4 Tips for Avoiding IT Project Waste

Management often bemoans the fact that IT projects fail to be delivered on time and within budget. And the truth is, the IT spending waste that occurs in our industry is at times mind-boggling. My firm has four clients — ranging in size from $7 million to $650 million in sales — all struggling with the same schedule and budget problems as they attempt to implement new order management and warehouse management systems. Another client invested $350,000 with one of the industry’s leading order management system companies. But after a failed implementation, the client backed off the project.

What’s at the root of this waste? It’s the lack of project management on both the client and vendor sides. Here are four tips based on the lessons we’ve learned to help you avoid the same fate with your IT implementations.

1. Start with the deal. Some projects should simply never be. Usually it begins when management accepts the vendor’s selling proposal, which turns out to be flawed. Take the case of one of our largest clients: It’s been struggling for two years to work with a vendor, basically to rewrite much of the vendor’s system. The client is determined because there’s a huge potential return on investment. But while it will be a big deal for the vendor when finished, it’s taking that vendor off its commercial systems path. The client should have looked at the proposal more realistically at the start.

2. Have a plan. Vendor proposals are full of boilerplates — simple task schedules and bar graphs. The real plans for a complex systems implementation require all details to be thought out, agreed upon and then scheduled. A mistake many companies make is not updating the plan weekly; they may use it to get started, but then don’t update it often enough. Also, plans often don’t take dependencies into account. Everybody involved continually is surprised because the major subtasks aren’t in sync with each other.

3. Who’s in charge? Both the client and vendor need a project manager. Too many times the client leaves that up to the vendor, and that’s a bad idea for two reasons: First, the vendor doesn’t know your business or organization. Second, it’s expensive. The client needs to be in control of the process and implementation.

4. How often do you talk? As we all know, systems projects involve a lot of oral and written communication, with documents constantly passing back and forth. On the surface, it seems as though you’re talking multiple times each day. But that’s really not the issue. Hold weekly meetings between the two parties, conducted by the two project managers, to review the total project and schedule. And, if necessary, reset objectives. Other critical parties can and should join in.

At the close of each meeting, the two project managers should circulate the updated schedule and meeting notes. Once you’re inside 30 days to 45 days, have a brief conversion meeting daily. This is an excellent way for all parties to stay committed to each other and get the implementation done.

If you commit to following these basics religiously, everything else should fall in line. As a result, you’ll have a much better chance of finishing your IT project on time and within budget.

Curt Barry is president of F. Curtis Barry & Co., a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory and benchmarking. Learn more online at http://www.fcbco.com.