, will make the project customer happy and help the organization to build a good relationship with the customer for future projects. Project planning is fundamental in order to avoid failure and disappointment. In project management, effective planning is absolutely required if the individual or group wishes to deliver a finished project on time and on budget. From a Project Management article (http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/40904.aspx) I read that during the project planning phase, plans are developed in the form of project baselines for schedule, cost, scope, quality and risks, all of which are components of the overall project plan. This gives the Project Manager basis for monitoring project progress and upon which to base decisions necessary for managing changes needed to help get the project back on track.

The issues that Alcan was facing were numerous to say the least. The fact that the leadership in the IT side had been vacant for more than a year was very problematic. Another large chunk of the infrastructure issue revolved around how decentralized the business groups that made up Alcan were. “Every business group was completely independent, with its own strategic IT plan, infrastructure choices based on its specific needs, and IT applications and services. Each group had its own IT organization that pursued its objectives based on the group’s needs and orientation. Groups’ needs, like their activities, were highly diversified. Over the years, this culture of autonomy had been reinforced by mergers and acquisitions” (Bernier & Dube & Roy, 2009). Another issue that was identified was that Alcan had more than one thousand information systems, and many of these systems managed information that was financial. It completely makes it difficult to comprehend how you would even attempt to be able to work with over 1,000 systems within Alcan. Another identified issue was that there was a problem with accessible skills which were insufficient, and crudely positioned to meet requirements of the information technology infrastructure. This also resulted in these needs not being evaluated, identified, or even compensated in a similar way as other various business groups. Instead the outsourced providers instead minimized the deficiencies

Although the initiation of the contract, work breakdown structure, and the total outlines was created, stated clearly and effectively the project still turned out incredibly way outside of scope and cost as it was predicted early on in the project. These delaying and costly factors were caused not by the use of project management, rather a malpractice of it. One of the biggest contributing factors of delay and ever increasing expenses was, the production of the final product before a successful first test flight. Meaning Lockheed Martin, did not follow the set outlines it created for itself and jumped to the finish line by starting final production of the aircraft before working out all of the flaws that were currently present. This meant that the United States government would receive a faulty and unfinished product. Along with several other contributing factors such as engineering issues, poor staffing, and software

By thinking, analyzing, and planning, one can conquer tasks that were thought to be impossible at first (Gonzales 96). When the man forgot to build a fire, he laughed at his foolishness (London 82). This shows that planning was no top priority for

There was no completeness in this whole process. The critical components were not cross referenced with the test plans hence it became tough for the management. This was one of the major failures.

Why don't information systems projects work out as planned? What causes the differences between the plan and reality?

Managing a budget and schedule can be very difficult in everyday life, let alone managing a budget and schedule for a multi-million dollar project. Many tools are available to help with project management to aid in managing a project with a vast amount of factors involved. In the article, ‘How Gantt Charts Can Help Avoid Disaster’ by Linda Russell, she explained how a Gantt chart may have helped this failed project. To name a few issues, the project didn’t have a dated project plan, the project had not determined the critical path, there was no baseline project plan, and there was a major scope change in the middle of the project. Poor scheduling management led the company to penalty charges. And all of this also pointed to poor communication.

In this paper, the author will introduce a failure case of K-Mart 's IT modernization system project. In 2001, K-mart took $1.4 billion dollars into this project with the purpose of competing with its rival Walmart. The dream is beautiful, but the real work is cruel. After 18 months, the project was failed because of lacking of cash. What happened in the detailed for this project? $1.4 billion dollar is huge numbers, why it was still not enough to pay and distribute for this project? How did its project manager do in this project? What are the project problems? How can we learn from the failure of this case? The paper includes the case background introduction, the project development process, the problems in the project, analysis and

Planning provides a guideline for the members of an organisation to carry out their tasks according to the set objectives. The absence of planning can create ambiguity within the organisation.

Planning is a process of establishing a mission with clear goals as a means to achieve them. Good planning requires special skills and perspectives allowing decision-makers to understand the challenges they are facing and apply the most effective solution to a problem. In order to achieve success, one must plan accordingly. Planning can be short term or long term. Short term plans are done on daily basis and are easier to achieve than long term plans. Long term plans are also known as strategic plans and are used to achieve a long range vision or mission of a company. In both methods of planning, short term and long term, is necessary to achieve top notch results. Like in any other process, there are both benefits and pitfalls to a

One of the first pitfalls with the Denver Airport was the lack of projected time. This was a very complex project that required much more time and planning than the amount allotted by the project management team. The BAE project offer was accepted because it had a significantly shorter deadline than the other three offers. While the project management team at BAE was convinced the project could have been completed in their proposed timeframe,

In some situation, a system too large to build without an overall plan that coordinates the people working on it. According to Sharon Florentine, senior writer of CIO.com, 50 percent of businesses experience IT project fail in 2012. The most common reason, responded by 74 percent of interviewees, is a lack of resources to meet project demands [4]. Three years later, the failure number increased that 55 percent of businesses surveyed experienced an IT project failure within last 12 months [5].

Chapter 4: How do you think planning in today’s organizations compares to planning in an organization 25 years ago? Do you think planning becomes more important or less important in a world where everything quickly changes and crises are a regular part of organizational life? Why?