A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

  The imperative for project governance? 

 A recent survey of the challenges of managing digital business implementation projects is 

indicated by a survey of over 600 European and US businesses involved in management of 

 web‑  related projects (E‑consultancy, 2007). The research found that: 

   

● 

  Only 58% of respondents say that their projects always achieve their goals, and yet only 

21% of them say they always achieve deadlines.  

  

● 

  Only 39% always achieve budget and a positive ROI.  

  

● 

  Over 8% of respondents never meet their project deadlines and nearly 6% never deliver 

their projects within budget.  

  

● 

  Nearly half of all respondents (45.5%) do  not  have a structured approach to managing 

their  web  projects.   

 Respondents to the E‑consultancy (2007) research believed that  web‑  related projects are dif‑

ferent from other projects because of their need to be responsive to: 

   

● 

  changing customer requirements and market conditions;  

  

● 

  the breadth of people and skills involved;  

  

● 

  the  raft   of  stakeholders;  

  

● 

  frequently tight or fi xed deadlines;  

  

● 

  a  degree  of  uncertainty;  

  

● 

  and the need for interaction with real customers.   

  Planning  change 

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Part 3  Implementation

E‑consultancy (2007) also looked at the main challenges of web project management which 

are shown in Figure 10.4 and corresponding approaches to overcome these challenges in 

Figure 10.5.

The research concluded that web projects require a project management approach that 

helps with:

● 

evolving requirements;

● 

putting focus on the  end‑  customer;

Figure 10.5

Success factors for web project management showing percentage of 

respondents who demonstrate these

Source: E-consultancy (2007).

120.0

Multiple approaches

17.1

Cross-functional steering

28.9

Business-wide prioritisation

34.9

Snr sponsors

38.4

Align with business strategy

38.4

Shared goals

46.6

Highly communicative

49.8

Structured approach

54.2

High collaboration

54.5

Have a PM

55.5

User drives requirements

66.2

Flexible requirements

75.2

Baseline

100.0

100.0

80.0

60.0

40.0

20.0

0.0

Figure 10.4

Challenges of web project management (n = 527)

Source: E-consultancy (2007).

% of r

espondents

Changing scope or 

requir

ements

50

0

Unr

ealistic expectations

33

Business fails to input on time

31

Developers under

estimate

27

Unable to articulate r

equir

ements

27

Get/Keep r

esour

ces

23.5

Poor collaboration

19

Poor user input

16

No clear PM pr

ocess

15

Lack of skills

14

10

20

30

40

50

60

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