The following four categories have been suggested for maintenance work: corrective (i.e., fixing mistakes), adaptive (i.e., keeping up with external regulations and changes in technology), perfective (i.e., changing user requirements or performance), and preventive (i.e., enhancing maintainability and reliability).
Organizational Performance How well does the IS organization compare with industry standards such as the Software Engineering Institute maturity model? How does the IS organization satisfy its customers? How well is IS delivering value and responding to needs?
Once a system of metrics is in place, managing users, legacy systems, and IS people becomes more straightforward. Without metrics, management remains a matter of educated guesswork. Some of America’
s most admired corporations — such as
Motorola and Hewlett Packard — have recognized the urgency of the issue and are driving metrics throughout their organizations.
RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION
What has come to be known as the legacy problem is not only a matter of today’
s
inheritance of yesterday’
s assets. Tomorrow’
s legacy must be considered as well. If
today’
s IS organizations use the same procurement and maintenance processes, handle the same customers using the same change control and architectural approaches, and then have to cope with four or five times as many technology choices, they cannot expect anything better five years down the road. One might even argue that the legacy situation of five years from now will be an order of magnitude worse than it is today.
As with any major reengineering effort, issues of politics and culture are significant.
Traditional wisdom on integration has left a legacy of complexity. This inheritance must be managed in a world where the IS function no longer has the monopoly franchise on rapidly changing information technology. These challenges create the need for IS managers both to reengineer IS itself and to provide the leadership and understanding critical to rethinking perspectives and driving the change.
Legacy is not an episodic, one-time hangover from the days of the mainframe.
Legacy is the ongoing challenge of leveraging evolving IS assets in the era of hybrid computing.
Section VI: Measuring and Improving Project Management Success
Chapter List
Chapter 38: Facilitating Your Way to Project Success
Chapter 39: Reducing IT Project Complexity
Chapter 40:Designing an Effective Project Management Office Chapter 41: Assessing the Real Costs of a Major System Change Chapter 42: Information Technology for Project Management Automation Chapter 43: The Project Management Office: A Strategy for Improvement and Success
Chapter 44: Creating and Implementing a Balanced Measurement Program Chapter 45: Software Process Assessment: Building the Foundation for a Mature IS Process
Chapter 38: Facilitating Your Way to Project Success
Nancy Settle-Murphy
Caroline Thornton
OVERVIEW
This chapter describes four common time wasters that undermine IS projects and discusses how to avoid them by using facilitated workshops with key team members and sponsors. A checklist to help project managers make the most of facilitated team communications is included, as well as guidelines for deciding when to use a facilitator and choosing whom to hire (see Exhibit 1).
Exhibit 1. How to Select a Facilitator
Not just anyone can pull off the successful facilitation of an IT project kickoff.
Important qualities and attributes include
Trained and skilled in group facilitation techniques
Seen as impartial and not vested in outcome of session
Regarded as able to lead all team members fairly
Excellent communications skills particularly listening and paraphrasing Is politically “wise”
Plays a dedicated role
Has time to prepare adequately; is not “added in” at the last moment Can effectively deal with tough issues likely to arise
Understands when digression from agenda is likely to produce positive results The enterprisewide project you have been leading has been declared “a complete success” by your business sponsors. End users report they have never experienced such a leap in productivity and quality in such a short time. You have helped your manager become a hero in the eyes of the CFO: Not only is your project on time, but you have managed to deliver the promised results at 80 percent of budgeted cost.
Your competition orders a top-notch headhunting firm to “offer whatever it takes” to lure you over to its side so you can duplicate your astounding success. For most project managers, this scenario might sound like science fiction. But it does not have to.
THE UNIQUE DEMANDS OF A LARGE-SCALE IT PROJECT
Few organizations within a typical company can compete with IT for missing deadlines so reliably, and with such prominence. Is it that the IT profession simply draws those with exceptionally poor time management skills? Or that a badge of
honor for IT project managers is awarded for setting particularly unrealistic delivery dates? Or do IT managers just enjoy being heckled by disgruntled end users?
