Pathway IT Consultants provides expert project management support in addition to training. In this article we’ll look at different aspects of project management and critical activities that make the difference between success and failure.

Delivering IT projects is extremely difficult, and this is proven by the high failure rate. At least 65 per cent of projects are stopped before cutover, go over budget or don’t deliver the expected benefits. This is an astonishing failure rate, and it has been consistent for over two decades.

Our practical project management consultancy is based on lessons learnt delivering critical projects and transformation programmes across a number of industry sectors. (Including charity, transport, finance, hotels, automotive and education.) We have specialist knowledge in the following areas: 

• Dress rehearsals. (The most effective risk management and cutover preparation activity a project can complete.) 
• Practical risk management. 
• Project initiation. (Poor project initiation is a major factor in 80 per cent of IT project failures.)
• Contingency planning.
• Budget management. 
• Proof of concept activities.
• Aligning the master data management strategy to the project. 
• Selecting methodologies and Agile frameworks.
• Use of hybrid methodology.
• Dependency management across teams.
• Coordinating infrastructure builds in an Agile environment.
• Cutover management.
• Runbook preparation.
• Managing Go/No Go meetings.
• Post go-live support.

Pathway project management support can be tailored to your specific requirements, whether it’s advice on a specific project issue, methodology, mentoring, project management, project health checks or project rescue.

Methodology Selection and Enhancement

Despite decades of use of Waterfall, PRINCE, and Agile methodologies, the failure rate of at least 65 per cent remains consistent. Gaps in the methodologies are a major contributing factor to this.

The project manager’s skill and knowledge are critical. Knowing when to combine methodologies or add additional activities will make the difference between delivery of a system that adds value or a costly failed project after months or years of effort.

It is important to clarify that this statement is not a criticism of the methodologies. They can be excellent and have been used to deliver many successful projects. However, despite the increased use of methodologies, the failure rate is not improving. There are many reasons for this:

• Employing an incorrect approach/methodology on a project.
• A methodology not being used appropriately. (Doing nothing more than holding a standup each morning does not mean that an organisation is following Agile methodology.)
• Lack of training on methodologies.
• Belief that a methodology must be followed to the letter, even if the activities do not add any value to the project or organisation.
• Not understanding the tailoring concept in PRINCE2.
• Gaps in the methodologies.

The following methodology support is available:

• Advice on critical activities regardless of methodology.
• Recommendations on the use of methodologies and frameworks, including hybrid methodologies.
• Methodology enhancement.

Critical Activities Regardless of Methodology

There are several critical actions that can make the difference between success and failure. The following activities are proven to reduce risk, but some of the activities are not a prominent feature of Agile or Waterfall methodology.

Dress rehearsals

Along with professional project initiation, dress rehearsals are the most critical activity to ensure a successful project. Dress rehearsals will draw attention to problems not encountered during any test phase. The users will approach go-live with a high level of confidence because they have already completed critical business scenarios in the dress rehearsals.

Dress rehearsals are not a rerun of UAT. They are a separate activity with different objectives.

Strong project governance

Effective governance is critical. Ensure appropriate project governance is in place and everyone on the team understands it. This includes the ability to escalate issues and resolve them quickly.

Benefits management and critical success factors

Agree on the critical success factors at the beginning of the project. This doesn’t need to be a long list. In fact, having five or ten critical success factors keeps the team and stakeholders focused on delivering the most important elements.

Ensure you can measure critical success factors to confirm they have been delivered. It's gratifying to review these after delivery and have stakeholders agree that all priority items were delivered.

Risk management 

Risk management is critical throughout the project and will come under sharp focus as cutover approaches.

Risk management should be based on objective criteria. Without this, opinions of the level of risk will vary widely. Pathway takes a pragmatic approach using a spreadsheet with risk weighting. The yes or no answers only take a few minutes to complete, and this provides a low, medium or high risk score.

Deliverables

Regardless of methodology, agreeing on and tracking deliverables is key to managing a successful project. Whether it is the deliverable from a sprint in Agile or a milestone in a Waterfall project plan, stakeholders will require updates on progress. Understanding, tracking and managing dependencies between deliverables is essential.

Project initiation

This is a critical activity. Issues with project initiation are a major factor in eighty per cent of failed projects.

The level of documentation depends on the size and complexity of the project. The following items need to be considered:

• The project’s size. Do you have a development team of five and one stakeholder or ten project teams, 200 IT staff, 50 business people and 20 key stakeholders?
• Does the project have a hard deadline that is not negotiable? For example, is there a critical business requirement that includes supporting a product launch or delivery of a statutory or regulatory project?
• Is additional infrastructure required?
• Are new non-functional requirements included in the project scope? 

