Managing IT Projects – An Overview

Most IT setups are concerned more about support and delivering day to day services to the business. Most often sidelined aspect is the project management capabilities that the IT team has. One of the key factors in determining the success of any IT organization or an IT department would depend on its IT project management capabilities. Regardless of the size of the organization / department / project, the risks associated with the lack of a good IT project management approach are common.
Some key risks associated with a poorly managed project are as below:

• The scope and plan is not aligned with the organizational / business strategy
• Time delays and cost overruns which is consequent of the above
• Unexpected resource constraints
• Gaps in the desired and actual quality, timeliness, etc of the deliverables

Organizations can adopt globally accepted best practices for IT project planning and management which include the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO’s) 9001 Standard, Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), Projects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2), etc.

Manage IT Project Management and Planning processes assist project managers by providing services related to planning, moderating and tracking IT projects successfully through their entire lifecycle. A project needs to have a governance structure with a defined Steering Committee and Project Team including the Project Manager, the Development Lead and Team, the Release and Deployment Lead and Team and a Testing Team. An IT development project would invariably follow the predefined steps of gathering requirements, development, testing, go live and support. However it is very important to pay attention to the details during each of these stages to ensure that the project is successful. For example there could be various methods that could be used to gather data. The business analyst could send out questionnaires, conduct interviews or simply observe the users in order to gather requirements. Whichever technique be deployed it is important that all requirements gathered are formally documented and approved by the stakeholders prior to development. This will ensure that there is no rework in subsequent phases and also business can get aligned on what they expect the project to finally deliver.

In an ideal environment all IT project should follow a similar framework or methodology. This helps in ensuring consistency for all development / testing activities etc. IT becomes easier to track the status of each project. Also more importantly lessons leant during execution of one project can also be implemented for other projects. This would also ensure that project audits are also easier to conduct. Following a defined framework with a common set of processes and deliverables brings consistency and allows for an efficient risk management.

Like any other process, IT project management also, takes its time to be properly developed within an organization. Unless adopted at an early stage of the organization / department when the projects or technology requirements are less, the task of a new project management methodology would seem a bit challenging and would require more efforts.

The success of an IT organization / department / project, not only depends on strong project management practices, but also on regular audits which ensures identification of issues if any, and consequently the improvement of the entire process.

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About Author:

Mohini Bhandari is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, she actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. She can be contacted at mohini.b@spluspl.com