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Companies continue throwing money at IT projects and accept a pathetic 30% success rate. The IT field is filled with complexity and the fast pace seems overwhelming at times, yet we as professionals should adapt to the changing environment and use available best practices to increase the success rate of IT projects. IT professionals need to understand best practice guidelines, processes, templates and how to deploy them in different situations.

Following these best practices is not a silver bullet. They also will not guarantee success everytime. They will however, provide you with the necessary tools that provide you the greatest chance for success.

Today we will review a few best practice IT management techniques.

Align IT and Business

Align IT projects to specific business strategy goals and objectives. Do not start or continue IT projects that are not aligned with the business strategy.

Qualified Leadership

Make sure that each project has a full time leader with overall responsibility and authority for the project. The project leader should be qualified to manage the project size and complexity.

Be Competitive

Use information technology to improve your business competitive advantage.

Define Metrics

Define and track measurable objectives that are necessary for the success of the project. Review these metrics monthly and adjust the project as needed.

Leverage Current Technology

Leverage the investment of your current systems when developing a new system.

Project Organization

Project teams or sub-teams should contain 2 to 7 team members with a mix of technical and business specialists. Keep the project team organization small and agile.

Keep It Simple

Use the simplest possible combination of business processes and technology to achieve your goals.

Work In Small Units

Project work should be broken down into small units. A task should not exceed 80 hours and should not be less than 8 hours. The project should produce workable systems every 30 to 90 days.

Keep It Small

Break the development of big IT system projects into smaller functional projects to reduce the complexity and lower the overall risk of a big system project.

Project Administration

Provide each project team with a coordinator or administrator that help project managers and leads keep project plans and budgets up to date and accurate.

Understand Your Capabilities

Don't take on an IT project when the complexity exceeds the companies capabilities.

Start From Scratch

When restarting failed projects, start from scratch. Don't use the original design and project organization that failed the first time.

Copyright (c) 2006 Dennis Sommer