Please include all relevant sections in the project initiation phase, regardless of the methodology used.

Project budget

Please consider the following:

• It’s always beneficial to include contingency in the project budget. 
• Increase the contingency if you have several unknowns.
• Please consider that securing additional budget may not be guaranteed. Many projects have been cancelled due to budget issues.
• Realistic estimates are critical on all projects, but on complex projects it’s worth taking time during initiation to ensure your estimates are as accurate as possible. 
• Some projects include costs for company employees who are seconded to the project, while others do not; please confirm this at the start of the project.
• When preparing budgets, remember that most tasks take twice as long to complete compared to their estimates. 
• Consider the complexity of the critical path of the project.
• How likely are you to have delays where planned work can’t proceed but costs for project staff will be incurred? Also, third-party staff may be impacted by delays, and this could result in extra costs.

Communication plan

On some projects, the activities in the communication plan commence close to going live. The plan should be prepared during the early phases of the project, and communication should be an integral part of the complete project. 

Quality plan and quality assurance 

Quality assurance is a separate activity, and it is essential for successful project delivery. 

Be wary if anyone says, ‘Quality assurance is just part of everyone’s activities.’ This statement isn’t correct, but it is heard on many projects. The quality plan should specify the person responsible for quality assurance and measurement criteria.

Quality assurance is required for all activities, but data quality assurance is an area that requires additional diligence. 

Estimating

Universities have conducted studies to determine the accuracy of estimates versus actual time taken to complete tasks. They concluded that tasks take, on average, over twice as long to complete compared to the estimates. Optimism and not considering potential issues and blockers contribute to the problems with underestimating.

The studies found that people are able to estimate other people’s tasks more accurately than their own. Not using historic data to assist with estimating is another cause of poor estimating.

Resource planning

It is good practice to assume that full-time project resource will not be available for more than 80 per cent of the time. This is to account for holidays and illness.

If people are working on the project in addition to their day jobs, make sure there is a contingency plan in case they are needed to resolve urgent BAU issues. These people may be Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), and it may not be easy to find a replacement for them. 

Work packages

Work packages are a valuable tool to control time and cost. They distil work into an easy-to-understand one-page document that includes resource, cost, date and deliverable information.

Cutover 

Include cutover planning from the start of the project. (Strategy, approach, target dates, etc.)

Develop a detailed cutover plan that includes dependencies, activity, resources, communication, checkpoints and post-go-live project support. Complete a cutover dress rehearsal to ensure that all timings are correct.

Handover to support

Handover to the support team is critical for a smooth cutover. Please include handover activities in all plans. Ensure the handover documentation is fit for purpose.

Review the documentation at regular intervals starting early in the project. Don’t leave the task until the last minute and rush the preparation of this.

Include the support teams in the dress rehearsals. Add a failure scenario to ensure that everyone from the end user to third-level support understands the process. Also, involve the support team in the preparation of the support Service Level Agreement. (SLA)

Post go-live project support

Please consider the following in the planning process:

• The timeline that the project team will provide post-go-live support should be agreed upon early.
• From day one go-live, the support team should take the lead, with the project team assisting them.
• If everything is going very smoothly, the project team may work on other activities, but the go-live support must be their priority.
• Superusers are an integral part of the post-go-live support team. Ensure everyone knows who they are. Having the superusers walk around the departments immediately after cutover works very well.  

Summary

Every project is unique. Knowing when to combine methodologies or add additional activities will make the difference between delivery of a system that adds value or a costly failed project after months or years of effort. 

We hope you have found this article useful. Please let us know if you need support with any aspect of your projects.

Trade mark acknowledgements

IBM® is a registered trade mark of International Business Machines Corporation.

Agile Business Consortium trade marks: DSDM®, Atern®, AgilePM®, AgilePM® for Scrum, AgileBA®, AgilePgM® and AgilePfM™ are registered trade marks of Agile Business Consortium Limited. AgilePF™ is a trade mark of Agile Business Consortium Limited.

AXELOS trade marks: ITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. MSP® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. PRINCE2® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS

Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. The Swirl Logo™ is a trade mark of AXELOS Limited, used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.

APMG trade marks: The APMG-International Agile Project Management and Swirl Device logo is a trade mark of The APM Group Limited. The APMG-International Swirl AgileBA Device is a trade mark of APM Group Ltd. The APMG-International Swirl AgilePgM Device is a trade mark of APM Group Ltd.

All other trade marks are acknowledged.