Why Big IT Projects Fall Short of Expectations
By Dennis McCafferty
Unseasoned teams often commit to aggressive milestones without a bottom-up plan to support them.
Without sufficient buy-in from the business side-often due to insufficient clarity about essential project details-teams will struggle to acquire the resources they need.
A classic mistake: Pursuing development before all requirements are clearly defined, resulting in “requirement churn” and expensive redefinitions late in the process.
Poor data quality, for example, can undermine a project. So can extending a project to multiple markets/nations without taking into account differences in processes, languages and regulatory environments.
When cycles such as development run past schedule, testing often gets shortchanged. This sets the stage for problems when the project goes live, as fixing problems becomes much more costly and difficult.
Reducing efforts into smaller, more piecemeal initiatives makes them more manageable. Try to minimize interdependencies among these ‘mini’ projects in the planning stage.
You should recruit a project director who has experience with the work at hand, and can gain the trust of senior execs organizationwide.
These definitions must clarify scope, business requirements, costs and benefits.
Vendors with a track record on the project in question will be well familiar with the associated risks, and will be better positioned to deliver on targeted outcomes.
Through transparency, you engage stakeholders who now understand their roles and responsibilities, and are willing to commit to them.