IMPROVING PROJECT CONTROL FOR A COMPLEX INITIATIVE

Improving project control for a complex initiative

For the many projects analysts can follow a well-worn path, guided by their industry understanding and the subject expertise of a development team that has worked for years on the same systems. Analysts know how to get information out of the company, and fill in the requirement gaps with assumptions from their expertise. For other projects - there is no path. The project is complex, crosses organizational boundaries, and no one subject expert could possibly know all the nuance of the company. Even excellence in project management cannot overcome an elicitation gap on these types of complex initiatives. What are the symptoms of an elicitation gap?

• Projects seem to have difficulty crystallizing from an executive concept, into a project with a decisive path of execution. i.e., your organization's time-to-market feels slow.
• It seems very difficult to get the level of process flow detail you need while subject experts are finding discovery sessions to be painful.
• The project team may have difficulty managing the amount of detail surrounding the project and it feels like there is a constant state of discovery.
• The average project at your company has about 30% of its requirements missing when it is turned over to development.

 

Ask yourself:

Faced with a project that will cross departmental boundaries, would you be more likely to get needed time from business subject experts and consensus amongst managers if you brought in an external requirements facilitator?

Are you more likely to get buyin to participate in requirements gathering if you can say precisely how much time will be needed from each subject expert, in what sessions, and to discuss what issues before initiating the gathering phase??

When implementing an ERP or major piece of software, would your project team benefit if it could more readily isolate customization requirements?