At some stage, every business runs a project – and maybe more than one at the same time. These might be IT projects or they might be something completely unrelated to IT such as moving to a new premises or transforming how you do business. In many cases the project will be large enough to justify employing a professional Project Manager but very often, particularly in the SME sector, the task is delegated to a line manager who may or may not have run projects before.

The one certainty about running projects, large or small, IT or non-IT related, is that the more of them you run, the more likely it is that you will come across a good project that’s gone bad.

So, what kind of trouble can you expect, and more importantly how can you avoid it? Let’s have a look at some famous (or infamous) projects and see if we can learn from history as opposed to repeating it.

Great Late Projects:

We’ve all heard about PPARS and how after spending almost €200 million over 10 years, the HSE ended up with a system that didn’t work, but the history of Government and failed IT projects goes back much further than PPARS – right back indeed to the very beginnings of computing. In 1849, Charles Babbage, one of the earliest pioneers of computing, designed his Difference Engine – and persuaded the English Parliament to fund building it, making the promise that, among other things, it would greatly facilitate the calculation of tide tables and other nautical information vital to the Royal Navy. Ten years and over a million pounds later, the project was abandoned. The Babbage Difference engine was finally completed, using the original drawings, in 2002 – a total of 153 years after it was started. Perhaps we got off lightly with PPARS!

You can see the Babbage Difference Engine at work here. http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/

However, we shouldn’t just look at IT projects for examples of massive cost overruns and significant delays. Construction of the world famous Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona started in 1882, with Antoni Gaudi taking on the “project manager” role a year later. Gaudi worked on this project until his death in 1926 and when he was questioned about the slow pace of work is reputed to have answered that “his client wasn’t in a hurry”. Sacrada Familia now has a projected completion date of 2026!

Common factors:

There is an old saying among Project Managers: “There are three components to any project – Cost, Functionality and Quality – and you can have any two out of these three”. Personally, I’m inclined to add a fourth component – Time – but you can still only have 2 out of 4!

It may sound strange but many projects start either with no fixed budget in mind or, more frequently, a sum of money that can be allocated for a given project, and the expectation is that everything the client wants can be delivered for that money. This is especially tricky when the client doesn’t know exactly what they want. They may have a general idea, but they very rarely know exactly. They may also have a quality product in mind, but many clients underestimate the complexity of their project and, in my experience, it’s in the integration of complex requirements that most projects fail. Then there is my final factor: Time. How often have we started from a position of “the client wants it yesterday”?

I’ve been speaking from the perspective of the people tasked with delivering a project, but if you’re contemplating a new project ask yourself the same questions but from your perspective. Do I have a fixed budget, for the functionality I need, with a clear understanding of how robust I want this product to be, and when I need it for?

Let’s think about this in terms of moving house. You start with a budget, with an idea of what you want in your new home (maybe three or four bedrooms), and what qualities you want that home to have (e.g. bungalow, semi-detached), along with an idea of when you need to move. One or more of these factors might be non-negotiable. For example your new home must have 4 bedrooms or must be located close to schools. What are the chances of finding the house you want, within budget, where you want it and then closing the deal in time?

Keeping Projects Good

Fail to plan, plan to fail. Never underestimate the amount of time you need to plan your project, and you should never start your project until you have completed the plan. It’s probably fair to say that once the project starts, the first thing to change will be the project plan, but a good project manager will have anticipated many of the potential snags and should have them documented in a risk plan, along with a set of contingency actions to get around them. Be very clear on what the non-negotiable parts of the project are – is it budget, specific functionality, quality or deadlines.

Of all the variable factors, I would suggest that the single most important is time. You can amend the functionality you want, you can add or subtract money from the budget, you can compromise on quality, but it’s very difficult to make more time. Yes, you can add additional labour, but in most projects adding more labour becomes self-defeating very quickly as people get in each others way or end up waiting for other work to be completed.

As a rough guide, you should allot up to one third of the total time for a project to the planning phase. Remember; when you do start your project to make sure that the lines of communication are open. The project manager should speak to the key people on a daily or weekly basis – and you are one of those key people. Finally, be prepared to run the project and take responsibility jointly with your contractor or Project Manager. It is a sure recipe for disaster to agree a plan and then walk away telling the Project Manager you’ll see them in six months when the project is finished.

Many more projects succeed than fail, and while they say there is no such thing as bad publicity, most people would rather succeed quietly rather than fail in a blaze of publicity.

About the Author:

John Brophy is a 30-year veteran of the IT industry and has run projects with budgets ranging from €100k to over €10 million. John specialises in rescuing failing projects (not his own!). John’s focus in Carrig Solutions is to source the right solution for your business.

