Keep
It
Simple
Or
Fail
Fabulously
After all, if you attempt something, shouldn’t you give it the most fabulous attention possible? Every effort should go into making the attempt successful. You’ve used your company’s resources for the effort. You’ve used your team’s efforts. Every project worth doing… We all know the way that sentence ends, “is worth doing fabulously.”
Ok, enough with the light-hearted talk. Now for the
realities of IT projects.
A well-conceived project doesn’t begin with a bunch of
technologists sitting around a table talking about servers or application
performance. An IT project starts with a
business or technology problem or process improvement initiative. The business may have:
· A problem that needs corrective action,
· An idea on a new business direction or improvement,
Technology may have:
· An area that would benefit from process improvement,
· An audit finding requiring remediation,
· Obsolete hardware
These are the most common reasons for a project implementation. Following SDLC or COBIT can definitely help you increase your chance for a successful project but in simple terms, here’s the KISOFF approach to improving your chance for a successful project.
K – Keep the scope simple. Smaller projects with documented milestones that can be achieved in a short time frame are win/wins for technology and the business. IT has the opportunity to be successful and the business can have working parts of their project developed and in production versus waiting for the entire development cycle.
I – Include the business in each stage of the project. An executive sponsor is key, even if the executive is the CIO. Having the business involved has multiple reasons for improving the overall state of the project. Don’t just involve the business though. Involve the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) for the area you are working on. They will give you more exact requirements than someone not involved in the day-to-day operations.
S – Scope creep can be the death of project managers AND just as importantly, the project itself. Stick to the original project scope. Have you ever been involved in a project that just wouldn’t conclude? The one where everyone points fingers at the other because they don’t want to accept responsibility for “The project that wouldn’t die”.
O – Outsource where necessary. Make effective use of your partners. If you are buying software, it is important to the software vendor that your project be handled correctly and you are successful. Include knowledge transfer and training in any SLA’s (Service Level Agreements).
F – Factor in additional resources, whether it is staff, time or money, to deal with unforeseen issues. That doesn’t mean to frontload all of your quotes by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars but adding 10 or 15% for contingency is an established industry standard.
F – Focus. Don’t get distracted by every day fire drills. I am not saying ignore your day to day responsibilities but create a reasonable project schedule allowing for staff resources to focus on the project as a priority and from a management state which has priority for your team. If possible, assign different resources to the project than those who are primary on supporting production.
While this month’s blog was definitely written a bit tongue-in-cheek, that shouldn’t diminish the gems contained. By following the KISOFF strategy, you can improve your project success rate. While this strategy may not be as detailed as SDLC or COBIT, it may be all that a small company needs to get to the end game. Best of luck.
