Why is this a hot button for me?   I’ve seen this too many times, where there is no planning, no organizational thought process in how projects are approached.   In my experience I’ve seen IT take the approach of sending stuff out to the end user, without any knowledge of what they were sending out and asking the user to accomplish something.  When working on implementing software solutions, we work to manage the user’s expectations and more importantly, how we involve the user in a software rollout or a software evaluation.   Neither is comfortable to the end user and generally not a knowledge area for them.  IT must bring that expertise and assistance to the table when approaching such projects.

Yet, in this example, not once, but TWICE, the same IT person went out to the end user and asked them to start working with a software product or evaluate a software product, when that person, as an IT representative, had absolutely no knowledge of what he was asking, how the products worked,  and no understanding how the users were to make use of these products.   A video link was e-mailed to the user asking that person to evaluate the product.  The IT worker, totally unrelated to the evaluation, saw fit to ask for feedback from the user.    This IT person was asked whether he had seen the video before sending it out.  Do you know what you sent out?   The answer in both cases was NO.   Are you kidding me?  How could an IT person make such a request.   Additionally, this person, in neither case, saw fit to communicate to his manager responsible for the projects that he had made such requests.   This just tears away at the credibility of any IT organization.

As much as anything, it is an educational challenge within IT.  In today’s world of “get it done and get it done now,” the perception is that there just isn’t time to follow processes and procedure in ensuring a successful project outcome.   There isn’t understanding between the different knowledge areas of IT to respect the varying requirements and needs to ensure successful project outcomes.   I tell people, IT is much like the medical field.  If you have a heart related issue, are you going to see the cardiologist or a podiatrist? Both are MD’s but only one is qualified to take on the heart related challenge.   The same is true in IT.  There are many areas of expertise in IT yet the folks in IT  are IT folks.   Even within the IT organization, that disconnect is true and people outside a knowledge area may not understand what they are asking thus the resulting consequences is reduced credibility of IT.   Consistent processes to ensure success of any project within the organization must be followed.   The follow-up discussion to this will highlight some options supporting an improved organization and that reduce the risk of failure of projects within IT, regardless of the knowledge area.

It is called Assessment and Recommendations.  These two areas are critical before the start of any project.   They are officially not part of PMBOK, but our philosophy at CI Solutions Group is that they must occur before every project, at least to some degree.  This is most critical to ensuring success and reducing risks to any given project.  I’ve seen projects encounter trouble in the change management area, even with the greatest of planning, execution, and monitoring during a project.  How can this be?

Well, as mentioned in Part 1 of this blog, change management in the context discussed here is about people, how people are impacted by change, how people react to change, and how we can successfully manage through that change by involving people in the project.   People and their involvement and commitment vary through a project.  Everyone brings a different set of skills, strengths, and weaknesses to the project.  It is the weaknesses we must identify, develop remedies, and shore up.  Otherwise, until such time, it may be best to delay moving forward with the project.

Now, project management professionals may disagree with this approach,  the idea being that tools are provided by PMBOK that will mitigate risks here.  This is true, but to mitigate even further, to ensure a higher likelihood of success, with minimal issues, a pre-project assessment and recommendations is a must.   Hypocrisy exists in every organization.   “We are totally committed to this project.  Our people will always be available when needed.”  We’ve all heard that before.  “I’m at your disposal throughout the project.  I’m totally committed to this project and the success of the project.”

All well-meaning comments, but in reality the above is rarely seen through the life of the project.   We must probe to find the areas where the commitment to a project is minimal, questionable, and the likelihood of resources when needed or management support when needed will not be there.  That occurs in the assessment.   Recommendations are based on assessment results and drive any remedy to the situation such that the project can move forward with the initiation phase.

Finding out later in the project that a manager refuses to  be involved, refuses to provide the leadership needed to ensure success of this  project in their area, is too late.  Can we remedy during the project?  PMBOK says  we can but it is more difficult and can derail a project, at least for a period of time, until that can be remedied by whatever means agreed upon by the project management group and the company’s  leadership team.

Quite frankly, if the right skill sets for the project do not exist in an organization, or if lack of commitment for a project and commitment to providing management leadership needed in a project is permeated throughout the organization, wouldn’t it be nice to know this sooner than later?  As the saying goes, “You can pay now or you can pay later.”  It is more expensive to find out the issues later in the project as opposed to before the project start.

Do you want to improve the likelihood of success in a project?   If so, then give this a try before your next project.

Change management is critical to the success of any project.   Change management in the context of this discussion is not related to managing change to the project scope as part of the planning group.   This change management is not a process group  such as planning or monitoring and controlling.  This change management is related to process changes such as an engineer implementing a process change and the related impact to the human side of that change.  Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level.  In my opinion, this is the most important aspect of project management.  It is this human side of change that has a great risk of failure if not planned for and managed appropriately.  

Change management has been characterized as having three stages, Unfreezing, Changing, Refreezing.  Looking at change management a little more analytically, you can characterize change management as problem finding and problem solving.  Now some folks prefer not to use the word “problem” but rather the word “opportunity.”  In this discussion, the “problem” is nothing more than something that requires an action but the solution is still unknown.   The goal is to identify a solution and action that will solve the problem.   You will find this definition in an article written by Fred Nickols called “Change Management 101: A Primer”.

