Leaders in the ever-changing insurance market understand theneed to modernize their technology by leveraging more modernplatforms.

They also know that emerging technologies have added significantcomplexity, requiring multiple system integrations and variousregulatory requirements.

The industry has come a long way in adopting good project management procedures to modernizelegacy systems and build new platforms and systems. Some have evenadopted the concept of project management offices to formalizeprocedures into a repeatable format within their organizations.

Project managers may boast about their adherence to bestpractices in project development and product delivery, but whatexactly does that mean? And, if project managers are onboard withbest practice techniques in the delivery of projects, then why arecritical projects still failing and causing significant losses inthe industry?

First, let's define best practices in project management. Theseare techniques or methodologies based on research and numeroussuccessful projects, resulting in delivered systems that exceedexpectations. According to the American Productivity andQuality Center, the three main barriers to adoption of bestpractice techniques are:

• Lack of knowledge of business processes:Project teams are reluctant to take the time to document thecurrent processes, both automated and manual. How you can determinefuture processes if you are not familiar with how the current oneswork?

• Limited desire to make necessary changes:Insurers who do not embrace changes in the industry and who insiston doing things the way they have always done them often causetheir own failures. Change is inevitable. How an insurer adopts thechanges in methodology says a great deal about their views ontechnology and their definition of best practice.

• Unskilled technology resources: Newtechnologies require IT professionals to keep pace withdevelopments in the industry. Gone are the days when an ITdevelopment team knows only its area of expertise. Moderntechnology requires broader, skill-based developers who areexperienced in integrating applications to different deliveryplatforms and who understand, at a minimum, how the software fitsinto the environment.

Taking this a step further, even if all of these barriers havebeen overcome and project teams have adhered to best practices,they still seem to miss the mark in delivering products andplatforms that meet expected results.

Related: 5 tech upgrades carriers must make in2016

IT leaders explain that overcoming the main barriers andadhering to best practice techniques sometimes are just not enough.In analyzing failed projects, the PMI Institute provided a whitepaper on the topic of quality of project delivery. Within thestudy, key adopters discussed three primary factors they found infailed projects: scope issues, quality of developed products andcontinuous performance measurements.

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Teams have to be able to measure performance and progresswhen implementing new technology and programs. (Photo:Shutterstock)

Scope issues

The insurance industry, in a push to catch up to advances intechnology and gain a competitive edge quickly, chooses to definethe entire scope of large systems in the initial delivery of aproject. Technology vendors take on engagements and often neglectto spend sufficient time in the up-front planning andrequirements-gathering phases of projects.

The primary reasons given for this lack of time commitment areaggressive schedules to complete the work and an effort to minimizecosts for the client. The result is a lack of understanding ofdetailed requirements from a business perspective. Even though thetechnology meets best practices in system development, it fails insatisfying the speed, scalability and performance the client needsto meet the demands of the ever-changing insurance industry. Manytimes, encompassing all of the system at once leads to significantdelays, missed deadlines, inefficient processes and poor performingsystems.

Quality of developed products

Failed projects often point directly to the quality of theproducts developed. Poor quality of the product is frequently aresult of the project team's unclear understanding of the needs ofthe organization. Business analysts who generally have theresponsibility to provide process flows for the current and futurestate of an application may not be insurance savvy.

They will provide good form and best practice in documentation,but either define requirements in a vacuum, not understanding thefull picture, or may lack clarity in how to improve currentprocesses related to the main focus for insurers, i.e., claims,underwriting, regulatory. The result is poor quality in productdelivery that does not satisfy the client's needs.

Performance measurements

Failed project delivery is a result of a lack of continuousmonitoring of progress to catch defects and issues within thedelivery life cycle. Without measuring performance of project teamsand their progress, projects fail a significant number of times.Project management requires constant telescoping of people,timelines and budget. Proper project management techniques andtools are a necessity, not a luxury, and they must be appropriatefor newer delivery techniques. Ensuring the organization or thevendor has access to today's tools to monitor progress is essentialto the health of any project.

Related: 3 questions to ask before automating yourprocesses

Along with proper measurement, there must be honest, opendialogue from all involved. Without input from users, project teammembers, vendors and others, improper processes, lack ofunderstanding of requirements and issues may not be uncovered.Frequently, vendors engaged in project and product delivery assumethat projects are on track and running smoothly if they have nofeedback from the organization. Honest and frequent collaborationis key, but sometimes project managers are not familiar with theuse of good tracking tools and lack the ability to ask the rightquestions of their clients.

Project managers in today's ever-changing business world mustkeep pace and focus on the barriers and shortcomings of failedprojects to learn and understand how to overcome them in productand project delivery. It's no longer enough to follow IT industrybest practices. Success requires an understanding of the insuranceindustry, governmental regulations and how to bring speed,scalability and performance along with more agile, modernizedtechnology and tools to meet the demands of insurers and theirpartners.

Maria Zabetakis is senior program manager for SaintPetersburg, Florida-based VIPSoftware.