At the CIO NZ Summit we asked people to nominate a subject they saw as a challenge in project delivery (covering a range of subjects we work across). the results were interesting so we have published them hoping you find them of interest.

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CIO2015 by the numbers
Thank you for visiting our stand at the CIO 2015 Summit. I hope you recall that on our stand you
were invited to place a marker on the subject you felt was your biggest challenge. We have sent you
this document to explain the distribution of markers that you and your peers placed across the
different subjects.
The CIO2015 had 550 attendees. Of those 76 visited our stand and placing a marker on our banner,
that’s 13% of attendees. We hope this simple experiment gives an indication of the voice of CIO
NZ.Inc.
Just as a reminder, you could have chosen from any of the following:
 PMO and Project & Programme Management or Requirements gathering
 Enterprise and Solution Architecture
 Business Structure
 Organisational Change Management or
 Operational Effectiveness
We had also put the terms “Business Strategy” and “Objectives” as the precursor to the projects
actually happening, and “Business Value” & “Success” as the outcomes projects hope to achieve
from the projects. We were pleasantly surprised when these area’s were also considered a challenge
by those who took part in our experiment.
And here are the results we discovered:
 Organisational Change Management topped the poll with 23% of participants seeing it as a
concern
 Operational Effectiveness was a challenge for 20% of participants, with a third of these
participants being challenged by service providers who don’t step up and deliver (harsh but
true), or work to the contact not the outcome
 Architecture is a challenge for 12%

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 The PMO received 3% of comments, Project Management and Programme Management got
7% and “developers” were seen to be a challenge by one attendee.
 18% believe strategy is the biggest challenge, with comments such as “lack of clarity”,
“changing too much” or “work in progress” being mentioned. We had never intended for
this to be part of the scope of our activity so it was interesting how many of you saw it as a
challenge and tagged it!
 Equally, how strategy is translated into activity was seen by 5% as a challenge. Oddly no one
commented about this on Day One, but by the end of Day Two four people had marked it as
a concern!
 And finally where we had put “Value” on the banner where value was customer acquisition,
revenue, risk management of compliance. Value was considered a challenge for almost 7%
of participants who saw that trying to define this as a challenge.
We had graphics by the side of some of the points, such as a 3 dimensional cube by the side of the
word “Scope” for project Management . . . interestingly 3% considered that a challenge! Achieving
“Success” was also seen to be a challenge by one person: I guess perception is everything!
As for the mood of the participants, well almost everyone put their name on the back of the marker
and we thank you for that. Three people chose to be anonymous and we will respect their requests .
. . or did they just not want to be called by a salesman!
The fine print: Everyone had a story to tell as to why they placed their marker where they did. We
didn’t guide them in their decision (and when nine people from the same organisation all choose
different points we didn’t comment). This activity was intended to be a fun and interactive so please
don’t quote me in any scientific journals or challenge the statistical accuracy of the results. But do
call me if you want to talk about your experience.
We hope you found this exercise as interesting as we did.
See you next year at CIO2016.
Thank you and best regards
Robert Lilley, Team Friday
Friday Solutions Ltd
M: 021 88 64 63
robert.lilley@fridaysolutions.com