John Brophy features on Wicklow CEB’s website January 2012

John Brophy, MD of Carrig Solutions, takes the Hot Seat on Wicklow County Enterprise’s website this month. Check out what John has to say here:

http://www.wicklowceb.ie/blog/tag/carrig-solutions/

Cloud or Fog – What does Cloud Computing mean and how does it apply to my Business?

If you are in business you have an IT system of some sort. It might be a single PC in your home, or a small network in your office, or you might even be a large corporation with several data-centres and a global network, but one thing is for sure – you rely on this system to manage your business.

No-one can fail to have at least heard the phrase “Cloud Computing”, but what does this mean and does it have any relevance to the Small or Medium Business Enterprise (SME)?

I went looking for a single definition of Cloud Computing and one I found from the American National Institute of Standards and Technology ran to two pages and talked about “five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models”

To the SME, this is already a turn off and is an example of Fog – not Cloud.

So, here is my definition. Cloud computing occurs when you allow someone else to manage all or part of your IT system, which you then access via the Internet.

The easiest example to understand is email. If you use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or any other email provider, you are using Cloud Computing and allowing someone else to manage your email system. You can extend your use of Cloud Computing right up to the point where you hand over all of your enterprise’s Information Technology requirements – provision of servers, databases, workflow, payroll, Accounts, CRM tools etc. – to an outside partner or partners who will provide you with a service which you can access via the Internet. So, should you use a Cloud Computing service?

The answer is “It depends”.

Each case and each Business is different, but I will try and clear the fog a little.
Money: Most people think that “If it’s on the Internet, it should be free.” Well it isn’t.
However, if you have been putting off that server upgrade because you had no capital, and it’s now at the point where you absolutely have to do something, then you could consider moving all or part of your IT systems to an outside service provider who will typically provide a service accessed via the Internet for a monthly or annual fee. In most cases, using an outside service provider means you don’t need to borrow to finance your IT needs.

Technology: The good news is that pretty much all of the services you use in your office today can be transferred to an outside agency and the look, feel and functionality of these services will be the same as before. The further good news is that they can now be accessed everywhere, often via mobile devices.

You can also access applications that were once the preserve of only the biggest corporations due to their price and the complexity of supporting them, thus levelling the playing field even more.

The bad news; these services are all located remotely and if you lose your access to the Internet, you’re goosed.

Security: There have been several well publicised attacks on service providers in the past months, so you might wonder if your data is safe in someone else’s hands. There is always a risk, but before you get too hung up about it, ask yourself, how secure is my data right now? Studies have shown that over 75% of all security breaches occur within an organisation. Here’s a little test for you. Assuming you have locked your smart phone at all, is your password one of these combinations: 1234, 0000, 2580, 1111 or 5555. If so, Congratulations, you are using one of the top 5 most common passwords worldwide. The odds are that Cloud Computing providers have security systems that far exceed your own. However, be aware that you are always responsible for your own data, whether it’s stored in the Cloud or not.

Performance: In general, applications will perform just as well on the Internet as based in your office server, with one major caveat. If you have a poor internet service provider or you do not have high-speed internet access then, frankly, Cloud Computing is not for you.

Scalability: Every business has to take account of those times when they need more resources to cope with seasonal demand. In IT terms, this can mean buying resources that far exceed daily average usage. This is an unnecessary cost, in financial and carbon usage terms. Cloud computing providers are much better at providing the flexibility and scalability you require at a lower cost.

Maturity: By maturity I mean both, is Cloud Computing a mature model and is your business ready for it? To answer the first question – every major Computer Corporation in the IT world is investing heavily in Cloud Computing services so the market is quite mature, and getting more so every day. As far as whether your business, and your IT systems are mature enough – well the answer is up to you. In general, if you are either launching a new service or are supporting a geographically dispersed workforce, then you should seriously investigate a Cloud Computing provider. If however, your business and your staff are all centrally located, then maybe you’re better off staying with a local option.

In summary, Cloud Computing is another option for providing the IT services you need to run your business, but it’s not necessarily the right one, just because it’s the most hyped.

If you would like to discuss your current and future IT requirements, cloudy or otherwise, please contact us at Carrig Solutions.

About the Author:
John Brophy is a 30-year veteran of the IT industry having started in the era of punch cards (ask your parents!). John has worked in a variety of industries and has been both a purchaser and supplier of IT systems for Global and Local Customers. John’s focus in Carrig Solutions is to source the right solution for your business.