In fact, IT managers are probably no more or less inherently efficient than their business counterparts. Nor is their ability to estimate time realistically or keep track of costs any less well honed. Rather, it is the very nature of large-scale IT projects that makes it so difficult continually to meet deadlines, work within budget constraints, and please business sponsors:
§ Many enterprisewide IT projects are seen by business managers as a panacea to solve a critical business problem — creating a heightened sense of urgency and pressure.
§ IT projects tend to run in the double-digit millions of dollars, thus commanding particularly close scrutiny and criticism.
§ Business sponsors often lack an understanding of realistic time frames and resource requirements, particularly when they insist on making changes midstream.
§ A shortage of IT talent often means that several business units within a company compete fiercely for available resources, with no corporatewide process for setting IT investment priorities.
§ IT organizations and their business counterparts often have an uneasy partnership, where they find it difficult to understand how they can best collaborate for mutual success.
FOUR LEADING PROJECT “SINKHOLES”
Most time wasted on IT projects can be traced to four major reasons: 1. Vague or conflicting project definition and scope
2. Lack of clearly articulated expectations
3. Competing (and shifting) priorities
4. No process established for problem resolution and feedback Through careful planning and clear and continuous communications, these trip wires can usually be avoided. At worst, they can be quickly overcome with minimal damage.
The secret? Facilitated workshops where team members and business sponsors can openly hash out differences, identify potential conflicts, and agree on key aspects such as project scope, deliverables, and dependencies (see Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2. Steps to Workshop Success
Step
Outcome
Secure the commitment of executive
Sponsors more likely to
sponsors, both within IT and with the
personally partic ipate at appropriate
business side
intervals
Visible management support
engenders enthusiastic participation
Involve at least a few team members in the
Identifies issues that may have
creation of the workshop agenda
been missed
Fosters a greater sense of
commitment to the workshop results
Communicate how and why facilitated
Establishes facilitated sessions
sessions will play a critical role in the success as impor tant components of a of the project
successful project
Sets expectations that
everyone will make time to contribute
Identify and invite participants and include
Diverse perspectives can enrich
representative example of stakeholder groups results
that lie outside of the project team, such as
Upfront involvement can secure
business sponsors, HR, and marketing
early commitment from important
supporters
Create and distribute a preparation package
Sets realistic expectations
(executive project overview document),
Members can more fully
which includes workshop objectives, scope, a contribute to all conversations carefully timed agenda and expected
Provides chance to revalidate
deliverables along with any pre-reading that participant list will increase the value of face-to-face
meeting time
Assign dedicated roles for each work shop:
Ensures that objectives are met
facilitator and document manager
in time frame allotted
Output will be made available
for immedi ate distribution
Arrange for logistics conducive to creating an
A team that’
s comfortable and
open, supportive environment (e.g., space,
well-fed is more likely to contribute to
refreshments, ambiance)
the best of its ability
In the pages that follow, you will read about a major project under way at Cenemex, a fictitious company that is about to roll out a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) application affecting all 5,000 employees in 16 countries.
KICKING OFF THE PROJECT WITH A BANG
Like so many other major IT projects, the Cenemex ERP project falls prey to every single one of the four “favorite” leading project time wasters. We will first see the project as it unfolds without the benefit of facilitated sessions. Then we will explore how facilitated working sessions can help keep the project firmly on track as Dave organizes and delivers a much-needed “Project Recovery Workshop” (see Exhibit 3).
Exhibit 3. Recovery Workshop Agenda
AGENDA FOR DAY ONE
8:00
Continental Breakfast
a.m.
8:30
Introductions/Overview/Agenda
8:45
Kickoff by Executive Sponsors
9:00
TEAM NORMS
(Establish rules of conduct
for the team)
9:30
PROJECT DEFINITION
(Non-negotiable factors:
define Charter, Scope,
Exclusions)
10:30 Break
10:45 REALITY CHECK — evaluate existing plan
1.Completed
2.Under way but not complete