Avoiding Traps in Technical Project
Projects involving technology are challenging for project managers. But it’s rarely the technology that presents the challenges. Here are ways to avoid common traps that trip up PMs leading projects with technical components.
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Projects are really about business processes. Projects to deploy technology typically produce two things: increased productivity and/or reduced cost. What delivers these outcomes is improved business processes. These process changes must be acceptable and learnable by business staff. There is often more than one technical tool that can produce these business process improvements. Many projects get stuck by choosing the technical tool first. That forces the team to try to fit the business process to the tool, which can be tricky. So, don’t consider the new technology as the output of the project. It’s the enhanced business processes that generate results.
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Support project and organizational change management. No change is too small to deserve attention. Technical changes may seem trivial to team members used to dealing with IT or engineering tools. As a result, they don’t realize the stress new tools can bring to business stakeholders. Experienced project managers support both project and organizational change management. This helps ensure the integrity of the project deliverables, testing regime, and product documentation. As you develop your project schedules, make sure to include specific tasks to help bring your stakeholders along on the change journey. This will ensure project stakeholders are aware, trained, and ready to incorporate new tools and processes into their work practices. Only then will business value be realized.
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Ensure new technical functions are useful. New technical capabilities can enhance business productivity…or not! Organizations often become enamored with installing the latest version of a tool to get the latest functionality. New technology isn’t always helpful. Think about how new functionality can fit into your business processes. If opportunities exist, take advantage of them. If new functionality doesn’t help enhance business processes, why install the latest version? Note: One benefit to updating technical tools is so they are supported by the vendor.
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Control the pace of change. Make sure you don’t ask your business stakeholders to absorb too much change too quickly. This typically isn’t a concern with waterfall projects. These projects produce single large updates, which are scheduled well in advance. Pace of change issues occur only when many waterfall projects finish around the same time. Agile projects can lead to pace of change issues, because they release small deliverables quickly. While speed of delivery is usually helpful, too much change can decrease the value the business realizes from project outcomes. Look at the overall schedule for changes the business must handle to make sure the pace is manageable.
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Run “business projects with technical components,” not “technical projects.” The vast majority of “technical projects” are meant to deliver business value. So, they should be driven by business stakeholders who collaborate with the technical team. This way, the business is responsible for delivering requirements and assessing business risk. Many technical teams believe they would do this better, because they understand how the technical tools work, including the business processes they support. This is risky though. Technical team members often don’t understand the nuances of delivering business outcomes. Also, buy-in from business stakeholders can be challenging when the technical team drives business improvement projects. Instead, keep the focus on the business objectives and business stakeholders.
Think about the last project you worked on that involved technology. It seems like they all do. How could you have applied these tips to make the project run more smoothly and deliver results more successfully?
For more about technical projects, check out Bob McGannon’s Project Management: Technical Project course.
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