No Bullsh!t Leadership 10 Steps to a Positive ROI in your AI and Tech Investments
Aug 12, 2025
The conversation dives into the complexities of IT project management, revealing hidden challenges that often lead to failure. Personal anecdotes highlight disconnects between tech teams and business goals. A successful case study emphasizes the importance of recovery beyond launch, showcasing how projects can pivot from failure to success. The host provides ten actionable tips for ensuring positive ROI in AI and tech investments, preparing leaders for upcoming challenges in this rapidly evolving landscape.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Early-Career Lessons From Big IT Projects
- Martin G Moore recounts early-career roles from coder to CIO and the steep learning curve of large IT projects in the 1990s.
- He describes projects driven by tech people who often misunderstood business objectives, creating costly failures.
Project Focus: Painful But Transformational
- Martin tells the Project Focus story where NTI replaced core underwriting and claims systems and achieved strong long-term ROI despite stress and minor overages.
- He admits timelines slipped, testing was compressed, and reporting initially failed, yet the project underpinned company growth.
AI Projects Face High Failure Rates
- IT projects rarely meet original cost and time estimates, with less than 10% succeeding on those metrics.
- AI projects amplify this risk: McKinsey says 80% of pilots fail to scale and Accenture finds only 4% deliver noticeable productivity gains.