Just in case you were in any doubt about how important good project management is, take a look at the lamentable mess a department of the UK government made of a recent project.

It was an IT project, merging a variety of separate systems into one. With an original budget of £55m, it was supposed to save the department £112m when complete. In fact, it is likely to cost £121m, and save £40m – a nice £81m cost to the taxpayers of the UK!

More information is available from articles in two UK newspapers, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph article has a quote from a British politician who looked at the project:

“The Department must also overhaul its project management capabilities, closely examining the expertise of its project managers, setting up systems for subjecting future plans to rigorous challenge and, crucially, establishing incentives to officials for success and penalties for failure.”

While most errors in projects aren’t as high-profile as this, they could all cause serious problems to your organisation. With a strong project management team, methodology, and skills, along with an organisation truly bought into project management, perhaps this project could have been given a chance of success. That’s why it is important you develop your project management skills, and keep them up to scratch, with project management resources such as this project management guide!