Avoiding IT project disasters

Your initiatives are often the most expensive, high profile and high risk

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The people

Whether executive champion or project implementation manager, everyone needs to be involved, communicated with and, where appropriate, managed with anticipated outcomes firmly fixed in mind. Project management is key in this process.

According to Vosila, an excellent project manager has command over both the science of project management (such as PMBOK, Gantt, scheduling, task management and documentation), as well as the art (collaboration, negotiation, mediation and ‘solutioneering’).

“For me, it’s the art component that makes or breaks a successful project,” he says. “It is imperative senior business leaders put significant skin in the game in such projects by assuming project sponsor, champion and manager roles – and through this, accountability.

“Non-IT business leaders often don’t have the necessary project management skills to ensure the success of complex projects, which is why I resource such projects with a professional IT project manager to shadow the business project manager, assisting and guiding them through a successful methodology."

Central to this core of personnel are IT people, regardless of whether the project is characterised as “business” or “IT”. Corcoran says every project should consciously consider an ICT interface, and have a commensurate level of engagement with ICT providers.

“Technology has become so intrinsic in our business and private lives that there would be a shrinking pool of projects which would not ‘touch’ ICT,” he says.

“Poor, limited or late engagement with clients in these situations represents a real risk. Where policies or work programs develop in isolation from ICT specialists, or engagement occurs too late in the process, situations arise where individuals have become wedded to particular solutions which may not fit the operating environment of the organisation. Delays, cost blow-outs, or basic project failure can easily arise.”

But Vosila gives a word of warning: Organisations whose projects fail to meet success criteria have often done so because they lack the right skill sets “In these cases, the organisations have tended not to resource projects with the ‘staff you can least afford to assign to the project’, which is what I strongly advocate,” he says.

“It’s these staff who will drive home a successful project. And guess what… the organisation will not fold if some of your key people are working full-time on an important business initiative for six months. The cemetery is full of indispensable people.” And full of well-intentioned projects too.

Anatomy of a successful project
Dexus recently completed a project encompassing their own breed of activity based working known as “flexible working environment” (FWE). The technology component came in under budget and well within standard timeframes for such a project.

GM for technology and operations, Clive Bailey, says the team had a number of drivers including hard deadlines, budget and outcomes, which tightly framed the project. “They were challenging at times, but we were able to find practical and creative ways around every issue that cropped up.”

Here, he lays out the criteria used:

Preparation was vital to success. This involved thorough research, product selection and testing, piloting of products and eventual training and then rollout to the entire business.

Good communication was required to ensure an easy transition. This was managed by the project’s steering committee with regular project updates to staff and feedback from them as the project progressed.

Buy-in was needed at every level. “Everyone needed to understand what we were trying to do and why, which included management and staff,” Bailey says. “Buy-in was important to ensure we were prepared for the move and to get commitment to a new way of working once we moved.

Clear goals were in place. The CEO was clear about the vision and goals for the project and this framed all thinking and outcomes.

Metrics were paramount. “There were a number of hard metrics set like seating and workstation ratios, storage reduction, energy reduction and a NABERS fit-out rating target,” he says.

“Soft metrics such as improved collaboration and communication, a place where people want to work and greater engagement between our employees, tenants and investors are harder to measure but we are already seeing significant improvements in these areas and future surveys will validate this assumption.”

The success of the project was predicated on coming up with a clear vision for success. “For this project to be successful I want my business colleagues to have only one decision to make on the morning that they come into the new office space – ‘Which desk am I going to sit at today?’,” Bailey says.

“My rationale behind this statement was that there would be no surprises for anyone in the new office space, at least from a technology perspective. This meant we would have to research, test, pilot and deploy all the new technologies to everyone before we moved into the new premises.”

11 signs your IT project is doomed

1. The project has launched without senior buy-in
2. No detailed project plan exists
3. Meetings have been scheduled without concern for team member availability
4. Users have had little or no early involvement
5. The project targets the minimum specs
6. Testing is an afterthought
7. No recovery plan is in place in the event of failure
8. Expert recommendations have been rebuffed without testing outcomes
9. The go-live date is a weekend or holiday
10. Expectations have not been set
11. Training is an afterthought