Insights
Large transformation programmes fail far more often than the businesses starting them expect. The pattern is so consistent that it is almost a law. On average, big technology and change programmes run heavily over budget and, more damaging still, deliver only a fraction of the value that was promised. This is the number that should worry boards, because it means most programmes are quietly disappointing even when they are eventually declared complete.
By Christopher Fagan
The most striking finding is not the budget overrun, damaging though that is. It is the value gap. Programmes are sold on a benefits case, and on average they deliver barely half of it. The chart below shows the pattern from the widely cited study of large technology programmes: over budget, slightly over schedule, and well short on the value that justified the investment in the first place.
The causes are rarely technical. Programmes fail because the goals were vague, so nobody could tell whether they were being met. They fail because the scope grew quietly until the original plan no longer applied. They fail because the benefits case was optimistic and never revisited. They fail because the people change was underestimated, so a working system was rejected by the organisation meant to use it. And they fail because problems were visible for months but nobody with authority acted on them.
None of this is inevitable. The programmes that succeed share a small number of habits. They define success in measurable terms at the outset and hold to it. They control scope deliberately rather than letting it drift. They keep the benefits case live and check delivery against it, not just against milestones. They invest as much in the people change as in the technology. And they build in honest, independent assurance so that bad news reaches decision makers while there is still time to act on it.
If the base rate is that most programmes overrun and underdeliver, then the sensible assumption at the start of any major change is that yours will too, unless you actively design against it. That is not pessimism, it is planning. The cost of getting it wrong is measured in wasted capital and lost years. The cost of getting the disciplines right is small by comparison.
PEF exists to move programmes onto the right side of these statistics, through hands on delivery excellence and independent assurance that tells you the truth about where a programme really stands. Talk to us before you commit, or if a programme already feels like it is drifting.
Research into large technology programmes found they run on average well over budget and deliver only around half of the value that was predicted, and roughly seventy per cent of transformations fail to reach their original goals.
The causes are rarely technical. They fail because goals were vague, scope grew without a decision, the benefits case was optimistic and never revisited, the people change was underestimated, or problems were visible for months but nobody with authority acted.
Define success in measurable terms and hold to it, control scope deliberately, keep the benefits case live, invest as much in the people change as the technology, and build in honest independent assurance so bad news reaches decision makers in time.
If any of this is live for you right now, the senior people who wrote it are the people you would work with.