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The Key to Successful IT Project Management

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Identifying an IT solution for your organization is just the tip of the

iceberg, actually deploying it and making it work is what comprises the bulk of

the mass. And this is where IT specialists step in to own up the process and

carry it to its logical conclusion. We sought the views of some of the key IT

implementation partners across India on the pitfalls they think implementing

companies should avoid

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Summers are back with all glory and as the heat gains in intensity, it's time

to pour our sweat scouting around India looking at what large Indian

organizations have implemented over the past year. Yes, the PCQuest annual, Best

IT Implementation Awards, are back. But this story is not about analyzing what

the Indian companies have implemented, what technologies they've used or even

what the hottest trends in IT implementations are? All of this has been dealt

with in detail in the subsequent pages. In this story, we talk to the real

brains behind these implementations-the organizations that partner with an

implementing company to deploy their IT solutions and more importantly make sure

that these are successfully integrated with the existing business processes-to

get their views on how companies should go about deploying IT solutions. Out of

the 170 odd nominations that we received more than 100 involve at least one

implementation partner. And mind you all these are top quality implementations

(high on technology, costs and scalability). While it's understandable that

complex implementations-those that involve modifying the complete IT

infrastructure or deploying ERP packages-would require specialists, we even find

solutions as simple as deploying an online portal to providing employees

anytime, anywhere accessibility to a company's resources from across the globe,

handed over to specialists than being developed by in-house teams. So, is it a

question of having faith in the abilities of implementation partners more than

the abilities of in-house teams or a simple case of outsourcing IT deployments

and with it all the pains and complexities involved? Well, nobody was candid

enough to give a convincing reply to this query but anyways gave us a lot of

learning on the key issues that make or break an IT deployment.

Key challenges in managing an IT project



There seemed to be unanimity amongst the respondents that managing disparate

teams comprising of the implementing company, service providers and their own IT

teams was the biggest challenge they face while deploying projects at the

customers' end. Another part of this challenge was to ensure smooth

communication amongst the teams involved to maintain compliance to common

objectives and in meeting the deadlines. It was sometimes difficult to get

people with the right skills to work on a project. And wherever these practices

were in place, the age-old problem of attrition seemed to raise its head. This

issue stood apart as the strongest reasons for project delays. Successful

project heads take special care that their team composition is a judicious mix

of youth and experience. So, in case you have an unusual exodus of the younger

staff, such an arrangement ensures that you have anchors to fall back on.

Another set of issues concerned the IT infrastructure at the customers' site.

There could be issues as simple as having the right desktops in place to

servers, storage devices, switches, routers, etc in the datacenter. Sometimes,

external teams face stiff resistance from the in-house teams in their daily

tasks as the latter in all probability get edgy about their own jobs and see

external teams more of a threat than as a partner. This issue coupled with the

lack of knowledge about a new technology is probably the reason why system

admins are also less forthcoming on sharing information about their networks.

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Shift in IT deployment strategies



There seems to be a paradigm shift in the thinking of CIOs as far as IT

deployments are concerned. Or at least this is what our discussion with the

implementation specialists suggests. In the early days of the development of IT

industry in India, there was a lot of emphasis on putting in-house IT teams to

work whenever a new solution was required. This is not the case now. Most of the

CIOs seem to have accepted the reality that complex and critical implementations

are best handled by specialists, and once a job is handed over they ensure you

get the best in terms of technology. Moreover, with so much on offer in terms of

technology, how do you ensure strict compliance with regulatory standards? Again

your implementation partners come to the rescue. Being masters of their IT

domains, they ensure that the level of compliance always remains high. Another

strategy that is now universal with large enterprises is the deployment of

technologies across multiple branch offices, spread across different

geographies. This not only increases the complexity involved but also the scale

of deployment. Therefore, it helps to have a helping hand especially in regions

where it's not possible to depute your in-house teams.

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Another challenge that most implementation partners face is the pressure of

short deadlines. Organizations demand the most cost-effective solutions with the

latest technologies, in the shortest possible time. Also, a customer is aware of

the competition in the segment and is always on the lookout for the best

bargains available. This means an implementer has to devise extremely robust

strategies, which leaves very little scope for experimentation. So, they are

forced to deploy their most trustworthy personnel on the job and have very

little scope for training of freshers.

