"It's just a tiny request, but it's essential for go-live."
The "Christmas wish list" effect
On a project planned for 6 months, every committee brought new false business emergencies, relying on the so-called "agility" of the approach and with no fixed MVP scope.
Result after 4 months:
- Feature volume multiplied by 3
- Zero budget or schedule adjustment granted
- Complete misalignment between business expectations and IT
- Technical team overheated and under maximum pressure
The 4 drivers of IT project drift
- Fake agility & no MVP. Confusing agility with the absence of a framework: wanting to deliver everything in v1 dilutes effort and postpones go-live indefinitely.
- Scope creep & accumulated emergencies. A continuous stream of "minor" changes creates functional overload that IT cannot control.
- Underestimated technical and data debt. The real effort of integrating with legacy systems and cleaning databases is minimized.
- Decision latency. Every blocked trade-off between business, IT and procurement burns budget and speed without producing value.
of IT projects exceed budget or timeline (Standish / McKinsey).
drift rate recorded in the MEA region (PMI / Gartner).
"The trap is rarely the ability to code, but the organization's inability to set a framework for saying no."
Over to you: what is your method for saying "no" to false business emergencies?
The series "IT & AI: the reality on the ground"
Why 70% of IT projects driftEpisode 2
Generative AI and IT budgets: the "divided by 4" illusionEpisode 3
The "Fake Agile" trap and weak governanceEpisode 4
The POC syndrome: why 80% of AI projects failEpisode 5
The new execution contract: governance, capabilities and P&L
Program Management & Recovery
Executive steering of complex programs, PMO, recovery of troubled IT projects and IS modernization.
Fakhri Essedik
Founder of EDX Advisory
For more than 25 years, Fakhri Essedik has helped executive teams and CIOs steer major Digital, Data & AI programs across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.