Project Intangible Benefits Should Be Identified

It is a good practice to identify non-financial or intangible benefits when developing a business case. The ideal is when you can generate a tangible return on the investment. However, intangible benefits can be aligned with business goals and may even be able to be measured. This can be helpful when the financial return of a project proposal is at or below the hurdle rate. ...

... "Recognizing what to measure and how to measure can be extremely difficult for intangible assets/benefits. There are some common but key benefits accruing through any large IT project in an enterprise that cannot be tangibly measured. " ...

Via CXOtoday: IT Non-financial ROI

Project Investments During Economic Uncertainty or Contraction

Here's some tips regarding investments during uncertain economic times. This quote makes sense in that ... there's quite a bit of effort necessary to adopt and sustain a new performance level after an IT project go-live. This period of stabilization, adoptions, and maturity is a worthwhile investment after the initial capital investment is made. ...

... "Real, long-term value comes from recognizing at the outset that growth, evolution and value-generation require sustained sponsorship, attention, maintenance and marketing. " ...

Via B-Eye: Smart Investment

Guaranteed Project ROI

Would you guarantee the ROI on your IT project? Here's a market differentiator ...

... "In a bold move for the industry, they are now guaranteeing a positive Return on Investment (ROI), or they will refund the entire purchase cost of the project. " ...

Via Intellident: Guaranteed ROI or your money back

IT Project Visibility to Wall Street Analysts

Insights on how Wall Street may view an IT project and how to address their concerns. ...

... "Red flags pop up when, for example, management offers analysts vague time lines of when the company expects to start or finish integrating systems in a merger or acquisition ... " ...

Via CIO: Wall Street

IT Projects - An Economic Bellweather

Is this a weak signal of a spreading economic slowdown or bellweather for the US economy? ... ;-) ...

... "IT companies, including Cisco, could be vulnerable if subprime losses force them to cut spending on IT projects. " ...

Via MSNBC: Cisco

Seasonality in Project Resource Plans

Wishing you a nice holiday this summer ... don't forget to update your resource plans. ...

... "Kevin Fitzpatrick, CIO at Sodexho U.K., said plans are often made irrespective of the fact so many key people will be away. " ...

Via ZDNet Asia: Summer impact on IT projects

Project Visibility

UK IT projects, if not already visible, will come under more intense scrutiny. ...

... "Because it poses one of the biggest challenges to Mr Brown and his team, the management of IT projects in the public sector should be looked at first, say analysts at Butler. " ...

Via Contractor UK: UK Projects

Business or IT Project: Find the Balance

Interesting twist on the ingredients of a successful project and striking the proper balance of emphasis. ...

... "An information system needs much more than dollops of technology it needs proper proportions of people, organisation, process and data. " ...

Via ComputerWeekly: IT Paradigm

Align IT and Business on Critical Projects

Leadership alignment sessions, daily status reports during critical phases, and workforce collocation are all valuable techniques for aligning IT and the business on important IT projects and ensuring expectations are met. ...

... "one of the first things that he and other project leaders did was to collocate 20 business managers with 40 IT workers to help them stay in sync on the project's products and timetables. " ...

Via Computerworld: Customer Expectations on IT Projects

Government IT Projects: COTS

Governments are getting fiscally smarter by making smarter software investment decisions, such as common off-the-shelf software, COTS, when IT projects are considered. ...

... "Another change lawmakers approved would require agencies to justify paying for a custom-built computer system whenever they decide they don't want to use a standard off-the-shelf program. " ...

Via Pierce County Herald: Government IT Projects

SkyNet IT Project Ready to Go-Live

Is life imitating art? ...

... "Not only will the UK MoD deploy airborne cyber-gunships remarkably similar to those in the films, the flying robot assassins will be controlled by an IT project named Skynet. " ...

Via The Register: Terminator

2012 Olympics IT Project

Olympics technology discussion gets started. ...

... "She said there was potential for another IT project failure in the way the technology was being allocated. " ...

Via BBC NEWS: 2012 Olympics Technology

PMO Increases Project Success Rate

The project management office adds value through consistent methods and discipline to increase the success rate of the project portfolio. ...

... "Board executives often approve IT projects without fully understanding them which is why organizations need to establish a Project Management Office (PMO) ... " ...

Via Computerworld Australia: Project Transparency

SaaS Empowers Business Use of IT

SaaS could revive business interest in IT as the threshold for projects is lowered through a pay-by-the-drink approach to systems implementation. ...

