Negative effect of accountability

Accountability has such a negative connotation. It goes with blame and avoidance of risk and is frequently associated with blame and negativity. It gets passed down a chain until it becomes weakened.

Yet it can have a positive effect. There's evidence that being accountable produces more successful projects. Thomas & Fernández found accountability for project results drove positive behaviours.Their qualitative research explored how 36 Australian companies defined IT project success, finding that when formal definitions of success exist, and can be measured, then IT outcomes are improved and resources better utilized. They found that:

"companies that held business managers accountable for results had the most effective evaluation practices. Accountability was found to drive positive behaviours, improving the both the consistency of measurement & the willingness of managers to act... accountability addressed many evaluation challenges."

They found evidence that holding a client manager accountable for IT projects leads to effective evaluation practices:

"The fundamental principle was that if managers were held accountable then evaluation got done and results were used. Companies without accountability for results tended to complete ex-post evaluations inconsistently or not at all."

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Thomas, G. & Fernández, W. 2007. The Elusive Target of IT Project Success, 2nd International Research Workshop for IT Project Management,Montréal, Québec, Canada. From Association of IS Managers SIG conference, paper available at http://www.sigitprojmgmt.org/WorkshopProceedings2007.pdf