Failing in IT

Shamus McGillicuddy writes that it's OK to fail: Every year, Hollywood studios release movies that ..... at the box office.

Record companies ..... albums no one wants to play.

The auto industry introduces cars that ..... - remember the Ford Edsel?

Businesses in every vertical industry take risks when they .....; when they try something new, they know there's a chance for failure.

But in information technology, CIOs rarely feel they have the ..... room to fail.

CIOs need to ..... back when their companies expect a 100% success rate, said Tom Halbouty, vice president and CIO of Pioneer Natural Resources.

When a project fails, put the failure within a context that a company understands; at Pioneer, IT project failures can be compared to the number of wells drilled that came up ..... - plenty!

He said if he tries to create a system that creates animated ..... of underwater drilling projects and puts them out on the Web for his worldwide users to use, he has to expect some risk.

"No one has done it before, and I'm not sure I'm going to pull it .....," he said.

John F. Cole, CIO of Kansas City, Mo.-based Midwest Consulting Group Inc., agreed with Halbouty's notion that CIOs must be prepared for the occasional failure; but on the ..... side, Cole said CIOs should also be sure they are communicating the successes.