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Strategy Control Room Advanced members can access the new\u00a0IT, Digital, AI, and Cloud Center-of-Excellence here<\/a>.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n You do not want to hear this, especially if you’re knee-deep in an IT project.\u00a0If you have spent more than a year speaking to IT experts and meticulously planning your project\u00a0and about forty percent into delivering the project, this is the last thing you want to hear.<\/p>\n Yet, you need to hear this.<\/p>\n IT projects have the worst track record of any project,\u00a0including<\/strong>\u00a0those notoriously delayed defense contracts you read about in the news. IT projects are frequently\u00a0over budget, behind schedule,<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0fail to deliver what they promised<\/strong>\u00a0(outcomes). This poor performance is typical across industries, regions, and types of IT projects. This is a finding across several consulting firms, universities that study projects, and our own experience with clients.<\/p>\n You can ignore this Center of Excellence (CoE), assume your project will be the exception, and plow ahead, but chances are you’ll become another failed IT statistic.<\/p>\n Or you can learn from this\u00a0IT, Digital, AI, Cloud Center-of-Excellence.<\/p>\n It is far better to do the work today to either fix your IT project or plan for the next IT project. The reality is that all of us, at some point or another, will be a part of or impacted by some IT project.<\/p>\n The findings in this CoE broadly apply across all projects, and we will, at times, use non-IT examples to explain some concepts.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Across all the IT projects we have managed, advised on, or reviewed, we have distilled the insights on what makes a\u00a0successful IT project. These insights come from years of working with clients, including digital transformation efforts and large-scale AI implementations.<\/p>\n This includes our\u00a0significantly more extensive archive of projects than what members have seen within Insider, Legacy, or SCRA over the last 15 years. We have\u00a0yet<\/strong>\u00a0to publish those to StrategyTraining.com and SCRA. As you can see from all our updates, this is an ongoing process.\u00a0We hold the largest available repository of management consulting analyses, tools, toolkits, methodologies, proposals and studies, and sales techniques, and it keeps growing.<\/strong><\/p>\n Those insights have been condensed\u00a0into a single ~168-page internal guide we use when advising on IT projects. We hand this internal document to our teams, and we are now making it available to you.<\/p>\n We’re releasing the\u00a0first two sections<\/strong>\u00a0for the SCRA members and will continue to share more over the next month.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Noteworthy Highlight<\/em><\/p>\n Strategic Literacy:\u00a0<\/strong>Most professionals believe they\u2019re growing when they consume information. Books. Courses. Frameworks. But the real advantage comes from how you process what you read, and what you do with it. The\u00a0Strategic Literacy<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0program teaches a unique approach to reading to get uncommon results. Once you see it, you won\u2019t approach information the same way again. Accessible to Insiders and Legacy members on\u00a0StrategyTraining.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n The Hidden Reason IT Projects Fail<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s a subtle, powerful reason most IT projects fail. And it’s not what you think.<\/p>\n It has nothing to do with budgets, timelines, vendors, or technology. It’s rooted in how decisions are made and defended inside organizations. It’s about the psychology of teams under stress.<\/p>\n You won’t find this insight in traditional project management literature, but it has played a decisive role in nearly every IT failure we’ve seen. It’s part of the unique insights we make available only to our clients and members.<\/p>\n It’s one of the most important ideas we’ve uncovered, and we walk through it in detail in the CoE. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and you’ll start to recognize it everywhere.<\/p>\n If your project is already underway, this one blind spot may become the reason it quietly derails.<\/p>\n We explain exactly how this works and how to fix it in the complete IT, Digital, AI, Cloud Center-of-Excellence.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Noteworthy Highlight<\/em><\/p>\n A once-in-a-lifetime chance to co-author a book with Bill Matassoni,\u00a0<\/strong>former McKinsey and BCG senior partner, worldwide head of marketing at McKinsey, and head of the McKinsey Quarterly. We\u2019re doing this only once, and your name could appear beside Bill\u2019s, mine, and some of our most senior clients in a publication aimed at top executives and corporate leaders. This is\u00a0The Published Author Program<\/em>.\u00a0Learn more here<\/a>\u00a0or email\u00a0team@firmsconsulting.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want to become a bestselling author with a smaller\u00a0chapter in our other co-authored project (The Published Author Program<\/em>, Lite)\u00a0instead? Secure your spot in our next Lite co-authored book for an\u00a0affordable<\/strong>\u00a0$997<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a04 payments of\u00a0<\/strong>$275<\/a>.<\/p>\n For both co-authored projects, all you need to do is write your\u00a0chapter and we\u2019ll handle the rest. We\u2019ll produce a beautifully designed book and work to get it to\u00a0#1 on Amazon<\/strong>\u00a0in at least one category, earning you the \u201cbestselling author\u201d title for life. You\u2019ll also receive a professionally designed PDF of your chapter to share, plus bonus training on how to leverage the book to build your brand. And if you need help in packaging your ideas and thoughts into a chapter, we have an optional wordsmithing add-on.