... "With SaaS, line-of-business heads, ranging from the vice president of sales to the director of human resources (HR), can single-handedly own the purchase decision by taking advantage of free trial offers on Web sites to evaluate solutions and paying a monthly or quarterly rate low enough to stay off the corporate radar screen for requiring approvals. " ...

Via Supply and Demand Chain Executive: SaaS

Need to Shape Up For Summer: Try IT Project Management

Weight Watcher's IT managers shares his perspective on IT and projects in Australasia region. ...

... "What is the most exciting IT project or implementation you have been involved in? My first major installation at Weight Watchers was a VPN across every branch in Australasia. Having just arrived in Australia this was an exciting journey especially since I was the only person on the project. " ...

Via Computerworld: Weight Watchers IT Manager

Virtualization Projects: Standardization Drives Benefits

Server consolidation and virtualization projects offer opportunity to standardize software and reap the benefits of a common infrastructure. ...

... "Software and personnel savings can be increased by standardizing the environment and reducing complexity as part of the consolidation initiative (i.e., reducing the number of operating system versions, eliminating redundant software tools, etc.). Many claims of savings on software costs for consolidation projects are actually a result of the standardization ... " ...

Via Virtual Strategy Magazine: Server Consolidation

When Project Failure Impacts Enterprise Survival

One of the risks that we consider when preparing a business case for IT projects is business impact. It is a risk that is worth considering, understanding, and mitigating. Or else, this happens. ...

... "Samas, supplier of office furniture, will need to issue new shares as the company has been financially hard hit following an IT project. " ...

Via Expatica: Dutch News

From Samas Annual Report: "The implementation of project Harmony in the course of the financial year under review and especially in the year 2006 / 2007 may impact the business as a consequence of these changes. The company manages the risk through a phased implementation programme. "

Usability Project: Staples Web Presence

Staples employs design principles and user segmentation to drive usability makeover to its web presence --- seeing it through their customers' eyes. ...

... "the multichannel office supply merchant undertook its largest IT project ever in mid-2002 with the goal of improving its Web site's usability " ...

Via DM News: Staples IT Project

IT Project EQ Business Project 4 Heineken

Heineken Ireland implement CRM project successfully with business in the lead. Local IT manager grapples with common IT challenges, such as security, vendor consolidation, outsourcing, etc. ...

... "For Heineken Ireland it was the first real acceptance by the business that something like this wasn't an IT project. It was a business project with a strong piece of IT in it, says Manning, careful to make the distinction. " ...

Via SiliconRepublic: Tech Decisions Pay Off

Business Project: Extract Value

Healthcare IT project seeks to integrate and standardize operations, while the business is on-the-hook for realizing the value. ...

... "The infrastructure goes live in April with users being migrated shortly after. Then comes the job of extracting value, which Mayo-Smith says is not an IT project but a business project. " ...

Via Computerworld: IT Role in Integrated Healthcare Operations

Leadership Responsibility For Achieving IT Project Success

Good set of anecdotes for the role of CIO and business leaders to sense and respond to market dynamics and project risks in order to achieve success. Success sometimes means an earlier project kill, so that investment can be shifted to new opportunities. ...

... "McCaig says governance must sit separately to retain its impartiality, because it is the compass for the business in terms of technology-based change projects. " ...

Via IT Week: Role of Leadership for IT Project Success ...

IT Project EQ Change Project

For an IT project to have impact, it must affect change. For change to stick, leaders must provide support. Recent study looks at IT projects and the distance of senior leaders, such as CEOs. ...

... "We have to get good at how our organisation handles change - that's nothing to do with IT, but no IT project worth its salt doesn't affect change, said Green. " ...

Via ITPro: CEO IT Imperative

IT Project: Cutover Preparation

Mergers and acquisitions are common in today's markets. These corporate marriages often come with consolidation and integration. Eventually, information systems are consolidated. When systems touch customers, our risk antennae should perk up and we should prepare to minimize business impact. Preparation includes planning, temporary resources, a command center, practice through rehearsing, etc. Read about USAirways post-acquisition preparation for cutover to its common reservation system. ...

... "US Airways has been prepping for the mammoth IT project since the America West-US Airways merger closed in September 2005. " ...

Via Arizona Republic: US Airways IT Integration

Update: Via Bloomberg: USAirways Cutover Issues: "US Airways' kiosks at Charlotte and four regional hubs couldn't communicate with the reservation network for several hours after the systems were unified ... "

Government IT Project Cancelled

Wisconsin IT project cancelled after delays and overruns in upgrading a legacy system. ...

