IT managers who fail to deliver projects should take
more
responsibility for their actions and must be willing to learn
from their mistakes if they are to become better leaders,
Michael Portillo told the IT Directors' Forum.
The former party politician and cabinet minister, today
addressed the crowd of senior IT decision-makers and suppliers and
drew on his experience in politics to provide insight on how to
deal with failures in IT projects.
Portillo said that managers should not look towards finding
someone else to blame as a first resort when projects fail, as this
will make them enemies quickly and would dissolve relationships
within the team.
“It comes down to your attitude and your approach after the
event. There must be a willingness to learn from failures on the
part of the manager - to look at themselves and their actions
objectively,” he said.
Portillo warned IT suppliers against the arrogance of
overselling. He said that overconfidence in the lead up to a
project going live was often the cause of failure, and that
managing expectations throughout their relationship with the client
was essential.
“Clients understand failures can occur, but they expect a high
level of response from their suppliers when it does.”
By using this approach, customers might still maintain faith in
suppliers who fail, because of the level of care and diligence they
exhibit. Relationships in IT contracts are the same as they are in
politics and are built on the dignity of approach to failure, he
said.
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