I know, I had you at structured project management! Firstly apologies for the dull sounding title but I have recently delivered a successful SAP BI project using a structured project management methodology and thought that over a series of two blogs I would firstly cover the reasons why you should take this approach and then next cover some lessons I learnt and also some tips that I picked up along the way.
One of the hardest things to do with a Business Intelligence (or in fact any!) project is to keep it running on time and on budget, without proper control projects can easily go way off course and blow the original business case and associated budget out of the water. Structured project management means managing the project in a logical, organised way, following defined steps. By definition a structured project management method is the written description of this logical, organised approach.
The project should be divided in manageable stages enabling efficient control of resources and regular progress monitoring throughout the project. The various roles and responsibilities for managing a project should be fully described and are adaptable to suit the size and complexity of the project, and the skills of the organisation. It is also worth considering product-based planning that means the project plans are focused on delivering results and are not simply about planning when the various activities on the project will be done.
The project should be driven by its business case, and to some extend its ultimate goal, that describes the organisation's justification, commitment and rationale for the project's deliverables or outcome. The business case should also be regularly reviewed in conjunction with the project's progress to ensure the business objectives, which may well change during the life of the project, are still being met. In the majority of today's projects there are invariably different groups of people involved and a structured project methodology provides a common language across all the interested parties to bring them together with the necessary controls and stages to work successfully throughout the life of the project.
Without a clearly defined project management method, those who commission a project, those who manage it and those who work on it will have different ideas about how things should be organised and when the different aspects of the project will be completed. Those involved will not be clear about how much responsibility, authority and accountability they have and, as a result, there will often be confusion surrounding the project. Without a project management method, projects are rarely completed on time and within acceptable cost - this is especially true of large projects.
BI is always changing so I would recommend reviewing and adapting the methodology used using lessons learned from previous projects. In summary some of the benefits of an approach like this are:
- You never lose sight of the original business goal of the project. It is very easy to get lost in the technology and more sexy parts of a solution and forget the customers reasons for doing the project in the first place, this is especially true for long running projects.
- Planning, monitoring and control helps ensure the project is delivered on time, within budget and to the required level of quality.
- Project progress is more visible to senior management so enabling better control.
- Risks and problems are pro-actively managed so enabling better chances of project success.
- The controlled use of resources from the start to the end of projects helps to utilise these resources more efficiently.
- Changes are managed correctly without getting out of control.
- The process is repeatable; once learned and understood it is reusable on many projects increasing project success rates.
- You learn from the experience from previous projects and apply those lessons in the future.
- Actively involving stakeholders throughout the project help ensure the desired outcomes. In the past I have seen the business engaged only at the start of the project and then not involved in the build stage then it is no wonder that what is delivered and what the customer is expecting is often very different.
A lot of this is common sense but it is always worth reminding yourself of best practice once in a while as you are only as good as your last project!