IT project outsourcing: benefits, risks, and quality challenges

Project Management

IT Project Management Questions

Outsourcing -- Big Savings, Big Risks

Social Software for Project Management

Social Software can provide a number of opportunities for managing projects. What are some challenges or issues that should be considered before a project team implements a blog or a wiki?

Jonathon Edwards, an analyst with the Yankee Group, states that "Some people clutch to their corporate email boxes as if they were cigarettes. They're hopelessly addicted. We're all so accustomed to it. You can't change the way people work overnight." Blogs and wikis have a number of advantages over email. As a project manager, how could you reduce your project's team's resistance to rely less on email and embrace the use of social software?

Global Technology Solutions

Question One -- What role does quality play in the IT project Methodology?

How does verification/validation and change control support quality in an IT project?

Why should the project team focus on both internal and external customers? 7

ERP and Change Management at Nestle 8

What, from a project management perspective, could Nestle have done better in implementing SAP? 8

The primary lesson that Dunn says she gained from this project is "No major software implementation is really about the software. It's about change management." Do you agree with her statement? Discuss why you agree or disagree. 9

Social Software for Project Management

Question One -- Social Software can provide a number of opportunities for managing projects. What are some challenges or issues that should be considered before a project team implements a blog or a wiki?

Many of the advantages of using social software are fairly clear when compared to other common communication forms such as email. The two major forms of social software are Web logs (blog) or Wiki, which is short for the Hawaiian term meaning quick. One advantage over email for both forms of social software is that it can allow a new project member to quickly get up to speed with the group as they can track a range of content that has occurred over time. For example, a new member or one that wishes to refresh their memories can quickly view some of the team's most important messages that were issued as they were relevant and this can be viewed in one place and in chronological order. This can provide something of a timeline perspective to a group's progress on various stages of the project.

Despite all of the benefits that these new forms of communication offer, there are also a range of challenges associated with them. One of the primary challenges involves user acceptance. Not everyone on a project team is accustomed to using social software and it is likely that many users will be hesitant to adopt the software fully. Other challenges might include controlling the content in a Wiki. For example, project team members might have different ideas on what they think is the most relevant information to include on the project. This could be a source of conflict that must be resolved however the collaborative environment can also be an asset to if the team is willing to use it effectively.

Question Two -- Jonathon Edwards, an analyst with the Yankee Group, states that "Some people clutch to their corporate email boxes as if they were cigarettes. They're hopelessly addicted. We're all so accustomed to it. You can't change the way people work overnight." Blogs and wikis have a number of advantages over email. As a project manager, how could you reduce your project's team's resistance to rely less on email and embrace the use of social software?

Email is the most common and widely used for of communication in the corporate environment; it has basically become the standard. However, for all of its features, there are also a range of limitations that are found within this form of communication. One limitation is that sometimes important content can be easily missed; especially if included in messages that are lengthy or cover multiple ranges of issues. For example, one email might include updates on a range of topics and user might have trouble attributing the importance of each one. This can potentially cause users to miss out on important developments within the project. Other limitations include not being able to put information or content into context of the project. Without having access to body language, voice intonation, and facial expressions it is often difficult to read between the lines in an email. This can also cause the intended message to be diluted through the medium.

Given the listed ranges of problems associated with email, as well as many others, some of the new social software mediums can serve as a beneficial alternative to the traditional email route. However, user resistance might be a common problem that will have to be overcome in order to foster the project team's acceptance of the platform. Yet there are things that can be done to attempt to accelerate acceptance and foster user involvement. One idea might be to list important content on a Wiki or a blog and make it mandatory for users to go to these sites to view them. Just getting them to log on and become familiar with the system might be enough to overcome much resistance. Another idea might be to run a small contest for users who post the best content on a site. This could serve as an incentive to participate in some social software communication solutions.

Global Technology Solutions

Question One -- What role does quality play in the IT project Methodology?

