Project Management » Bob Lambert

Business requirements up front

Mar 312010

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso

It is an old story: about 30% of IT application projects succeed, 45% are “challenged,” and the other quarter fail altogether. That’s the consistent result over the years of the Standish Group Study of Project Outcomes. Jorge Dominguez, here, displays a chart of the remarkably similar results since 1994. Not a pretty picture, right? Some question the validity of the Standish studies, but Scott Ambler parallels the Standish story in a recent Dr Dobbs column called “Lies, Great Lies, and Software Development Project Plans,” which itemizes the strategies commonly used by IT project managers to “stay out of trouble” when schedule/budget results don’t match initial estimates. For example, “18% change the original schedule to reflect the actual results”. Continue reading »

Groupthink and the Agile Architect

IT, Project Management No Responses »

Feb 152010

Need uber-guru types who are willing to challenge the existing groupthink on design and architecture, especially on TDD and emergent design and pair programming anti-pattern” – job post at Monster.com 2/9/2010

I stumbled upon that quote following links on the role of the architect on an agile project. Maybe one important role of the architect is to help the team avoid groupthink. Continue reading »

Don’t forget to get it done

Data Management, IT, Project Management No Responses »

Jun 112009

In a recent article at Information Management, Maria Villar and Theresa Kushner offer 4 Steps to Create an Effective IT and Business Partnership, a very useful list of ways to ensure “strong partnership between IT and business”. To the authors this partnership “is the most important, and often overlooked, component to successfully managing critical business data. Undertaking business intelligence, data quality or an enterprise data management [program] without full cooperation and collaboration between IT and the business is a formula for frustration.” The authors suggest these four steps: “know your partner, develop a relationship, define roles and responsibilities, and establish open, regular communication channels.” I recommend reading this article because IT folks (like me) seem tempted to neglect the habits that enable building a solid relationship with business people. Continue reading »

Got chaos? Manage to milestones with risks and issues

Project Management No Responses »

Jun 062009

“When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It is only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.” – from Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Whatever project management approach a team uses, sometimes everything falls apart, commonly due to work piling up at the end, but sometimes due to a key individual leaving, or a pivotal assumption no longer holding true, or many other reasons. When that happens, the project can become like a whack-a-mole game, with leads working from issue to issue as they pop up faster and faster. Continue reading »

DQ, he isn’t so dumb he just needs glasses

Data Management, IT, Project Management 1 Response »

May 032009

In a recent very thoughtful post on data quality, Paul Erb plays out an analogy comparing data users with Don Quixote and data quality professionals with Sancho Panza, then reverses the analogy to cleverly coin the “Sancho Panza” test of data quality professionals. He encourages data quality professionals promoting the critical role of data quality to apply a what would Sancho say test to ensure that they are aligned with the needs and interests of data consumers. Continue reading »

IT should own the misalignment problem

Analysis, IT, Project Management 4 Responses »

Apr 162009

In a new post at Insurance Networking News Ara Trembly provides a balanced perspective on IT/business misalignment (Business/IT Misalignment: Whose Responsibility?). He describes the problem as cultural, more amenable to relational than management solutions. His conclusion sums it up: “Take a geek/suit to lunch today!”

To me (speaking as an IT professional) IT should take the initiative to solve the problem. Continue reading »

Someone’s integrating your data

Data Management, IT No Responses »

Mar 122009

Here’s a little-recognized fact about data integration: if you run a business or any sizable chunk of one, someone is integrating your data.

In my professional life I have on occasion suggested data integration efforts. Sometimes my suggestions have been accepted and sometimes not. As an IT professional I understand that different managers have different priorities, and in a given business situation sometimes other things are more important for example than having a single, consistent source for all customer records, or making sure production data matches financial data.

But as a customer? That’s different. Continue reading »

Big project coming up? Learn to two-step.

IT, Project Management No Responses »

Mar 062009

History is littered with IT application projects that end late, go way over budget, or abandoned altogether. I was fortunate enough to see one work out really well (almost – please read on). It was no mistake. It came down to a simple method advocated by a gentleman named named John Carpenter.

The project was an HR management software conversion from one commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) package to another. The company concerned was conservative about spending money. A previous business case had proposed a similar project. The problem with that business case was that the benefits were really tough to conceptualize, so the cost/benefit analysis relied on soft benefits like “improved access to information” and “more consistent reporting data”. The folklore was that the CFO had physically thrown that business case out of his office. Continue reading »

A pretty good requirements analysis checklist

Analysis, IT, Project Management No Responses »

Feb 132009

Recently I was asked for a high level requirements plan for a large IT conversion. I googled around a little for something standard. I found some good references (see links at the bottom of this post), but not exactly what I was looking for: a simple, method-agnostic layout of the high level steps and checkpoints in requirements for a big project, emphasizing interactions with business people. I then rifled my files to find the example below. Continue reading »

What’s wrong with calling them “users”

IT 2 Responses »

Feb 072009

To me, calling someone a “user” contributes to the gulf between IT and other business people. Continue reading »

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