TECHNOLOGY : How Companies Can Hobble Runaway Computer Systems

More than 65% of all computer system installations turn into runaway projects in terms of cost and time overruns, James Willbern, a KPMG Peat Marwick partner, told an audience Tuesday at the Center Club in Costa Mesa.

The Dallas-based specialist directs the accounting firm’s national practice for runaway computer systems. He said the dangers of losing control of costs and missing deadlines when installing new computer systems have multiplied with the rising complexity of computing tasks.

The bread and butter for Willbern’s 35-member staff has been trouble-shooting for more than 300 companies that have seen their computerization projects--from installing a new accounting system to converting from a centralized mainframe system to a personal computer network--hit the skids.

“In larger companies, the senior executive is not as close to the estimates of rising costs of a project, so the threshold where he begins to feel pain isn’t as high,” Willbern said. “Most companies don’t know they have a runaway system until they’re over budget.”

While computers have become faster, the time it takes to develop a complete computer system for an office has not changed and has perhaps become longer, he said.

Willbern said some warning signs of a runaway are:

* The original time frame for completing the project has been exceeded.

* Costs are increasing rapidly.

* The project becomes the largest undertaking at the company.

* The scope of the project keeps changing.

* Status reports are incomplete or take too long to assemble.

* Lines of responsibility and accountability for the project are unclear.

In addition, he said, companies face runaway projects when they must consolidate two separate data-processing centers or acquire another firm with a different software system and start integrating it into their own.

To prevent a runaway, Willbern suggested that companies become proactive. He said project managers should pause and run “sanity checks” on project costs and time schedules, make sure that those who will use the system approve of its progress during the design and development stages, and visit sites where computer systems are running both smoothly and poorly before investing in a system.

Willbern said the advent of software programming tools in the 1980s has made software easier to write.

A runaway computer system, he maintained, is more often a management problem than a technical one. “Tools help people, but the basic problem is that the people working on projects often don’t know how long it’s going to take them,” he said.

“Designing a computer system isn’t at all like laying a highway one mile at a time. You can’t see things as clearly with a computer project.”