Change impacts people in many ways.  Change may have political impacts, analytical impacts, system impacts, or  staffing impacts.  Change may be organizational or systems related.  In either case, people generally don’t like change for fear of the impacts and what must happen at an individual level to implement and adjust to this change.  In short, change takes people out of their comfort zone.   Mitigating risks due to change must occur very early in the project process.  This means that even the planning process is too late for mitigating this project risk.  Our next discussion will focus on ways to mitigate risk due to change management and where this must start in the life of a project.

In today’s world of   rapid change, people are constantly interacting with cell phones, messaging,  e-mailing, tweeting, checking Facebook and other social networks. Yet, companies tend to stay with IT and IT systems, without much if any change, for years and years. The leadership in these companies is the same folks who must have the latest phones, tablets, and other social technology toys. Why would  companies take a different approach to IT versus other aspects of their business and business relationships?

Companies have a  different level of expectation of IT than other groups in the corporate
organization. “Keep the computers running,” is what is expected from IT. The value that IT brings, or more importantly, should bring to the organization, is  unclear and often unexpected. IT can, should, and MUST bring greater value to every organization. Technology, where demanded by individuals on a personal  level, is not always demanded, at least strategically, at the corporate level.  Simply put, IT isn’t required to provide that push and support that improves business processes and fundamentally makes a person’s job easier and more enjoyable. Often, we suffer through a tired old technology.

How do you know that you might need a new IT?  First, and foremost, you might need a new IT if your IT group cannot lead, develop strategy and direction, both business and
technology, to bolster your company’s position within the global economy.  You might need new IT if your servers are extremely slow, crash often, have viruses and have loss of data. If the system is down then you cannot do your job.  Figure out the cost of a person sitting idle for one hour of the day. Multiply that times the number of people in a department or an entire organization. This can be quite expensive. What is the cost of data loss?  Do you have to re-enter the data?  What if it is some weeks or even months before you realize some data is missing. Can you recover?  Again, this can be very expensive on a company’s bottom line.

Just the other day I was having coffee with a sales executive from the Information Technology industry. I said to him that IT can improve a company’s top line.  He looked at me like I was from another planet. IT can provide sales and marketing with the analytics for product movement, by regions and zones, high volume product, slow moving product, excess inventory, industry specific product sales, high volume and low volume customers.  Providing this information sooner than later, allows an organization to make strategically sound decisions on future sales and marketing initiatives.  Companies can target areas of the business that are doing well and give focus to those areas needing improvement or even replacing of product. All go to improving the top line.  This CAN and SHOULD be provided by IT and enabled by IT tools. You might need new IT if you rely upon spreadsheets to track your company sales and all the critical information surrounding those sales.  If you cannot get to the data or if the data is non-existent in your organization, then you might need new IT.

Effective technology is essential for small businesses looking to increase the productivity of their people and improving overall business performance.  You might need new IT if
these items cannot be provided by your IT organization.  Check out your personal technology.  Are you giving your business the same priority?  What’s it costing
you?

Have you ever experienced a marketing group going to print with a catalog containing new products that cannot be manufactured because the right machinery is not in place to produce this new product? Have you seen sales make a commitment to an executive group on the number of products to be produced monthly, yet have no conversation with manufacturing as to whether there is capacity to produce such quantities?

Information Technology, a group that in today’s world, MUST bring that whole or entire understanding of the business to the table to meet an organization’s business needs. Yet, I’ve experienced IT organizations that are segmented by business groups, thus making the same types of decisions as the rest of the business, with no consideration regarding the impact of decisions to the rest of the organization. Have you ever experienced an IT group making a change to a sales order entry process and then suddenly manufacturing is no longer receiving work orders? The group didn’t consider the impact of the change nor did they confirm that the change impacted others. Why? Because it was manufacturing and not order entry. That is someone else’s problem. That IT structure, built around specific business units, has to be a thing of the past. This silo or pasture effect is a common business problem. Making decisions without consideration and understanding of the impact to the entire organization is the same as building a house and putting the carpet in before putting on the roof.

It is a mandate of Information Technology to bridge that gap – open the gates between pastures. IT must provide the path and generate that throughput to facilitate improved business processes and decision making. Understanding the core business is a must in today’s global workplace. Strategy is key in building any future. Planning is critical to mitigating risk. Managing change is a must to ensuring success. Information Technology must bring all of these and more to the table. IT is not the core business itself, it is a core business enabler. However, with globalization and the explosive changes in technology, Information Technology must develop that strategy and direction to carry organizations into the future.

Communication is paramount. People must talk with others outside their immediate business unit to improve their understanding of the business. IT must represent and facilitate process changes to ensure that all aspects of the business are considered when any change is planned for and realized. This IT need is especially critical in the small and mid-sized business organizations where IT may consist of one or two people, and the expectation is for IT to keep the computers running. The Silo effect is as strong as any in the small and mid-sized businesses. Small and mid-sized businesses must consider sourcing this level of IT services to ensure a complete technology solution for the organization.

Tear down the silos, remove the fences. To be successful in today’s world, this operating process must become the NEW NORMAL in business.