Another key trend is the focus on business processes rather than on buying a

complete solution. We increasingly find organizations buying specific modules

such as a CRM solution, an SCM solution or an HR or finance module of an ERP

package, and getting it fine tuned as per their needs than implementing a

standard ERP package. Also with so much technology for the Web, the emphasis on

deploying web-based and mobile applications is on the rise. Particularly so in

case of banks, financial institutions and insurance companies who have to deal

with a perpetually mobile workforce and face a continuous need to evolve to

serve their customers better. With continuously evolving technology, powerful

systems and networks and ever expanding markets, such kinds of deployments are

constantly on the rise. What aids this trend is the availability of standard

IDEs such as Eclipse and Google's Android. Overall, the emphasis on deploying

standard J2EE or .NET technologies is on the rise.

Finance, telecom and

manufacturing are known to be industry verticals where deployments are

popular. What's happening in these areas?



Finance industry is in the final stages of core banking, rolling out

projects for loan management, credit applications, retail lending and

warehouse applications like CRM. However, there is a need in FSI industry

decision support systems. Telecom industry is rolling out VAS applications

apart from enhancing their infrastrure and networks for additional

subscribers. Manufacturing industry is enhancing ERP with more business

processes and functionality and integrating their partners and suppliers.

Do sunrise industries have an advantage over

the early adopters?



Early adopters of IT like banking, manufacturing had streamlined their

business processes with IT in phases and this they did over a period of

time. They focused on process streamlining to begin with and customer

management and new business offerings. For instance, manufacturing moved

from MRP to ERP and into CRM based solutions. Considering that IT has

penetrated into most businesses today, newer businesses have the high

compulsion of not just enhancing their entire business practice with IT but

also to create that agility most of the businesses today look forward to in

order to have an edge in creating newer business models and opportunities.

In short, the pressure of adoption of IT into sunrise industries is much

higher than the early adopters.

Kamal Dutta



Director, Software, Technology Solutions Group, HP India

What advice would you like to give to CIOs

of these industries for their IT implementations?




CIOs of sunrise industries have numerous challenges in selecting technology,
building desired business applications, managing IT post deployment and also

in creating agility for assuring flexibility and business innovation.

Considering the same, I like to suggest CIOs to build an IT model which can

help them strategize their demands, based on business value and efficient

project and portfolio management.

The biggest challenge for CIOs is to

determine ROI for their implementations. How would you help them in this

task?



Saving Costs and having best ROI are desired aspects of CIOs from any of

the IT implementations. While its desired to have the low cost and high ROI

model, in reality it's very difficult to achieve until we have few

guidelines followed. Better ROI can be easily realised when applications

have high availability, better response times, quick problem identification

and isolation capabilities thereby adhering SLAs, reducing MTTRs and

elongating MTBFs. Cost Savings can be realised with Performance Testing of

applications in pre-production environment, Server and Network Automation in

production and by implementing IT solutions offering SOX, BASEL II and/or

ITIL compliances for tracking regulatory guidelines.

What's the most important thing that CIOs

should remember when negotiating for a new IT project with a vendor?



Recommendations would include: Assess Vendor's capabilities in similar

projects with other customers ie check for references, Validate the vendor's

understanding of your current business requirements, Check on the measures

to be adopted by vendor for upholding the delivery commitments.

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When we talked on the kind of deployments that have taken place in the IT

infrastructure domain, consolidation and virtualization received the maximum

mention; and rightly so, as organizations look at optimization of hardware

resources and cutting real estate costs. A related concern with the customers is

that platforms used for deployment should be interoperable, should make do with

minimum of proprietary standards, provide scope for scalability in future and

have faster provisioning capabilities.

Dealing with attrition



When we look at the human aspect of implementations, an alarmingly high rate

of attrition seems to be the biggest concern. Not that companies have not worked

a way around this issue. We see a slew of innovative solutions being tried. Some

companies consider knowledge sharing amongst peers a must-have weekend activity.

Such an initiative, they feel, ensures that employees at different levels of the

hierarchy trickle down information to their immediate subordinates. This also

enhances the motivation to learn new technologies and get updated on the latest

trends. Similar discussions are undertaken with other partners and service

providers to ensure homogenous mapping of information. There are companies that

initiate similar projects at different locations, just to have a failsafe option

ready in case a team at a particular location quits. It also helps to share your

business growth plans with your team members and associates to keep them

motivated and pitch in with additional resources as and when the need arises.

Another idea is to rotate employees across challenging assignments to improve

skills and keep them excited. However, keep your second string of leaders ready

just in case your team quits en masse!