\u00a0Learn more and secure your chapter spot\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n The IT, Digital, AI, and Cloud Center of Excellence also outlines the best-practice guidelines for IT projects (and any project, whether you are building a road or an airport, since the principles are the same).<\/p>\n We have included detailed case studies explaining why specific projects failed and how they deviated from best practices.<\/p>\n We follow the advice we always offer to management consultants and industry leaders.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Noteworthy Highlight<\/em><\/p>\n How Not to Appear Weak in Meetings<\/strong>: People aren\u2019t just negotiating with you in the moment. They\u2019re negotiating with your reputation. The meeting starts, the room shifts, and control slips before you speak. You hesitate: too forceful, or too soft? Not appearing weak and not being weak are not the same. Some manage the room well and still walk away with less than they planned. This two-part Legacy program shows how to shift perception early, avoid silent concessions, and hold your ground without creating conflict. Insiders can upgrade to Legacy and return to Insider later without losing Insider status (provided there is continuous membership). Just email\u00a0team@firmsconsulting.com<\/a>\u00a0when you switch back so we can reactivate your access.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n The Planning Fallacy<\/strong><\/p>\n Bad things happen that are outside your control. We accept that, and it is\u00a0normal. There is, however, something\u00a0that everyone does and has become normalized.<\/p>\n There is a belief that if you do everything right, follow all the best practices, speak to all the experts, get their sign-off, and get all approvals, then you have prepared for everything.<\/p>\n This is common, and it’s wrong. It is a bad choice to believe you can see the future and predict everything that could happen. It is also a bad choice not to build in realistic contingencies and assess the risks.<\/p>\n See the\u00a0program on immigration<\/a>\u00a0where we\u00a0discuss the risk factors practically no one considers. It will help you think about risk even if you are not immigrating.\u00a0This is an editor’s choice program<\/strong>.<\/p>\n If you are telling yourself the following in your IT project, these are red flags:<\/p>\n “I am very confident in my plan.” In our experience, all of these are warning signs. And you will\u00a0see why in the IT, Digital, AI, and Cloud Center-of-Excellence.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Noteworthy Highlight<\/em><\/p>\n If you are a leader who wants help positioning yourself for managing larger projects\/being given bigger roles, email team@firmsconsulting.com.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n What is\u00a0The Strategy Control Room Advanced<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Type Of Materials That Consulting Firms Never Share, Never Want to Teach Their Clients, and Guard with Their Lives.<\/strong><\/p>\n Enroll for the Strategy Control Room membership and gain access to FIRMSconsulting.com and StrategyTraining.com private knowledge management system. >$500M value created.\u00a0$200M value reported by a single client in one year by using the blueprint in the operations strategy study.<\/p>\n This is not duplicate of the ppt. used to produce the StrategyTraining.com videos. It contains much more. We have used the same files in our consulting studies, winning >$1 million consulting proposals and client workshops. Access all our books, including bestselling books no longer available to the public and books that were never available to the public, as well as book drafts. Peruse flipcharts used for client relationship building and project workshops, private strategic planning documents, and Centers of Excellence.<\/p>\n The type of content we produce cannot be found anywhere else accessible to the public.\u00a0Unrivaled and curated.<\/p>\n The reason we call our knowledge management system the Strategy Control Room is that it allows you to have a place where you can go in and gain access to superior IP that can help you not only set apart your deliverables, not only gain an edge over your internal and external competitors, but access materials that can become an intelligence that powers the growth of your unit, practice, team, or even of your entire organization.<\/p>\n Imagine a control room with access to information your internal and external competitors dream of having. You go in, you pull relevant advanced IP, you see what you can integrate into your work today, and you integrate on the fly. Rinse and repeat. Do this at least one time a week and it can set you on a very different career trajectory.<\/p>\n Enroll for\u00a0SCRA\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n If you’re an SCRA\u00a0member, the\u00a0IT, Digital, AI, and Cloud\u00a0Center-of-Excellence\u00a0is\u00a0 Not a member yet? Enroll here:\u00a0strategytraining.com\/pages\/scr<\/a> We care about your success and are here to support you. Feel free to reach out with questions at\u00a0team@firmsconsulting.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thank you for being part of the StrategyTraining community.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firmsconsulting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/unnamed-6.png?resize=1312%2C736&quality=80&ssl=1\")
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<\/p>\nCase Studies: Why IT Projects Fail<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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\n“Everyone has signed off on this project plan, which gives me confidence.”
\n“Every expert agrees with my thinking.”
\n“I feel good about where we are going.”
\n“I must build a solid business case ASAP.”
\n“Everyone is on board,\u00a0and we are not getting distracted.”
\n“We must figure out all the steps ASAP.”
\n“I have a clear idea of the budget, so the numbers are under control.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/firmsconsulting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/strategytraining.com-ec.png?resize=1312%2C736&quality=80&ssl=1\")
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