Just in case you're bored with applying our previous suggestions, here are 10 more ways to cause a little mayhem to your organisation's IT projects. And remember, the more mission-critical, the better ...
- Keep it loose ...
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Avoid structure, defined roles or rigour. These are only an administrative overhead and will not help you keep your staff attrition rates way up (where they belong). There is no link between good HR management and structure – people are inherently flexible, no? And their morale (or lack of it) can never affect a project's progress or outcomes.
- ... but on the other hand ...
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Set all governance arrangements in stone. In particular, there is no need to act differently at different stages of the project. As you know, precisely the same issues arise during planning, design, implementation, acceptance, operations, support, disengagement, and all other phases of a project.
- Don't plan on it
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Recognise that management and planning will only raise expectations that timeframes can and should be met. All dates, timeframes and scoping should be regarded as advisory (if not illusory).
- Strategic equals operational
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In planning your governance structure, make sure that you confuse strategic and operational roles. There is simply no need to plan where you are going, and why do you need operational continuity anyway?
- Talk to the hand
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Don't communicate. If you're the customer, keep your desired strategic and project outcomes to yourself. This is particularly important in multi-vendor projects that span countries and geographically remote sites. And never (repeat, never) incorporate a communications strategy into your governance structure.
- Who cares?
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There are never any cross-dependencies between the activities of the customer and its various suppliers. This is especially the case in a multi-vendor environment. So, to ensure that cross-dependencies are not accidentally identified, avoid identifying the leadership team of each participant- since it is better not to know what the lines of authority are, and there is little point in knowing whether a particular individual can make a decision or not. Ideally, also make sure that end-to-end outcome responsibility for project outcomes is not allocated to a particular supplier.
- It's just consultant-speak anyway
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Migration, transition-in and disengagement are only 'buzzwords' and their relevance to projects and project complexity has been vastly oversold by shifty consultant-types. Accordingly, there is no need to think of them as a governance issue or to incorporate them in your governance framework, since they can't possibly have any financial, operational or time impact.
- Change happens by itself ...
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Organisational culture and readiness for all of the changes a project brings have no place in a governance framework. Planning and managing the way the customer deals with change is not necessary, as change just occurs, by itself. This is because, fortunately, humans have no tendency to resist change. Therefore, there is no need for you to have any regard to stakeholders, appoint project champions or take other steps that might influence project team performance.
- ... as does informational osmosis ...
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Regular consultation between the customer and its suppliers is also a bit overdone in the media. This is simply not necessary, due to the absence of silos in big projects, together with the well known natural phenomenon of 'informational osmosis' – through which key information is automatically transferred to and absorbed by all relevant stakeholders within an appropriate timeframe.
- ... and strategic alignment
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Keeping the project aligned with the changing business requirements of your customer will also happen by itself. Consequently, there is no need to worry about delivering a critical project that fails to meet the current needs of your customer. It is almost unknown for this to occur, and can be safely ignored when considering your governance framework or for that matter, your leadership responsibilities.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