... "The project was halted in the second of seven phases, which involved an appeals system that was never completed due to delays and the accompanying expense ... " ...

Via Wisconsin Technology Network: Wisconsin Technology Projects

IT Project Consideration: Data Center Power Consumption

Hardware, software, internal and external labor go into any analysis of IT project investments. The impact of new hardware investments on the data center power consumption needs to be considered in order to plan cooling and energy capacity requirements. ...

... "Power and thermal demands are changing drastically within server rooms, he says. Any IT project these days has to consider heat density as an important factor. " ...

Data Center Energy Consumption

Agile Project Management: Mainstream at Last?

There's an excellent writeup on the LeadingAnswers blog site about the rise, fall, and rediscovery of Agile Project Management. I like the "Universal Lifecycle of New Technology" which outlines how ideas take flight, and then, after people inevitably misapply or overuse it, it fails, only to be resurrected successfully later with a slight twist.

I've seen this happen with a variety of non-technology processes and ideas as well, including TQM, Six Sigma, Critical Chain, PMOs, and---dare I say it---Project Management in general, all of which are currently in various stages of this lifecycle.

The article is well worth reading. For fans of Agile Project Management or those curious in the concepts, LeadingAnswers is a valuable site.

By the way, as a proponent of Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm book on marketing disruptive technology, I was also interested to see that the article has a link to a white paper titled, "Crossing the Agile Chasm."

LeadingAnswers: Leadership and Agile Project Management Blog: The Rise, Fall and Rediscovery of Agile Methods

Is Project Management Relevant?

Over the years, I've had discussions with software developers who question the need for project management. I've heard everything from "The developers are the only ones who really know what's needed anyway!" to "All the project managers do is slow things down and add unnecessary bureaucracy!" to "Why can't the the developers just work with the customer to give them what they need and avoid the middleman?"

The fact is, given the right developer and a fairly isolated project, all of these are valid statements. But many projects are much more complex than that. They involve multiple stakeholders with conflicting needs, offshore resources, multiple vendors, complex interrelationships with other activities and departments, and more. They frequently involve managing all of this against budget and schedule constraints.

Leading, facilitating, and managing all of these elements is where a good project manager can help. An effective project manager removes barriers for a team rather than adding barriers. Any activities that may appear like "nuisance work" to technicians, such as reporting time or percent complete against milestones, are often necessary to meet the project's schedule or budget constraints.

A good project manager will work with developers to determine the appropriate project approach, depending on the constraints and the level of uncertainty involved. Perhaps an agile approach is warranted, with learnings applied incrementally. Perhaps piecemeal deliverables can be achieved for quick wins and earlier value. A good project manager will also prepare management reports, conduct presentations, and deal with vendor issues.

Most of all, a good project manager will communicate to all parties throughout the project. Although some developers do indeed have the expertise to do all this, it distracts from the work they need to do.

This is not just a nuance of the software industry. The same holds true in any industry where technical or subject matter experts question the need for project management. Project management is a completely different skill set, necessarily so. It's geared toward leading people to achieve objectives. An organization can of course put the project manager in a better position to be successful by providing adequate tools, general principles, and minimal bureaucracy.

The article below offers clear and simple evidence of the importance of project management. It begins with the results of a 1999 study that showed that the number one reason companies stopped working with Internet design firms was not about their lack of creativity or high costs---it was about their inability to effectively manage a project.

Here's the article...

MB Journal Article Archives

Project Management Excellence: Hospital Veteran Recognized

Healthcare leadership celebrates excellence. IT project manager makes the list. Users queue up for IT services. Pinch me. I must be dreaming. ...

... "Halle H. McNaney, 13-year Medical Center veteran, has orchestrated the roll-out with such efficiency that outpatient sites are now literally lining up at the door, waiting to be next in line for implementation - perhaps a first for the introduction of a new IT project. " ...

Via University of Rochester Medical Center: Excellence Awards Recognize Employees, Teams

ITIL and Project Management: A Primer

For anyone managing IT projects, you may have come across ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). If not, you will. It's fast becoming the de facto standard for IT services. This article from CIO Magazine offers a good primer on ITIL.

Many organizations mistakenly look at project management and ITIL as two distinct paths. Forward-thinking companies integrate the two, with project management methodologies blending seamlessly with ITIL's best practices in change management, release management, configuration management, and other processes.

Here's the article...

The ABCs of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) - ITIL - CIO

Managing Expectations: Surprise Machine

Nice article on managing expectations, which is critical for project managers and business leaders. Are we managing a surprise machine? An "upside" is good, when it comes to benefits. Should we routinely under-promise? ...