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What has changed in the IT

landscape in recent months in terms of IT deployments?



We find consensus amongst clients on the fact that IT can no longer be

considered a support function. Instead, it must contribute directly to

business value by driving innovation, growth and revenue. Clients are

increasingly building necessary IT processes and skills required to

implement and manage an IT environment capable of satisfying their

organization's business goals. From an IT infrastructure standpoint we see a

growing demand for server consolidation, energy-efficient data centers,

unified communications solutions, managed services, business continuity and

security across all industries.


Bhaskar S

Anand




Country Executive, Integrated Technology Service, IBM India/South Asia

Where are CIOs of new-age industries such

as retail, real estate and healthchare most likely to go wrong? Any thumb

rules they can follow?



The CIOs should ensure that their infrastructure is scalable, they

should provide a solution-oriented, where they get one vendor to provide an

end-to-end solution, instead of chasing different vendor for different

components,

We find clients increasingly channelizing

their investments towards broader business challenges like growth, expansion

and profitability. Non-traditional competition coupled with global market

forces require companies to find new streams of revenue, centralize their

services and build strategic partnerships. At IBM, we enable clients to

effectively succeed in this landscape.

One of the biggest challenges that CIOs

face with their IT implementation partners is ensuring timely delivery of

products or solutions required by an IT project. How do you combat this?



Strong project management, project governance, and adherence to

processes are some of the key areas that CIOs need to relentlessly focus on.

This is where we see some doing better than the others. A well-defined SOW

can help address this to a great extent. It is a very important document and

a lot of attention needs to be paid on it to ensure that a CIO's

expectations throughout the lifecycle of the implementation are well-met by

the IT partner.

Is there any message you'd like to give to

the CIOs and IT project heads of enterprises?




CIOs should make their management view clear to all that IT as a
business-enabler would ultimately help the organization grow its business.

They should also ensure that they have the right IT solutions in place that

would help mitigate all kinds of risks likely to arise in the business.

Plus, they should provide efficient and optimized IT solutions to end-users

in the organization, that run smoothly on an everyday basis.

A sore point echoed by almost all companies, and one that showcased an

increased reliance on people rather than processes, was the lack of proper

documentation of processes. And even in companies where it was duly maintained,

regular updates was an area of grave concern. This means if the main people

involved in a large and complex implementation leave, the viability of the

entire project could be under threat. Therefore, it makes sense to follow

processes that are people independent and where you can easily slot-in new

employees in case the need arises. It also helps to keep documents in places

where they are easily accessible to all and keep proper security checks to

ensure that there is no scope for redundancy or confusion.



Yet another set of respondents believe in keeping track of each and every stage
of a project and maintaining regular lists of the positives and negatives, so

that they can nip the evil bud before it could blossom into a crisis. This also

helps in keeping a regular check on the assignments being done by different sets

of people and take proactive measures wherever required. Also, the top

management could take time off to sensitize the team on the impact of their

actions on a client's business.

What's happening on the IT

implementation front across different types of industries? What kinds of IT

implementations are hot or in demand these days?



There is lot of focus on enterprise-wide digitization. Traditionally

people would have implemented IT for doing their accounting, balance-sheet,

payroll etc. There is also a broad implementation of enterprise-wide

connectivity technology.

The next step

of concern once you start connecting different parts of your organization is

the security and authenticity of data transfer. Associated with that, there

is also a growing emphasis on Business Continuity Process and Disaster

Recovery.

What are the sunrise industries, like

Retail, Healthcare, Real-Estate, etc doing in IT?



In the process of managing retail chains, focus is extremely high on

logistics operation. In healthcare industry, there are two kinds of players.

First are the providers who actually administer healthcare (doctors,

hospitals, pharmacy), secondly there are healthcare players and insurers.

However, this industry has not really progressed compared to outside. There

is no automation here when it comes to transaction between these two

sectors. These sectors need to pay a lot of attention to automation.

Satish Joshi



Executive Vice President


and CTO, Patni

What advice would you like to give to CIOs

of these sunrise industries for their IT implementations?



For retail industry, a greater emphasis needs to be on logistics

automation, automation of the operation of the retail outlet, the supply

point etc. What they have'nt done yet and should be doing at the earliest is

investing in CRM. Retail outlets in India still do not use IT to understand

their customers well. CRM is equally important in healthcare industry. In

technology jargon it is called 'unified customer view,' which is knowing

each and every customer and his buying preferences.

