Mentors Magazine: Issue 3

MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 45

You probably heard the business advice of
“failing to plan is planning to fail.” That
phrase is a misleading myth at best and ac-
tively dangerous at worst. Making plans is
important, but our gut reaction is to plan
for the best-case outcomes, ignoring the
high likelihood that things will go wrong.

A much better phrase is “failing to plan for
problems is planning to fail.” To address
the very high likelihood that problems will
crop up, you need to plan for contingen-
cies.

When was the last time you saw a major
planned project suffer from a cost over-
run? It’s not as common as you might think

for a project with a clear plan to come in at

or under budget.

For instance, a 2002 study of major con-

struction projects found that 86% went

over budget. In turn, a 2014 study of large

IT projects found that only 16.2% succeed-

ed in meeting the original planned re-

source expenditure. Of the 83.8% of pro-

jects that did not, the average IT project

suffered from a cost overrun of 189%.

Such cost overruns can seriously damage

your bottom line. Imagine if a serious IT

project such as implementing a new data-

base at your organization goes even 50%

By Dr. Gleb Tsipursky