**4. Findings**

Information Technology projects fail, and the cost of these failures is staggering [4, 15–18]. This concern has been highlighted and repeated for more than 40 years [19–26].

The Standish Group [18] has found that for 'development projects that exceed \$100 million in labour costs, only 2% are successful, meaning on time and within budget. Another 51% are considered challenged or over budget, behind schedule or did not meet user expectations. The rest, 47%, are seen as outright failures' [6].

The question that this research examined was not which factors were evidenced in the project studied, but why managers continue to make the same mistakes despite all the advice and training that is available. What this research found was that senior departmental leadership, which included the governance board and Department Head, ignored all the evidence and advice that was presented to them. They conducted themselves in a manner that implied that the project was running well, and that they did not require any input from their own team members. It appeared in fact that they distrusted their own staff relying instead on external vendor input. The leadership team of Queensland Health exhibited strong indicators of organisational narcissism resulting in situational incompetence.

project. Subsequently a Request for Information (RFI) was issued on the 2nd of July 2007, with initial responses received by the 12th of July 2007. Of the ten companies invited to respond

Situational Incompetence: An Investigation into the Causes of Failure of a Large-Scale IT Project

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76791

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A more detailed Request for Proposal (RFP) was sent to these four companies on the 25th of July 2007. An Invitation to Offer (ITO) was issued on 12th of September 2007. Responses were received from IBM, Logica and Accenture. SAP had withdrawn from the procurement process. IBM was the successful tenderer and a contract was entered into on the 5th of December 2007. The Queensland Health payroll project was seen as the priority, and the 5th of December contract between IBM and the State Government included a 'fixed contract' to be completed

By October 2008 it was reported that 'IBM had not achieved any of the contracted performance criteria' [27]. By this stage IBM had been paid A\$32 million of a revised A\$98 million contract and was forecasting completion would cost A\$181 million [28]. The A\$6.194 million dollar contract that had been entered into less than 1 year previously had now grown in mag-

On the 14th of March 2010 'after ten aborted attempts to deliver the new payroll system it went live' [28]. The project, originally scheduled for completion on the 31st of July 2008, was

The 'go-live' was 'catastrophic' [28], requiring 1000 additional manual staff to enter pay adjustments. The project costs by this time had been estimated at \$1.2 billion over the next

The Queensland State Government did not appear to have a consistent plan for the solutions for HR, payroll, rostering and recruitment. Different technologies were being deployed across different Departments at the same time, utilising the services of multiple vendors. Some vendors were operating as parts of a single project (on occasion), independently on other projects, and competing against each other for additional business. The overall environment appears

CorpTech initially went to market 'to seek products which could be delivered across Government and meet government-wide needs for HR and Payroll' [28]. IBM was awarded the contract after proposing a 'consortium of products - SAP was used as the core, and included Workbrain for rostering arrangements, Recruit ASP for recruitment solutions and

Prior to the commencement of the Queensland Health payroll project there are what appear to be conflicting projects awarded to different vendors. One contract, to IBM, to implement four software products to provide a state-wide HR and Payroll solution, and a second contract,

awarded to Accenture, to implement HR and Payroll for the Department of Housing.

only four did so: IBM, Logica, Accenture and SAP.

by 31st of July 2008 at a cost of A\$6.194 million.

**6. Chaos in the Queensland Government**

nitude to an estimated A\$181 million.

now 2 years late.

8 years of operation.

to have been chaotic.

SABA for knowledge management' [28].

Situational Incompetence exists where an otherwise experienced manager is placed in a position of authority over a domain of activity for which they are neither educated nor experienced. Their lack of knowledge leads them to overestimate their own abilities and to underestimate the challenges. Their lack of expertise results in an inability to identify competence in others, and an inability to intuit an appropriate response when the project experiences challenges.
