8 Tips For Saving Your Next IT Project

As project managers we're all looking for ways to help increase efficiency on our next project. I'm constantly clicking links - looking for that special tip or trick that will will save me or my team time by shaving off minutes here or there, sreamlining that process, or perhaps helping the team communicate better..

I just finished an article by Elizabeth Bennett over at Baseline with eight great tips in one spot: 8 Ways To Save Your Next Project.

This piece is focused on tech projects and their trend of being delivered late and over budget. Bennett actually cites "49 percent of organizations have suffered from budget overruns on IT projects and 62 percent have experienced schedule delays". Sad numbers - and another interesting quote reads"47 percent of respondents have experienced higher-than-expected maintenance costs and 41 percent said IT projects failed to deliver the expected business value and ROI."

What does that say about IT projects? Well, if you read the next line in the article, you'll find they don't have a very high success rate:

"In short, IT projects are a chronic disappointment."

Fear not PMs! Bennett put together a helpful article with a few other industry experts, and that means you'll find eight solid ways to save your next IT project. Realistic tips, sound advice and a good start on keeping yout IT projects on track.

Note that items below are truncated. Go to the article for complete detail! Emphasis mine

1. Get your head out of the software
Most project managers spend too much time in their project-planning applications and not enough time doing the briefing and communicating for which they are solely responsible. You should be spending the bulk of your time talking to and corresponding with project constituents – your team, the stakeholders, vendors, consultants and key end-users. The "soft" skill of communication is integral to project success.

2. Plan and define as much as possible—but don't go overboard
A key component of project management is the thorough and meticulous planning of every aspect of a project, but a perfectionist could spend all his or her time in the planning stage. There's no way to anticipate every variable so at some point, you have to pull the trigger...

3. Manage scope creep—for real
Like a turkey on Thanksgiving, you can rely on the fact that the project you think you're heading for may bare only a passing resemblance to the one you end up with. With the increasing complexity of data centers and the Pandora's box of surprises once you get under the hood, it's advisable to game out and document the potential sources of scope creep...

4. Don't be lazy with risk management
If you need 200 servers delivered at the same time for a worldwide mail server upgrade, it's not enough to know what the risk is if the vendor doesn't deliver. It's time to manage the risk by deciding ahead of time that, as reliable as your vendor has been in the past, there's little margin for error...

5. Get a grip on expectations
Ask vendors and consultants for the best, most likely and worst-case scenarios and then use your own resources to calculate the aggregated risk so you can determine the probable outcome.

6. Govern with strength
Even with all the good work you did up front, problems and roadblocks will surely arise. Don't blow it when it comes to actually addressing the problems. To the degree you can, refer to the approaches you documented and discussed with your team. If planned properly, your team should be able to tackle the problems early on before they become major hindrances.

7. Prepare for intervention
If your approaches are better in theory than in practice, it might be time to intervene with the project plan. Create an intervention plan before the project starts and communicate the plan to everyone directly and indirectly involved. The plan may include steps to take when adding resources, for assessing project-management and even changing the project leader.

8. Drive behavior to use the technology
Whatever you do, don't rest on your laurels when the technical aspects of the project are completed. Creating a plan to ensure that people actually use the technology you just spent 18 months implementing will serve you well. If you and your organization want to see your expected return on investment, make sure you have a hand in educating and training users.

Read more here: http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Enterprise-Planning/8-Ways-To-Save-Your-Next-Project/

As far as tips for working on projects in the real world, these are some pretty good ones. Yes yes, you can always add more - please do in the comments section. I love hearing from you!


image courtesy: www.secretsofsuccess.com