Information Technology is an area that experiences constant evolution. Add project management into the mix, and the process suddenly becomes complicated by changes in the business’ needs and by stakeholder demand. Include the recent effects of the Great Recession, and successful projects suddenly appear to be a daunting task.
CIO provides some insight in an effort to help individuals understand the project management process and what successful management practice entails. In his article, “Project management Definition and Solutions,” Joseph Phillips notes that the standard project management process involves five steps:
1) Initiation
2) Planning
3) Execution
4) Control & Validation
5) Closeout & Evaluation
IT project management involves three significant constraints: time, scope, and money. Failure to succeed in IT project management is attributed to three factors that may be influenced by its initial constraints. The first difficulty encountered involves the complexity of IT projects in general. In addition to deadlines and budget constrictions, IT projects also have to deal with technological challenges that may involve hardware, network, database, and security issues. Lack of planning and rushed completion efforts are two other factors related to unsuccessful projects. In addition, having too broad of a scope enables difficulty in managing a project. Therefore, it is suggested that a project be broken down into smaller segments, so that completion becomes more feasible.
Phillips also addresses how to determine a project is going to fail before it actually does. He suggests establishing success and fail criteria in the initiation phase of the project and using the 15-15 rule. According to Phillips, “The 15-15 Rule states that if a project is more than 15 percent over budget or 15 percent off schedule, it will likely never recoup the time or cost necessary to be considered successful.”
Another suggestion Phillips provides for management involves Earned Value Management which he says allows an organization to measure project completion, schedule variations, schedule creation and cost performance indexes.
Though the recent recession greatly reduced budgets, workloads did not follow the same trend. With increasing workload and smaller budgets, the process of choosing IT projects becomes more critical. A recently initiated connect by an IMF member involves discussion around best practices that organizations have implemented to increase project success and ensure project completion.
Has your organization found success in this area? What practices have you implemented at your organization?
Let us know here, or tell us on Twitter @ITInfoForum
To view other active IMF Connect please click here.
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