Source: Express Computer

There is many a slip between project planning and execution. Sudipta Dev looks at the role of IT in ensuring the success of a project

Any organization, irrespective of the industry it might be operating in, undertakes a project only when it is critical to its business operations. Project success is easier to envision than to execute of course, as it a proven fact that few projects actually achieve the objectives aimed at during the planning stage. This, despite the huge investments made in terms of money, time and human resources. Among the stakeholders are the IT teams, who have to ensure a project's success, in spite of the continuous changes and challenges faced during the various stages of implementation.

Discrepancies between planning and execution

It is necessary to understand the reasons that result in discrepancies between project planning and execution. The most significant of course is the fact that IT projects are marked by constant changes in user requirements and this tends to alter the scope of a project. "IT projects have a peculiarity that users tend to uncover more 'needs'-after commencing use of the systems. In addition, unforeseen statutory and market changes force at least 10-15% of the change requests in large IT projects," stated S Ramani, Head-Project Management Practice, QAI.

The only way forward to ensure a project's success is for the project manager and his team to attune themselves to the business needs of their organization. "This helps the IT team factor in the business requirements better and communicate to the end users on capabilities (or otherwise) and the system is expected to deliver," pointed out Ramani. This makes it possible for the IT team to factor in the business requirements better and communicate to the end users on capabilities (or otherwise), the system is expected to deliver. Additionally most IT projects fail not so much because of failure in technology but mismatch in expectation management, consequently it is vital for the project manager to understand the power-interest equation and align the project expectations accordingly.

Further, discrepancies or the gap widen when there is a lack of clear communication and coordination from presales function and project managers are not made part of the vetting process. "In most project plans contingency and risk plans are not chartered properly, and this causes the delays and cost escalation," stated Swaroop Diwakar, Head-Global Presales & Solutions, Birlasoft, adding that in some cases time zones are either not defined or work processes not communicated to be aligned.

Stakeholder involvement

Project planning, tracking and communication are the key areas that can ensure effective project execution.

A shared vision of the project is necessary for its success. It should involve the IT team as well as the other stakeholders. "This exercise leads to a common understanding of the desired future and ensures commitment from all throughout the project lifecycle," asserted Pradeep Pendse, an expert on project management and Dean IT/Business Design, Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research.

Gartner's analysis of responses provided by government CIOs and senior IT leaders sampled revealed the factors that most contribute to IT projects. "Clearly defined and understood project goals and objectives, costs, and measures of success were of particular importance, especially in regard to protecting against excessive scope creep-evolving changes in the requirements after the project has been initiated," said Arup Roy, Senior Research Analyst, Gartner. In fact, respondents heavily identified this issue as a major contributor to the success of a project.

This apart, Roy pointed out that numerous respondents noted that projects, before initiation, must have executive-level sponsorship-someone who is empowered to make decisions and resolve issues that arise. Also important are active ownership, participation and communication by senior business leaders. This reinforces the importance of a project across the organization.

As far as software projects are concerned, Diwakar conceded that these tend to run both over budget and be unpredictable, sometimes failing before they deliver the application.

Regular communication with all the project stakeholders, internal as well as on the customer side, is necessary for successful project execution. There should be a reporting and review mechanism in place. For instance, Vijay Talele, Head-IT Solutions, Kale Consultants, commented, "Weekly reports, monthly reports and working group meetings should be discussed with the steering committee to see the overall progress of the project and resolve any critical issues." There is a need to update the project plan with new milestones. The delays should also be updated in the plan and communicated to the management regularly.

Arun O Gupta, Customer Care Associate & Group Chief Technology Officer, Business Head-Food & Beverages, Shoppers Stop agreed that the IT team can improve project execution by ensuring that the communication about the project, roles and responsibilities and progress is circulated to all impacted stakeholders and the management periodically in a transparent way. "This ensures that everyone understands the challenges and steps taken to resolve issues, if any, by focusing on what rather than who. I have found this to be an effective way to manage projects," added Gupta.

Project execution plan

Projects that follow proven methodologies and processes have always had a higher success rate than those that do not follow a well-structured plan. In fact, the Project Execution Plan (PEP) lays the foundation for planning, controlling and managing any project.

