Why do tech projects fail so often? 🐢
Atom CTO March newsletter
Welcome to the latest Atom CTO newsletter where we share tech news and stories for founders and entrepreneurs who are starting and scaling businesses.
Editor’s Note
I recently spoke to an exciting young entrepreneur in South Africa as part of the mentorship work I do at the Founder Institute and I was impressed by how he’d manage to spend the last 6 months bootstrapping the build of his MVP.
I remarked on how far he’d come in the time that I had known him, however, rather than being full of joy at finally having something he could put in front of his potential clients, he was a little defeated.
When I asked him why he wasn’t jumping for joy, he talked about how he had been around the houses searching for development agencies to help him and the first two companies he met ripped him off, they took payment and delivered nothing.
Given what we do at Atom CTO, I was pretty perplexed as to why he hadn’t asked me to help him out when selecting a team and his response, though very sweet and thoughtful, was also quite frustrating - he didn’t want to bother me with his problems.
Of course as a mentor and not least as a fractional CTO, these are the exact situations we are meant to be involved with so it made me wonder that when advice is there for the taking and it is free, why don’t more people take advantage of it.
The good news is that from now on he will be availing of free help that me and my team can give him and I urge you to do the same.
Atom will be running two free weekly clinics on tech and project management / delivery which are linked at the bottom of the newsletter.
Also in this newsletter, we’re linking to a series of podcasts of what I have learned over the years as to why projects fail. The example I just gave of the entrepreneur that got burnt is one that fulfils at least two of the 4 criteria I have identified as to why projects fail, in this case it was People and Oversight.
I very much hope that this podcast series, along with the clinics we’re running will help you avoid all of the costly mistakes when engaging with design agencies.
As a business owner you have time, money and energy, use them all wisely and get good help when you need it!
As ever, if you are interested in learning more or have a tech challenge you need to solve, then we are here for you! Email bhairav@atomcto.com
Bhairav Patel
Managing Director
Atom CTO
Interesting Insights
Latest events and articles in tech and entrepreneurship collected by the Atom team:
When deciding to build vs buy, ask yourself these questions on how you want to scale, technological advantage and whether the benefits outweigh the costs. ⚖️
Learn AI through spreadsheets? You can learn how AI and LLMs work thanks to a series of online sessions, entirely on Excel. 👓
Are you looking for your people? Discover websites of creators, thinkers and doers to find collaborators and like-minded people. 🫛
Chat GPT’s competitor, Claude 3 has just had a major update, setting new industry benchmarks across reasoning, maths, coding, multilingual understanding, and vision.🧠
The leadership drug - read this article about what really makes a leader, plus likely not to be anyone ‘on the leadership team’. 🍭
Listen for the quiet ‘no’ when you feel like you have to say yes, it’ll help you become more productive and enable you to focus your energy in the areas that really matter to you. 🐠
Atom CTO Podcasts
Helping Nigerian businesses achieve their full potential 🌳 - Listen to this interview with Zumah Yahaya, founder of Boubid which provides strategy, management and growth support to Nigerian businesses.
Podcast Series: Understanding why tech projects fail 🤷🏾♀️
From the dawn of IT, tech projects have failed and seem to keep on failing. In this podcast series the MD of Atom CTO leverages his years of experience to describe why he believes that tech projects fail and what you can do to ensure that your project delivers on time, on budget and gives you what you want.
Part 1: Communication
Part 2: People
Part 3: Oversight
Part 4: Planning
Part 5: Success
Do you have a tech or project management quandary?
We’re opening our (virtual) doors to two online clinics, just book your place and drop in and chat with our experts. Find out more about the Atom Tech Clinic, and Atom Project Delivery Clinic. 🩺
Subscribe to the Atom Ventures podcast here 🎧
Apple: https://tinyurl.com/s9k3zuz
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/vuny4pc
Google: https://tinyurl.com/4d38hsuv
SoundCloud: https://tinyurl.com/5h4ch2jh
Keeping in touch ✉️
Connect with Bhairav on LinkedIn
Follow on Twitter
Send us an Email: info@atomcto.com