November 30, 2000, 2:35 PM — THE PROJECT manager has never been a highly touted position in information
technology. One reason might be that it requires far more discipline than creativity,
much like being a drill sergeant in the armed forces. Also, it can be detrimental to
your career if you're the manager of a project that fails -- and many do.
The Standish Group, which researches IT project management, reports that only 26
percent of corporate IT projects in 1998 were successful -- completed on time, on
budget, and with all the features originally specified. That number was a big
improvement over the 16 percent success rate in 1994.
These figures may seem depressing, but Standish reports there are several signs
that IT is getting better at projects and the role of the IT project manager is winning
newfound respect, especially since corporate executives gained an appreciation for
their importance during Y2K initiatives. We asked some IT project managers and
consultants to offer their solutions for keeping IT projects on track.
1. Get users involved from the start.
It has almost become a cliche to say you have to have a business "champion" for
your project to succeed. But as important as an executive's backing may be, so is the
involvement of end-users, says David King, director of architecture and strategy at
Enterprise Systems Consulting in Irvine, Calif.
IT staffers don't see business in the same way as users and line managers, King
says. "Left to their own devices, IT people will create the best technical system, but
perhaps not the best system from a business standpoint." When he's called into a
company to fix a project that's gone off the rails, often his audit trail leads to the
fact that they didn't have users on the project team, King says. In fact, there's been
a push in the corporate setting to have a business manager be the project leader,
rather than an IT person. "There has been some resistance to this notion on the IT side
in the past, but that's changing for the better," King says.
2. Choose your project team carefully.
OK, so it's important to include users in project design. But what kind of users
should you be looking for?
"We asked for people who could be empowered to make decisions on process and design
for their respective departments," says Leslie Geukers, who -- along with fellow IS
staffers at London Health Sciences Centre, a major teaching hospital in London,
Ontario -- has been working for two years on the implementation of an integrated
clinical information system. Sometimes this meant that a middle management person was
freed up for the project, she adds. Sometimes line staff were given the authority to
make these decisions. "We looked for good communicators with an interest in technology -
- people who really understood the way information flowed through their department,
people who were the informal leaders in their areas."
3. Keep project information in one place.
With all the shared-media products available today, there's really no excuse not to
have a central repository for all the data and "to-do" items attached to a project. "To
some people, this sounds expensive," says Kyle Moran, an IT project management
consultant at Project Enterprises, in Chaska, Minn., "but it can be as simple as a
server directory where people can find meeting notes and an Access database containing
all the different open issues of the project. It's especially important for
geographically dispersed teams."
4. Meetings, meetings, meetings!
Although meetings can become tedious, they are essential to keeping everyone on the
same page as well as to build team spirit. Consultants suggest you keep the meetings
upbeat -- they shouldn't be finger-pointing sessions. It's also important to meet
regularly with upper management on important projects.
At American Honda in Torrance, Calif., Y2K project manager Jim Dinneen created
project status reports for three separate monthly steering committee meetings: one of
high-level executives, one of mid-level business managers, and an IS steering
committee.
"The executives have a basic feel for what's going on, but are not interested in
the details. But the corporate managers asked a lot of good questions, which helped
resolve issues before they became real problems," Dinneen says.
