Millennium Crunch: Across The Great Divide

June 8, 1998

Behind the News:
Across The Great Divide

Executives and project managers differ widely on the year 2000 issue.
How can we attain common ground?

By Leon A. Kappelman

Please Note: This article first appeared in InformationWeek, June 8, 1998. pg. 192.

e've all seen disagreements where both sides seem at least partially right, but neither could see the truth in the other's position. Usually there's some larger truth that both sides are unable to see because of the partial truths they hold so dear. But until a synergistic reconciliation occurs in the thinking of both, the result is stalemate--or worse.
This seems to be the situation in most enterprises with regard to the year 2000 problem. Just consider the very different pictures of year 2000 that emerge from executives and project managers. Extrapolating the official executive viewpoint as reported to the SEC by 95% of the Fortune 500, Federal Reserve Board Governor Edward Kelly posited the total cost of year 2000 to U.S. businesses at $50 billion (" Year 2000 Costs Will Trim Economic Growth, Fed Says ," InformationWeek , May 4, 1998). Extrapolating the views of a random sample of year 2000 project leaders from enterprises representing about one-eighth of the U.S. gross domestic product, the Society for Information Management's Year 2000 Working Group estimates the cost to U.S. business to be closer to $160 billion--and notes that this figure only superficially includes the year 2000 costs for PCs and embedded system s.
Who's right is not the issue, especially in light of the fact that 85% of companies say they're underestimating their year 2000 costs. The divergence could be explained both in terms of the relative proximity of the two groups to the year 2000 projects, as well as in light of the possible biases of project management toward over-reporting--because they want more resources to control--and corporate executives toward underreporting, because their compensation is increasingly tied to stock options. The critical question is--considering such divergent opinions about the size of the problem and the ostensible inadequacy of internal communications regarding year 2000--what chance do U.S. enterprises have of solving it?
Even when the viewpoints of CIOs and their respective year 2000 project managers are compared on a case-by-case basis--as in the latest report from SIM--there are serious differences not only in how they see the size of the problem, but also in how well they think their enterpris es are estimating resource needs, measuring progress, and tracking resource use.
Is it any wonder, then, that at least 40% of year 2000 projects are underfunded to the point of stagnation? Consider also that less than half of the nearly 550 project people polled at two recent year 2000 conferences reported that their projects have high-level (CIO or above) management sponsorship; and that three of their top challenges for the next 12 months are communicating the urgency of year 2000 to upper management, and getting adequate budget and staffing commitments.
So how do you make sure your enterprise isn't one of the casualties of this paucity of shared vision and commitment? Pay particular attention to the following in attaining and maintaining year 2000 common ground in your organization:

	Make year 2000 an enterprisewide priority through frequent and regular communications across all levels of management.
	State project progress and the consequences of year 2000 failure in term s of management issues like earnings, market share, litigation, and regulatory problems.
	Work jointly with management to develop project priorities, budgets, deadlines, and acquisition plans for needed resources and skills.
	Make sure the year 2000 project in your enterprise has strong and visible top-management support. Without it, your project is doomed.

Professor Leon A. Kappelman is an associate professor of Business Computer Information System in the College of Business Administration at the University of North Texas. He is also an associate director of the Center for Quality and Productivity at the University of North Texas, co-chair of the Society for Information Management's Year 2000 Working Group, and program chair of the SPG Year 2000 Conference & Expo. He can be reached at kapp@unt.edu.

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