... "Says Robert Sutton, professor of management science at Stanford University: If you're managing a large organization, you're managing a surprise machine. " ...

Via Charlotte Observer: Link

Project Management Quotations

Here's a Wiki Quote site with a number of project management quotations. Despite some tired and well worn ones, there are a few gems in there, such as:

"The bitterness of poor quality last long after the sweetness of making a date is forgotten."

"Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best practices."

"The more ridiculous the deadline the more money will be wasted trying to meet it."

"The most valuable and least used phrase in a project manager's vocabulary is "I don't know"."

"The nice thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression."

"The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale."

"You can con a sucker into committing to an impossible deadline, but you cannot con him into meeting it."

"All project managers face problems on Monday mornings - good project managers are working on next Monday's problems."

"At the heart of every large project is a small project trying to get out."

"Everyone asks for a strong project manager - when they get him they don't want him."

"Good project managers know when not to manage a project."

"If you don't attack the risks, the risks will attack you."

Enjoy...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Project_management

Project Management Imperatives: Ten Keys to Success

Someone recently asked me what I felt the critical success factors were for any project (i.e. what were the top "must do's"). Although I can think of many more, here were what I felt were the top ten:

1) Get the roles right. (Insure accountability; use a RACI chart or Responsibility Matrix so roles are clearly defined. Insuring people understand their commitments up front will avoid problems later.)

2) Get the goals right. (Make sure all the key stakeholders agree on the goals. I've seen more projects go wrong for this reason than any other. Time spent here will pay dividends later.)

3) Get the current scope right. (I say "current scope," because change should be expected. Projects by default contain change because they are unique in nature. It's not whether you'll experience change, it's how you analyze the potential impacts and manage the approval of the change that counts. Agreed-upon and approved scope changes are perfectly acceptable, with one caveat: It's often wise to set a limit to the number of times scope can be changed for the current product release, and defer some changes to a subsequent release, else value gets delayed.).

4) Obtain commitment from the business, customers, and other stakeholders as to their part in the success of the project. (Many projects derail because the customer doesn't live up to their side of the bargain, doesn't understand their side of the bargain, or some other necessary constituent isn't cooperating for various reasons. Obtain the right commitment up front, starting with senior management.)

5) Determine the critical success factors and risks. (Critical success factors and risks go hand in hand. Many people ignore this or sweep it under the rug, and accept any related risks as a given. The critical success factors will identify related risks and help set expectations).

6) Set expectations. (This is frequently overlooked and is a key cause of failure. The sponsor, customers, and anyone impacted by the project must be given realistic expectations for what is needed from them, how long the project will take, how much it will cost, what the uncertainty factor is, what the available resources are, and anything else necessary to avoid surprises and/or an under-equipped effort.)

7) Beware of conflicting directives. (I call this the "Robocop Syndrome." In the film, Robocop, the titular robotic policeman goes on full tilt when he encounters directives that conflict with his primary directive. I see this happen often in organizations where a project sponsor demands something that is in conflict with other key stakeholders' wishes and/or top organizational directives. This could be covered under "goals" or "expectations," but it's so important that it warrants its own point. The project manager must head this off at the pass before the project goes down a rat hole it won't recover from.)

8) Plan Collaboratively. (The act of planning is not an isolated exercise. It's a collaborative exercise and should be done with the project core team and subject matter experts via some sort of facilitated brainstorming session---possibly with sticky labels on a wall.)

9) Beware of unilateral and granular "one-size-fits-all" solutions. (This is often ineffective, both as a project management methodology and a process implementation policy. Look at the big picture, and the potential variations. Keeping a framework high-level can allow for greatest flexibility and adaptability. Aim for principles over rules wherever possible. Use rules when safety is involved, regulatory requirements exist, or exact accuracy is needed---per Marcus Buckingham's guidelines from "First Break All the Rules.")

10) Don't let rank set you off course. (Often, a senior manager pulls rank and makes requests that are either detrimental, unwise, or in direct conflict with organizational goals. When this happens, see rules 6 and 7. It is the project manager's responsibility to set the right expectations, warn of potential risks, and head off potential conflicting directives at the pass.)

There it is. My list of "must do's." Project management isn't rocket science. In fact it's not a science at all. It's more of an art. Hopefully, the guidelines above can serve as a useful palette.

Leadership Practices: Sound Advice

There's an excellent article on leadership practices in this month's CIO Magazine from Susan Cramm, an executive coach and president of the coaching firm, Valuedance.