Change management is the biggest worry for

any CIO. What advice would you have for ensuring a smooth transition to a

new technology?



Change management becomes an unsolvable problem in couple of situations.

When a business process is badly designed no amount of automation or

technology can help. So, even if the business process architecture has been

correctly designed, but one does not get the people who are supposed to

execute it efficiently, then change management would become a big problem.

Another critical thing is to bring about the change is a very

non-threatening manner. The end users have to be educated about individual

benefits and to the enterprise after the deployment.

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Needless to add, retaining the right manpower is always the best option for

an organization. It serves well to always keep all channels of communication

open and maintain an atmosphere of healthy camaraderie amongst colleagues. Apart

from proper motivation, it's very important to dole out salaries and perks that

are in tune with the current market trends.

Pitfalls to avoid



We get some really useful pieces of advice here. Right from the signing of SLAs
to the actual implementation and after-sales service, you need to tread through

each and every stage with the utmost caution. Make sure that your customer

understands each and every word that's been defined in the SLA and there should

be no deviation allowed later. Give sufficient time to define the scope of each

and every task and take proper sign-offs. Also ensure that you've clearly

understood your client's requirements and there is no ambiguity. In case you

doubt the technical feasibility have it resolved before the SLA is signed. There

has to be a clear commitment on what has to be delivered and by what time frame.

Never keep any technology requirement undefined or open. There has been many a

case of an implementation going completely haywire because of a lack of

understanding amongst implementation partners. A better way of handling this

would be to follow a phased delivery approach, ie roll out an implementation (no

matter how big or small) in parts and get approvals from all concerned before

you proceed to the next stage. Also, never give in to pressures of changing to a

new technology without a sound logic. This is probably the worst pitfall a

project head can get into and one that causes the maximum delays. Apart from the

legal and technical aspects, issues related to people management and retention

could also be potential bombshells. It helps to work with the same team

throughout, coz any change in manpower in the middle could see you spending more

time on people management than managing the project itself. And a change in the

team could not just be initiated by old people leaving or new ones joining in.

It could be triggered by changes in your business workflow, where an entire team

could be replaced by another to reflect the new arrangement. So never allow a

client to change his workflow in the middle of an implementation! In conclusion,

here's another crucial bit of advice-ensure that the time frame between pilots

tests and actual rollout is kept to the bare minimum. As a longer than usual gap

could result in all the above problems creeping in to spoil your implementation

efforts.

What are industries like

Retail, healthcare doing in IT. What advantages do they have over early

adopters of technology?



IT has become the base and one needs to have skills IT skills should

always be blended with the vertical know-how. All sectors cannot move in a

parallel way when it comes to IT adoption. In healthcare, it is felt that

one should not make big money on it as it is a necessity. Whereas finance is

seen as the most profitable sector. Their affordability was also good and

they were highly competitive in terms of giving innovative banking solutions

to customers. Due to various constraints some sectors have been early

adopters while some have been late. There is no particular advantage or

disadvantage for the late movers as they do not have to compete with other

sectors.


Anil Laud



Managing Director, Siemens Information Systems Ltd

What are the latest happenings on the IT

implementation front across different types of industries? What kinds of

implementations are in demand these days?



Many companies do not know what exactly they want. IT is only a

facilitator not an end unto itself. Various kinds of implementations are in

demand these days. However, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on IT

infrastructure and what one calls as break-fix implementations. Even for the

Chief IT Officer there are ways he can move up the value chain. Server

consolidation and network optimization are becoming very popular. However,

the company should first focus on the benefit they can derive before

implementing these. Information security is also gaining a lot of momentum.

Change management is the biggest worry of

any CIO. What advice do you have for ensuring a smooth transition to a new

technology?



Typically when it comes to India, people do not value time. Also, they

have very little value for structured processes. They suffer from

'I-know-it-all' syndrome. While adopting a new technology everyone in an

organization should think and talk of business benefits.Explaining the

business benefit helps in a major way.

What are the key points to consider when

calculating the TCO of a large IT project?



Besides the upfront price, there are costs related to maintainability,

scalibilty, environmental costs (ie power, recycling of waste products,

etc). One important factor that is missed by most companies is user training

costs. If a solution is not user-friendly one has to spend lot of money in

getting employees to get habituated to it. It is hidden cost whose

importance can't be ignored.

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