Quality is an important component in the IT project Methodology. Obviously one of the goals of any project is to satisfy the requirements of the project as well as the end users of a software package for example. Therefore, it behooves a project manager to build quality into the methodology at every stage of the project. While on the surface, it would be easy to point blame on the project members who were responsible for the mix up in the case, ultimately it is the project manager's responsibility to address many of these quality concerns. In this case, the project manager quickly recognized their role transgression and worked to address the issue without any blame placed on the subordinates.

How does verification/validation and change control support quality in an IT project?

Verification and validation are useful tools to support quality control in any IT project. This shifts the testing process from the end of the development process as it is commonly found, to an ongoing process that can instituted whenever a task changes hands. For example, using verification and validation, once a project member hands off a task to the next project member responsible for the next activity, it is the new project member that should first start to validate the work that has been passed off to him and verify that it meets all of the specifications and quality standards. Without an intermediary step such as this, a project member could be working on a flawed project component without ever realizing it. This can create redundancy and excessive costs. It is almost always cheaper to correct quality issues as early in the process as feasibly possible and verification and validation are tools that can facilitate the identification of quality issues.

Why should the project team focus on both internal and external customers?

The project team should focus on internal and external customers because this will facilitate quality throughout the entire project and reduce the number of errors that occur. The external customer is usually a standard consideration in most projects. This customer is generally the one that is most commonly associated with the concept of a customer. However, it is possible to view internal team members as customers too. Although this is generally a counterintuitive image of a "customer" if team members are also viewed as customers then it would be reasonable to suspect that this would inject a higher level of quality control into project functions. That is, if team members viewed the team members of the project in which they pass their work off to as customers then this might foster a higher dedication to quality among the group. This also fits well with the concepts of validation and verification because the team members will also view someone else's work as a product and put themselves in the role of a customer.

ERP and Change Management at Nestle

What, from a project management perspective, could Nestle have done better in implementing SAP?

Nestle's installation of SAP was criticized because it was more of an installation of software than a more comprehensive implementation. The difference in these two concepts can explain the problems that Nestle experienced from a project management perspective. In many cases, especially in an ERP project, the organization must redesign their business processes to fit into the software suite. In Nestle's case, the entire organization virtually had to reengineer there processes to use the same standards and practices in all of its fragmented operations. However, the process of business process engineering is a complex process that is often underestimated. Nestle assumed that the different division would be able to adapt to the new system with relative ease.

However, this was certainly not the case. Although the software may have worked flawlessly when it was rolled out, nobody seemed to know how to use it. Each division had their own unique challenges with the new system since they were migrating from entirely different systems altogether. Furthermore, the division staff was ill equipped to understand or adapt to the new system without a significant amount of new user training; which from the case, did not seem to occur. However, the worst part of the entire project is that there was no end users buy in. The different divisions were all flooded with a multitude of challenges all at the same time and there wasn't much motivation for them to really overcome these obstacles and adapt to the new system.

The primary lesson that Dunn says she gained from this project is "No major software implementation is really about the software. It's about change management." Do you agree with her statement? Discuss why you agree or disagree.

This statement would apply to the case that is illustrated in the book, but might not necessarily apply to all software implementation projects. One example of major software implementation that would be pretty much all about the software would be a major update that didn't change much of the main GUI or the functionality of the software suite. In such a case the implementation would not necessarily be about change management since the changes to the end users would be relatively minimal and maybe even barely noticed.

However, when the software represents a revolutionary jump from an existing system, then the statement about the project being more about change management would almost undoubtedly be true in all cases. Change management deals with a lot more than just installing software. From this perspective the end users must be prepared to use the new system fully. This requires a significant amount of training. Furthermore, in regards to project management, in such a revolutionary change it is generally better to involve as many end users in the project as possible to gather useful feedback as to what challenges they may face when using the system. In Nestle's case, if they would have involved a team from each of the different divisions in the project then the entire project would have stood a much better chance at being successful.