10 Top tips to run a successful IT project

Nothing inhibits IT investment more than an inability to measure benefits and keep control of costs. However much you invest in a new system, you want to buy something that will address a particular need your business has and will do 'as it says on the tin'.

Here are ten things to remember when you are thinking about running a project.

1. Understand your business processes and how they can be improved
Before you do anything, and this may sound obvious, you must understand your business processes. Review what you currently do, how you do it and what the current 'pains' and 'issues are which you would like to overcome. Talk to the managers and the key users, get their views on what they would do, if they could, to improve the process. There is a well known saying in the world of IT "the devil is in the detail." By undertaking this study you may also find ways to improve the existing processes and drive some efficiency before you even look at software.

2. Scope a project and define your requirements
Having identified areas of process improvement start thinking about a 'project' to resolve one or a few. Don't be too ambitious, think about starting a project which is achievable given the resources available to you. Bear in mind that, as a rule of thumb, most companies will spend as much time on the project (agreeing requirements, training, testing, project management, data cleaning) as a supplier will. As another rule of thumb, 80% of the benefits in a project accrue during the last 20% of the effort, so over-reaching what your company is capable of by 20% is really not a good idea.

Start writing your requirements, in quite a level of detail on what your new system needs to be able to do to run your new process, what some 'nice to haves' are, what you want in terms of support for your new system and finally what type of 'relationship you want with a supplier - don't forget, your system may well last for some years and so you want to work with a supplier that will respond to your needs and help further develop the system to meet the demands of your business as it grows.

Software has developed enormously in the last 5-10 years and the basics can pretty much be taken for granted. Spend time on the requirements that are unique to your business or that give you the competitive advantage.

3. Make sure you have project governance in place
Don't under estimate the value of professional project management. Having a project team managed by a project manager and following a project plan will greatly reduce the risk of you spending money on a solution that doesn't work. So much has been written about the need for project management that you can find plenty of information on the internet.

Having the right people with the right skill sets is another issue. If you haven't got someone who can; run the project, manage your project team and manage the supplier, then it may be worth considering getting outside help. There are a few specialist firms that will help you run your projects. One such company is IT-Project Management. They can help you to run a successful project by providing you with people to work as part of your project team. They will make sure that the project you start, runs smoothly, run's to a schedule, within a budget and delivers what you want. They also manage the supplier on your behalf to make sure the supplier clearly understands your business and technical requirements. One reason for using a company like IT-Project Management is that they will minimise the risk to your project failing.

4. Think about how you will measure the success of the project?
It is important to document what will determine a successful project. This is driven by understanding the key objective, this could be; to save money through to creating efficiencies, possibly to reduce headcount in some areas of your business, allow for more efficient recruitment, to enable streamlining of your business operations or to allow for investment in machinery and so on .

Whatever the objective, using it as a measure of success will act as a motivator for all those involved during the implementation and help to keep the project team focused and on track. Assigning key performance indicators (KPI's) to the project will help you to manage the project successfully. However, this may sound obvious, but make sure everyone understands the KPI's that you are assigning to the project to measure its success.

5. Employee Involvement
A favourite term used by many software suppliers and consultancies is 'change management'. We would say that the impact of this should never be underestimated. Change Management should begin at the very earliest stage of any project. If you give the people in the team the 'platform' for them to raise their concerns and be a part of the solution then the 'buy-in' to your plans is that much easier - you don't want to spend thousands on a solution no one will ever use!

6. Risk Management
Every organisation has at least one negative voice. Encourage the involvement of your negative people to help you to identify the potential risks, their impact and likelihood of occurrence. Use this information to help you to develop strategies that will mitigate the risks. Not only will you avoid problems you will also get further buy-in and limit the negativity of these employees.

You also need to manage the supplier, encourage regular correspondence during the design, build and implementation steps. You don't want to get to the last step to find out the supplier is not 'delivering' what you requested. Talking at a level a supplier can understand will aid this and minimise the risk to the project.

7. Supplier Selection
Searching for a suitable technology and supplier is time consuming and difficult. There are so many companies with 'solutions' that seem to do what you want. It is worth investing in some specialist help. There are internet sites which compare similar solutions and/or you can employ a consultancy to help.

At the moment IT-shortlist is the only company in the UK that offers a free service to do this. IT-shortlist has an extensive database of over 800 software suppliers at their fingertips and they can deliver a shortlist of suppliers with the best solutions for you to select from. For more information please visit http://www.it-shortlist.com/faq.html

8. Get ready for the new solution
A supplier is only contracted to provide you with the software after some configuration work to make it 'map' onto your working practices. However, they are not responsible for organising your staff to make sure you do the tasks necessary for the business to be ready for the new solution. You will have a long list of tasks that you will want to complete (these include testing, data migration and roll out planning). Responsibility for ensuring that these tasks are scheduled correctly and completed on time is yours and so it is important to identify what they are, how much effort is required, who will do them and how.

9. Training your staff
The supplier should provide training in the use of their software. But this only trains people on the mechanics of entering data. The supplier will have an incomplete understanding of the conventions of what information should be entered into the system, the appropriate coding and classification to be used and the level of detail that is required. Training in the use of the software needs to be given simultaneously with a description of changes in working practices. These changes are often politically sensitive and have to be presented carefully.

10. Go-live
There are always problems that arise on the days before and after go-live. Very often, tasks in the last few days in the project overrun and contingency plans have to be put in place to allow the system to go live without all the pieces of the jigsaw in place. There are always users who have forgotten their training or who find an unusual situation that wasn't addressed. This phase often coincides with the supplier handing over the project from development to a support team, which can raise problems of its own. Make sure you have your project team and the supplier on hand to manage the transition from the old system to the new.

As the new system becomes part of everyday life start monitoring how effectively it is working. Does it do all the things you wanted it to? If not, why not? And what changes need to be made in order for it to do them? Start measuring it against the KPI's you put in place and measure if the project has delivered the business benefits you expected.