SAAQclic fiasco: IT projects more likely to exceed budgets, says expert

Information technology (IT) projects carry a “much higher” cost risk than other areas of activity, according to an expert from Oxford University.

One in five IT projects exceeds its budget by an average of 450 per cent, Professor Emeritus Bent Flyvbjerg told the Gallant Commission on Tuesday, which is investigating the SAAQclic fiasco.

According to Flyvbjerg, decision-makers who want to move forward with an IT project must ask themselves if they are willing to take the risk of becoming part of this statistic.

“Can we afford a one in five chance of a 450 per cent cost overrun?” he said. If the answer is no, the organization must abandon the idea or find ways to reduce that possibility, said the megaproject expert.

According to Flyvbjerg, both private companies and governments forget to ask themselves this question before embarking on an IT project.

“The risk doesn’t go away just because you ignore it. It will hit you later. (…) This is what we see over and over again, all over the world, with people and organizations finding themselves in very difficult situations because they didn’t understand the risk, because they didn’t manage the risk,” he argued.

The professor listed the various factors that could explain why IT projects are riskier than others. In particular, he pointed out that the IT field has been around for less time than other sectors, such as building construction, and therefore does not have the same level of “maturity.”

The academic is best known for the book “How Big Things Get Done,” co-authored with Dan Gardner.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews