ProjectCharterApproachCreation

Gail, the project manager, was struggling a bit with the statement of work. She knew how much time she had, she knew how much money she had and she even had a fairly good handle on what the problem was. Yet, whenever she came to the approach section of the document, she stalled. She could fall back on the old faithful - boiler plate describing the classic waterfall approach. She knew that this might get past her management, but would not be of much help to those who had to do the work.

At a staff meeting, later that day, Gail mentioned her problem to her project team � which was still small as the project was just beginning. Abby, a new analyst, having just moved over to IT department after having spent 5 years in the business area which was to receive the application, was in the staff meeting along with another analyst and the lead developer. Abby mentioned that she had just read an article about how another company had approached this problem. She proceeded to draw a quick picture containing the key components of the application and how they fit together. Gail�s worries about how to approach the creation of the application melted away.

Sounds like pure fantasy to me. I thought Gail was experienced at project management. She noticed that it would not be sufficient to have enough to get past her management. I'm delighted to hear that Abby offered her ideas, and that she did so in a way that conveyed the general idea without distracting detail. And I'm happy to see that Gail is quick to take advantage of Abby's offering.

But why are Gail's worries gone? What has happened to make her now think that not only will her management agree, but that the developers and other workers will have adequate direction and guidance? Perhaps I just want to know more, or perhaps I'm more paranoid about the future of any project. Some succeed despite horrid planning and execution. But over half, I hear, of IT projects are utter failures with zero benefit and major cost. Why do we tolerate this? Why are so many managements fooled into authorizing so many projects with failure built in? And how do we do better? -- DickKarpinski

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Updated: Saturday, October 21, 2000