The list, known as "The Dirty Dozen," is covered in the Project Management Leadership Academy, part of the department’s training curriculum, as the Top Project Challenges (Dirty Dozen), Alice Scott-Rowe, CDT's communications deputy director, told Techwire. It will also be discussed in March during the course PM: Foundations of Project Management. But the “Dozen” actually dates to May 2016, when it was originally published on the CDT website.
One reason for its longevity is because despite state and local efforts to ease the process, implementing technology and innovation remains challenging.
"California state government has had its share of challenges on large, multiyear projects that have not gone as planned," the site points out. "Project failures or delays result in constituents not getting the services they deserve, higher overall costs, and increased public scrutiny. Therefore, the California Department of Technology led an effort to better understand the top risks that were tripping up a number of the state’s IT projects. Several reoccurring issues were identified as themes in California’s troubled projects. These common themes for project failure were dubbed 'The Dirty Dozen.'”
- Contract management and vendor negotiations
- Data conversion and migration
- Governance and sponsorship
- Interface planning and implementation
- Organizational change management
- Quality assurance and quality control
- Release management
- Requirements definition and management
- Risks and issues
- Schedule
- Testing
- Architecture planning
