W6D1 Project Risk

Many of you focused on the risk of the project overrunning the budget and timeframe and gave good tactics for reducing this risk. My biggest concern is that the project does not deliver what the business needs or does not work at all. The Discussion mentioned testing. This and proper hardware sizing can minimize many of the "does not work" risks. You also mentioned integration with existing systems as a risk. I agree that this can be a major problem if not properly addressed in the project. Details of integration such as different code values in the old and new systems can cause great problems. The "does not meet the needs" risk can only be addressed by getting the requirements and the scope right before the project begins. It is necessary to have the right executives and users on the initial projects to set the proper scope.

Here are my favorite student recommendations from prior years:

• Get a strong sponsor.
• Get the right people on the project. Use experts.
• Make sure that there are clear business objectives for the project. (This reinforces what we learned in earlier weeks that installing enterprise software cannot be done by the Information Technology department alone.)
• Identify all financial requirements ahead of time to avoid project cancellation due to lack of funding.
• Prepare detailed schedules to avoid unrealistic expectations. Avoid scope creep.
• Carefully analyze business processes, configure the SAP software correctly, test completely
• Make sure all data is loaded into the new system and that users are trained to minimize problems after "go live".

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W6D2 Management Commitment

You stated that the CFO can be a threat to the project in the Discussion and I agree with you. Any high level executive, especially one that controls funding, can keep a major project from being successful. Sometimes, the best project management decision is to not start the project if there is not adequate support for it.