Cramm lists a number of things that IT leaders can do to practice "safe leadership." It seems like motherhood and apple pie, but it's a good reminder of the basics that we so easily forget. This includes the following (I've paraphrased the descriptions in parenthesis):

Foster good relationships (Learn the business and get around more among your customers.)

Forge a shared IT vision, strategy, and tactical objectives (Co-create this with your customers and other IT leaders. Agree on decision responsibilities. Understand the appropriate technical and business areas involved.)

Deliver on time, on budget (But beware of big, waterfall-style projects. Limit the number of projects. Less is more.)

Develop quality solutions (Have appropriately scaled methodologies, frameworks, policies, and tools, but beware.. It's easy to lose credibility here.)

Realize business value from IT investments (Use operational measures meaningful to the business. Measure during and after the project to insure business value is achieved. Hold business partners accountable for insuring benefits realization.)

Here's the full editorial...

Leadership Under the Influence - Editorial - CIO

PPM Solution Roundup

Projects@Work has a new article outlining the current offerings in the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) market.

While it raises some good points (e.g. the need to beware of a consolidating market, and to determine the big players' dedication to the PPM space) and provides some good summary descriptions of each product's target market, it stops short of recommending one solution over the other.

Regardless, it's a good summary of the current major offerings on the market, for those analyzing potential PPM solutions.

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/234511.cfm

Business Results: IT Strategy

Today's IT career path requires evolving your role into a challenging place - the potential to impact business results - which comes with its set of risks. However, standing still increases the risk of outsourcing, or worse yet, irrelevance. ...

... "If they're not in the decision-making stream, playing some role that's accountable for real results from IT strategy, even on a very local, project level, they're at greater risk both to outsourcing and stalling wages. They need to work themselves into a position that's closer to business results and end customers. " ...

Via InformationWeek Weblog: Read

Influencing People: The Project Manager's Secret Weapon

I recently attended a presentation on self-awareness and influence by Dr. Charles Dwyer, Academic Director of the Aresty Institute’s Leading and Managing People program in the Wharton School. I was so impressed with the presentation that I bought his book, The Shifting Sources of Power and Influence.

This book was a real eye-opener, and a jewel for anyone in project management. In the book, Dwyer states three major challenges we all face:

• Dissonant Value Systems (i.e. people’s conflicting value systems, made even more visible by the advent of the media, internet, etc.)
• Diffused Power (i.e. power being spread around in a matrix fashion, with more and more decentralization and special interest groups, etc.)
• Limited Resources (We all face a limited set of resources, made even more challenging by our lack of a mindset geared towards accepting tradeoffs, or a good mechanism to guide operational priorities)

Sound like any projects you know?

Dwyer goes on to caution that public statements, such as vision, mission, organizational values, etc. may be useful for articulating the values of the leadership or giving people a sense of structure, but do not in themselves change anyone’s value systems. Many leaders assume they can use these statements to change people’s value systems to match organizational values, but this is a myth.

What is needed instead is the ability to influence others by getting them to change their behavior to match your values. To do this, have a clear picture of what you want the unit to look like; set specific, measurable objectives; and insure that people have a way of achieving those objectives.

According to Dwyer, some tried and true methods include asking people for help, offering or implying something in return, or influencing indirectly (i.e. working through someone else who’s in a better position to influence).

Dwyer points out five guidelines for influencing people (I’ve paraphrased them):

1. Insure they have adequate capability (Do they know what to do, have the competence and self-confidence to carry it out?)
2. Address their perception of “Potential Value Satisfaction” (WIIFM or “what’s in it for me”)
3. Address their perception of the probability of value satisfaction (i.e. Do they trust you? You must build trust through visible examples.)
4. Address their perception of cost (Do this by giving them alternatives or a sense of options, and helping them understand the costs and implications.)
5. Address their perception of risk (Try to assume or distribute some of the risk. Don’t ignore it.)

These are the five things everyone weighs in their mind when someone attempts to influence them. In essence, the five elements (four of which are perceptions) make up an equation for behavior. We can influence people’s behavior by addressing this equation (I’ve paraphrased for simplicity):

Behavior=Capability + (Perceived Value * Trust factor) – (Perceived cost and risk)

These are just some of the gems of wisdom in Dwyer's book. He offers reams of memorable examples, often with a humorous style. With 90% of a project manager's job being communication (including influence), I highly recommend Dwyer’s book for project managers, or anyone in a leadership position for that matter.