Meet 'The Fixer' for Troubled IT Projects

October 20, 2009 from ComputerWorld - “CIO.com Senior Editor spoke with Coyne about the ill-fated patterns and emotional traps that most tech implementation teams fall prey to…

CIO.com: With large enterprise software projects, are there patterns that the people and teams fall into?

Coyne: There are very clear patterns. When the project starts, the technology-buying organization sets out clear outcomes that they wish to achieve. You generally see some strategic-looking documents about what a successful project will be: a percentage increase in the way we do this type of process; greater efficiency here; greater visibility of doing business there; faster this, that and the other thing. That's a very positive stage.

But then what generally happens is the low-level techies get involved – low, meaning detailed rather than skilled. At that point these business objectives get boiled down into technical functions… And generally at this point, there is a loss of vision into why the project was started in the first place…”

180 View – We agree that the business case that launched the project often goes missing during an implementation. But it’s too simplistic to think that there is one reason for all problems. Our top 10 implementation mistakes are:
1. Poor job in system selection process
2. Lack of testing
3. Customization at the get-go
4. Lack of training
5. Lack of knowledge transfer
6. Business goals gone missing
7. Maintaining the status quo
8. Picking the wrong people
9. Missing controls
10. Lack of project management