1. State of the IT Union December 2010 Survey Results
Scott W. Ambler
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

2. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
How To Use These Slides
I have provided these slides, and the raw data behind them, so that others can use them in their own work.
You may reuse all, or a part of, this slide deck as long as you provide a clear reference to the source.
The suggested reference is: Results from Scott Ambler’s December 2010 State of the IT Union Survey posted at
Some slides have notes
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

3. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
About the Survey
December 2010-January 2011
Survey link included in:
December 2010 DDJ Agile Newsletter
Jon Erickson’s blog at
page
Posting to
Posting to Scott Ambler’s blog at
Data, summary, and slides downloadable from
235 respondents
46% were programmers or agile team members, 22% were managers or team lead
48% had 20+ years of work experience
75% North American, 13% European 9% Asia Pacific
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

4. Types of IT Projects Currently Underway
Note: Accurate to within +/-6.5%
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

5. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Estimating
Note: Accurate to within +/-6.5%
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

6. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Estimation by Paradigm: Initial Estimate vs. Actual Results (+/- percentage range)
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

7. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Effective strategies applied by IT project teams to stay “out of trouble”
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

8. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Questionable strategies applied by IT project teams to stay “out of trouble”
Color scheme:
Black – Really bad ideas, although often “best practices” in the traditional world
Yellow – Indications that the team didn’t deliver on their promises. Arguably the team lied up front.
Orange – Purposeful lies at beginning of the project. “Padding” is a euphemism for lying about what something costs…
Red – Blatant “fixing of the books”. Fireable offense in many organizations, which may be why it’s happening rarely.
Change prevention process means that the had a “change management” process which made it difficult for stakeholders to change their requirements. See for why this is a bad idea.
Big Req. Up Front means that they wrote a detailed requirements and then worked to it. See for why this is bad
Reworked schedule at end means that they went back and changed the original schedule so that it matched the actuals
Reworked estimate at end means that they went back and changed the original estimate to match the actual costs
79 of 181 respondents (44%) did either BRUF or change prevention
97 of 181 respondents (54%) did yellow, orange, or read strategies
Note: 44% of respondents did either BRUF or change prevention
54% of respondents did at least one of the other strategies
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

9. Dysfunctional Behavior on IT Projects
Deception  The team did one or more of things to deceive their stakeholders about the scope, cost, schedule, or quality:
Deceptive cost practices: padded initial budget (lied about expected costs), asked for more money at end, or reworked initial estimate at the end of the project to reflect actuals (fixed the books)
Deceptive schedule practices: padded initial schedule (lied about the length of time), asked for more time at end, or reworked initial schedule at the end of the project to reflect actuals
Deceptive scope practices: descoped at end (didn’t deliver on promise)
Cutting quality
Ineffective requirements strategies  The team did one or the other (or both) at some point:
Took a big requirements up front (BRUF) approach, see
Took a strict change management approach which effectively prevented change, see
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

10. Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
How would you rate your organization’s approach to governance of your project?
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler

11. Other Interesting statistics
The survey only asked about “completed” projects
About project success:
71% of projects were considered successful
26% were considered challenged
Yet only 3% of the projects were cancelled
Copyright 2010 Scott W. Ambler