[teampractices] IT projects almost as prone to overruns as the Olympics

Tue Aug 16 20:30:17 UTC 2016

According to a NASA retrospective[1], if I'm reading it correctly, the
initial projected budget for Apollo was $2 billion, and the total spend was
$2 billion.

According to a different source[2], they had already spent $3 billion by
1963, and the total was something like $60-70 billion.

So either it was amazingly on-time and on-budget, despite requiring a ton
of *invention*, not just implementation. Or it was 3000% over budget, but
on time.

[1] http://www.history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/Apollo.html
[2] http://www.asi.org/adb/m/02/07/apollo-cost.html

Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation

On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 1:10 PM, Grace Gellerman <ggellerman at wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Apollo 11 had a hard deadline of the end of the decade.  Not sure if the
> 1960s meets your definition of modern....
>
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016 at 8:20 AM, Kevin Smith <ksmith at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> The Olympics, unlike most of the other types of mega-projects, have a
>> hard deadline. They can cut quality in some ways, but they can't run late.
>>
>> So (presumably) 100% of Olympic projects have hit their date, and I doubt
>> any other type of mega-project is anywhere near that. (I wonder if ANY
>> other modern mega-projects have come in on time.) Presumably hitting that
>> date adds to the expenses, and especially to unplanned expenses as one
>> delay leads to another.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kevin Smith
>> Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 3:30 PM, Max Binder <mbinder at wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hosting-the-olympics-is-
>>> a-terrible-investment/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 2:25 PM, Grace Gellerman <
>>> ggellerman at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks, Joel!
>>>>
>>>> For more real world examples see the wikipedia entry for the Planning
>>>> Fallacy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy>.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Kevin Smith <ksmith at wikimedia.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I would also be interested in cost overrun comparisons with other
>>>>> *international* projects. I mean, that has to add to the confusion and
>>>>> unpredictability, right?
>>>>>
>>>>> The chunnel came in at 80% over budget, according to wikipedia.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Kevin Smith
>>>>> Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Arthur Richards <
>>>>> arichards at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Fascinating, Joel, thanks for the share!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 11:24 AM, Joel Aufrecht <
>>>>>> jaufrecht at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Olympic Games average 156 percent cost overruns, outdistancing
>>>>>>>> all other types of megaprojects. For comparison, road projects average
>>>>>>>> overruns of 20 percent; bridges and tunnels 34 percent; energy projects 36
>>>>>>>> percent; rail projects 45 percent; dams 90 percent and IT projects 107
>>>>>>>> percent.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (according to The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun
>>>>>>> at the Game <http://arxiv.org/pdf/1607.04484v1.pdf>)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (source
>>>>>>> <http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hosting-the-olympics-is-a-terrible-investment/>
>>>>>>> )
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Worth noting that the study looked ONLY at sports-related costs and
>>>>>> excluded larger projects (eg infrastructure):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The numbers cover the period 1960-2016 and include only
>>>>>>> sports-related costs, i.e., wider capital costs for general infrastructure,
>>>>>>> which are often larger than sports-related costs, have been excluded.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am curious what the average overruns would like if all
>>>>>> Olympics-related costs (eg infrastructure, etc) were included.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Arthur Richards
>>>>>> Sr. Agile Coach: Organizational Collaboration
>>>>>> Team Practices Group
>>>>>> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Team_Practices_Group>
>>>>>> [[User:Awjrichards]]
>>>>>> IRC: awjr
>>>>>> +1-415-839-6885 x6687
>>>>>>
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