A project, particularly software projects, are complex and timely. Therefore, it would be fantastic to expect the first draft to be the perfect final product. Because of the errors inherent to the project deliver and the potential unexpected events, a rigid approach can be harmful for the well-being of the project. By enforcing a specific vision and pursuing it at all costs, the end-result can be largely off target, off schedule and off cost, the exact definition of a failure, Olsen(1971)[1].

Agile comprehends that reality and recognizes that a project can fail in certain area, either in the production or the conceptualisation and therefore proposes an iterative approach to palliate these downfalls. By maintaining an open communication channel with the end-users and the different stakeholders, the project manager can redirect the project on the right track as soon as a concern arises; it is called “pivoting”. Pivoting is the spearhead of the methodology and is the reason of the worldwide adoption of the methodology, on top of the tremendous increase of project success over the following years. Despite the obvious changes brought by that approach, Agile did not resolve all the problems of the project management field. After a steady surge in project success rate, the increased slowly reduced and eventually started to stagnate around the mid 2010.

Many scholars have questioned the reason of poor performances of projects for the very beginning of the practice. Their responses often reported the lack of efficient communication between stakeholders, the mismanagement of risks and uncertainty and the inaccuracy of forecasting. Are these elements not solved with Agile would you respond? Apparently not. Digging deeper, it has been proven that these elements often emerge from biased decisions from project mangers; decisions driven by heuristics instead of evidence.

To alleviate the effect of the objective decisions, researchers, consultants, and experts agreed on two foundational supporting elements: the recognition of heuristics and usage of technology. The recognition of heuristics is the result of consciousness of the behavior and the desire to change that behavior, often tied to individual self-awareness. The self awareness, although praised by institutions is hard to assess objectively. Therefore, the best route for reaching a novel level of efficiency is the wide adoption of technology in the project management field.

The fun fact is that the technology is, in reality, already accessible. Gigantic innovations in term of forecasting have been available on the market since the early 2000’s, such as Critical Path Assessment, Monte Carlo Analysis, or Earn Value Method. Yet very few organisations use them, and the best achievers in the field, according to the Project Management Institute (PMI), are the companies and teams leveraging these technologies Therefore why are most of the actors reluctant to their adoption? That is a question upon which you shall all reflect.

Although the reasons of the conservative approach of project management are still blur, their consequences are cleared. McKinsey experts (2015) have shown that when a project overrun in cost, it on average represents an overspending of 45% of the initial budget[2]. Already sobering, the worst is yet to come. In the case of megaprojects, whose budget is minimum $1bn, can overrun enormously up to 1900%, for instance with Suez Canal (Oxford,2019)[3]. On top of the direct economic impact of delays and overspendings, the benefits of the projects, monetary and non-monetary, shrink as the project lingers. Experts claim that, on average, 56%[4] of the predicted benefits are lost because of the overruns.

The past is the past you might say, things are changing, and we have learned about the many previous failures, as a child would learn not to plug his finger in the power socket. Let’s see if grown ups learn from their mistakes, with a current project.

The UK government has launched the initiative of renovating and expanding its railways with the HS2 high-speed rail infrastructure. The project, connecting London to the Northern part of the country ambitioned to relieve the car traffic congestion, hence purifying the air, and reducing the Co2 impact, and promote tourism and jobs. The official budget of the endeavour was £56bn in 2015 and was supposed to be completed between 2035 and 2040. Today, in 2021, the bill reaches more than £100bn and it is far from over. After re-examination, the rail should be finished by 2041, 20 years from now. Wat what cost? That is the billion-pound question. Yet, if we exclude the outrageous budget increase and focus on the benefits, the delays caused by the delivery will affect the cleansing of the air, the decongestion of the traffic and the overall goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. It is unfortunate to see that the lessons have not been learned and that the shock will this time not only affect the country but also a more global agenda.

At Fortean, we do not claim that we possess the magical formula that will save every project from such outcome, but we have decided to integrate these innovations in our platform to favour the integration of past lessons and provide the project management field the results it deserves. We have decided that the waste of resources was useless and that the benefits expected should be reached. By implementing the state-of-the art technologies, we leverage internal data to accompany you in your unique endeavours. Together, let’s make the right decisions, for today but also for the future

If you’d like to understand more about how the technology works, the benefits and how you can get involved in the movement, please send us an email: info@fortean.ai

[1] PMI Pulse of the performance 2021 (2021) https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2021#:~:text=Pulse%20of%20the%20Profession%202021%20(2021).,embrace%20new%20ways%20of%20working.&text=Gymnastic%20enterprises%20are%20leading%20the%20way%20in%20The%20Project%20Economy,no%20matter%20what%20it%20takes.

[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/megaprojects-the-good-the-bad-and-the-better

[3] https://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/oxford-answers/why-megaprojects-systemically-fail-and-what-can-be-done-about-it

[4] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/delivering-large-scale-it-projects-on-time-on-budget-and-on-value