The Key to Successful IT Project Management

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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