It is important to understand that the PEP is a dynamic document, and for it to serve as a communication tool, you have to update it as the project progresses through its design stages. "To meet the particular state of affairs of a project, the PEP needs to be modified accordingly. However, a typical PEP should include plans pertaining to the project as a whole, product purchasing, product development and risk management," added Diwakar. The PEP should have clearly defined roles, responsibilities and authorities. It should set out the mechanisms and procedures concerning the quality and reporting. The PEP should cover the major schedules and budgets of the project and resources applicable to it.

The project team has to carry out systematic analysis of requirements in a holistic manner. Pendse pointed out that such analysis should cover various perspectives such as the static views, the information flow view, the dynamic (event driven) views, the security view, the quality view, the enterprise analysis view and the usability/customer experience views-this ensures complete understanding about the business process leading to a better solution perspective.

Another key aspect is effective risk sensing, management, and failure to do, which is a common cause of project failure. "The team should be like the reporters on the ground who continuously sense risk in the project and report them during tracking meetings without fear of being blamed for the risk," added Pendse. Quick mitigation of the risk is equally important. In fact, the success of a project hinges on managing risks effectively.

Project monitoring and control

The key criteria for the project monitoring and control is to track the project plan regularly, update as and when necessary, and communicate the progress to all stakeholders.

"There are two important metrics that can be applied to monitor and track the project whether it is progressing as per schedule or not," stated Talele.

These are:

Schedule Variance, which provides the variance of the actual schedule for each activity or each phase of the plan against the planned schedule. This aids in identifying schedule slippage. It's a simple calculation: (Actual duration - Planned duration) * 100

Effort Variance: The project plan is based on the effort for each activity, which provides an indication of the planned effort. The plan should be updated with the actual effort spent on each activity. Effort variance for each activity and phase will help to identify if the planned effort was aggressive or on the conservative side. If it is aggressive, and is delaying the project, then it will help to take appropriate steps to include more resources or increase the capability of the team to bring the project on track. It can be achieved by: (Actual effort - Planned effort) * 100

"Monitoring and tracking of these variances at regular intervals is vital at the activity level, and phase level, as well as during project reviews," said Talele.

Others believe that the key criteria for project monitoring and control should be on milestone completion rather than activity should be the focus of project monitoring. "Information should be shared with the entire team rather than work on the conventional 'need to know' basis. Also, review exceptions aggressively and do not wait for someone to catch-up as promised, because catch-up never happens," asserted Gupta.

Managing distributed projects

Distributed projects are common these days, there are however many concern areas associated with them, ranging from the common communication constraints associated with working with people who are not physically present in the same location to shared critical resources not being available on time.

Pendse believes that the best practice in projects is to co-locate the team. However, when the team is distributed care needs to be taken to ensure extremely good inter team communication-plans, schedules, status reports, information about shared software assets, clarity about allocation of tasks, etc., should be communicated well.

In a networked world, distributed projects are a reality and they have to be managed. The concerns, according to Gupta, can be easily addressed by creating adequate awareness of the interdependencies, setting clear communication and expectations with the team through the project and encouraging early start and completion with understanding on how it impacts the project as a whole. "Review progress periodically even if everything appears to be on course. This will highlight potential issues before they become challenges. This apart, endeavor to ensure that all team members participate in the meetings and understand how they influence the outcome," added Gupta.

Learn from best practices

Ensuring project objectives cannot remain the aim of the project team. Driving excellence and achieving best practices in terms of cost management, time management, change management, quality management, etc., during project execution, should be the main aim. Dipesh Thakar, Chief Technology Officer, Dawnay Day AV India Advisors, lists the steps that can make this possible:

• By following proven methodologies like PMP, and creating working protocols/business processes which follow the best practices advocated by these frameworks.
• Train team members on the methodologies at the beginning of the project.
• Review the adoption of best practices from time to time.
• Use tools that support the methodologies in project execution. Project management is a combination of many jobs rolled into one. It is a multi-functional role that is quite demanding. Finding a good project manager is not an easy task for any organization, nor is it easy to groom one.