Operational work vs Projects

A persistent problem I've seen wherever I've worked is operational people, i.e. those with a full-time operational position such as Systems Administration, failing to deliver projects within agreed timescales. Why is this problem so endemic and why do we continue to take this well trodden path when the evidence would suggest failure to deliver on time is the most common result?

The majority of technical people love the idea of a project, they see it as a way to develop and have something interesting to do that's different to the majority of their daily grind. And yet, in the end, they and their managers get frustrated because deadlines come and go and there's usually nothing that can be done about it. Operational "stuff" just got in the way. Can it be different?

With large teams, people can be carved out to concentrate on projects, but in smaller teams this is all but impossible. Utilising external teams seems like a great idea - you gain instant expertise in the project area and you can do it all for a fixed price, but it demoralises the existing team and the specialist knowledge disappears on completion rather than stay in-house - believe me, documentation is not a PM's favourite pass-time!

Fastidious time-management and constant communications will help greatly, but these are two skills that are not often the most advanced in the technicians toolkit so they shouldn't be expected to help. Management could take the time and effort to keep on top of the project work and prioritise it aggressively against the operational work, but in reality there's not usually the time or interest and operational work will get prioritised over project work, period.

So, what's the solution? I'm not sure there is one. If management continue to insist on operational people doing project work, don't put in place a strict framework and don't prioritise it alongside operational tasks then it'll continue to fail. Considering it's management who have to pick up the pieces or take the blame for late delivery when things go wrong, you'd have thought we'd learn! I've not worked out a way of really resolving this problem, I wonder if anyone else has?!