As the business environment winds down for the Christmas period, I took some time to reflect on this year’s challenges with my team. This reflection provided valuable insights into how we can better support our clients in the coming year.
It was fascinating to identify the types of challenges we faced with our clients. Taking a step back to learn from a changing environment is always refreshing. When discussing the challenges related to IT changes, it was interesting to note that none were technical issues. Having been in IT for over 25 years, I am rarely surprised by the behaviour of technical staff, regardless of their background in how they perceive the correct way to run a project. Here are the top five challenges we identified:
- Resistance to Change:
There are always teams that resist change and prefer to be the last to adopt new processes and upgrades, sometimes even after the cut-off date. We can all recall someone who was late to the table no matter how many times you told them.
- Training and Skill Gaps:
It always astounds me that when a project is run solely by an IT team, end-user training is often the last item on the agenda and is usually insufficient and late. Too many IT teams still throw the solution over the fence and leave the user to fend for themselves with the changes.
- Cost Management:
Maintaining costs varies from organisation to organisation. Some include resource time at a standard hourly rate, while others only consider external expenses. I am always amazed at how far off the original estimates can be for technical time spent.
- Neglected Stakeholders:
: Projects where key stakeholders are not engaged are a common issue, often caused by internal IT teams running projects without involving the business. IT role is to support the business, but the business must be engaged.
- Underestimating Scope and Scale:
Projects can grow and become allencompassing, causing plans to go out the window and the final deliverable to become elusive. The result is that the project’s current scope often does not reflect the current understanding of the project.
We identified many more challenges and are looking to incorporate these insights into our processes. This will ensure that our client project plans and checklists consider and include these areas where appropriate, to differentiate us from our competitors.
Have you encountered similar challenges in your organisations or projects where the project was never going to finish on time, within budget, or to the desired quality?
Let me know how your project headed off in the wrong direction?
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