Listado de la etiqueta: Project Planning

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ESG Projects

If you search the internet for ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) and responsible and sustainable investing, you’ll find there is a vast amount of information about it. And with so much information it can be quite difficult to distil. When it comes to putting a project together around a broad-ranging and fast-moving subject such as this, it can be tricky.

From a project management perspective, let’s look at some of the challenges you may encounter at the early stages of the project:

  • New and enhanced regulation is constantly emerging – in addition to the existing ESG regulation that has come into force, there is regulation that will become effective this year or next year, and some regulation still in the white paper stage. Understanding what is relevant and what you need to address now can be a minefield and will need your compliance team to work closely with the investment team to agree what is relevant for your business now (and needs addressing now) and what will need to be accounted for in the future
  • Service providers are developing new ESG-related data modules – this is making available a plethora of factors, scores, indices, and benchmarks that you can use for internal and external ESG reporting. But determining which, if any, are most appropriate to the business needs is a complex matter and needs some dedicated focus with plenty of lead time
  • Software developments bringing new and enhanced packages – new and existing system suppliers are introducing additional software functions and capability to monitor, model, and report ESG data. Similar to the point above, it is difficult to know exactly what is needed both internally and externally so perhaps don’t go for nirvana at the outset, rather start with the basics and build on that over time
  • IT Architects need to ensure the solutions are sustainable – the proposed business strategy and processes for ESG must not be built on rocky foundations, i.e. the underlying systems will need to support future developments. You should consider the end-to-end process, and build any necessary time and budget into the plan to accommodate, for example, new data linkages and system enhancements
  • Quantity and quality of data – there are many competing data providers in the market which can make selection difficult, particularly when you consider the cost and in-house ability to understand the data, understand how scores are determined, and ultimately what the data is telling you

What does this mean from a project perspective?

  • Difficulty in defining and finalising requirements
  • Difficulty in setting milestones
  • Hard to contain the scope of the project, output, and deliverables
  • There is a need for dedicated senior engagement & decision making
  • The initiatives will suck up business stakeholder resource and project resources

How do you overcome some of the uncertainty?

My overriding approach would be to say ‘be brave’. By that I mean not to aim for all singing, all dancing solutions at the outset, but that you draw a line under what you know and have today and work from that. In due course, once you have formalised the approach and embedded the minimum standards, then you can start looking at future enhancements.

If you consider ESG from a programme perspective, it makes it easier to break initiatives down into manageable chunks. Develop individual workstreams and run things in sequence as far as possible. Don’t try and do everything at once; have a delivery roadmap. And don’t be surprised if you have 5 or 6 significant projects or workstreams within the programme.

Here are a few questions to consider with the project team to help structure the programme of works:

  • What is it that the business needs to do as an absolute minimum to cover its activities e.g. from a TCFD or SFDS perspective?
  • What are the strategic targets the business aims to achieve e.g. PRI membership or Stewardship Code membership? If the business is going down this route, then a gap analysis is a good place to start
  • What are the internal policies, are they all written down and clearly defined e.g. for Voting and Engagements?
  • Do you have any areas where you have limited existing material or current policies are not as extensive as they are required to be? A lot of material may naturally focus on an equity perspective, however, it is important to demonstrate, as much as is practical, that you take ESG into account for all asset classes
  • What are the internal processes & practices, and are they all written down, clearly defined, and understood? Is everybody following them?
  • Do you understand and monitor your third-party service providers ESG practices? If not, what steps do you need to take to ensure you are provided with the relevant information and reports?
  • Are you able to demonstrate, through case studies and examples, how ESG principles have been put into practice?
  • Have you got all the necessary evidence for the reporting periods required? Is this presentable? Or do you need to build new monitoring and reporting capability (for both internal and external consumption)?
  • What is the business doing internally at an entity level, e.g. what actions are staff personally taking such as reducing their carbon footprints or using sustainable energy suppliers?

If you consider the challenges and have answers to these types of questions, that should allow you to start formulating a Terms of Reference from which the high-level plan can be defined.

One final message – There will undoubtedly be amendments as the project works through the finer detail (which should be through formal Change Control) and you should account for that in your planning.

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Whose Project is it anyway?

Actually, it’s yours. Yes, there might be a project or programme manager – and other project colleagues like business analysts or project officers – but once you are on the project team there is a collective responsibility to deliver. Whether you are a sponsor, a business stakeholder, or a team member assigned to represent your business area, you will have responsibilities as part of the project team.

However, it might not always be clear what those responsibilities are, and it is the job of the project or programme manager – and more experienced team members – to help and guide you, particularly if this is your first time on a project. Projects are a team effort and everyone has an important part to play.

Whether you join the project from the beginning or part of the way through, there will be some things that you need to know (and if you don’t get told, ask):

  • What is the purpose of the project; what problems will it solve, what are the key outputs, and what does success look like?
  • What is the project lifecycle; what are the project stages and/or phases and what are the timeframes? Are you involved all of the way through?
  • How will the project be managed on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis, e.g. project meetings, steering committees, etc.? What will your time commitment be?
  • What will you be responsible and accountable for; what activities do you need to undertake and what are your deadlines?

The activities you need to undertake might be wide-ranging – reading regulations, documenting business processes, specifying requirements or management information, providing subject matter expertise, and testing systems are all good examples. It is important that you are clear on everything that you will be involved in.

Every member of a project team should know what is expected of them, even if it takes a few weeks to make sure that the initial roles, responsibilities, and activities are all agreed upon and understood. They will also evolve as the project progresses, so the communication and clarification should never stop.

But my current role is already full-time!

Sometimes individuals are seconded to project teams on a full-time basis if the project is large enough, but more commonly project activities will be alongside your current role. That can be challenging because you will have responsibilities to your current role and to the project, both with activities that need to be done and with deadlines that need to be met. Managing both is one of the main challenges when you are working on a project.

Structure, planning, and management support (both project and line) maximise the chances of success. Once you understand the project meetings or workshops you need to attend and the activities you need to undertake, make your best estimate of how much time you need to allocate to the project. You are assessing whether you have sufficient time to meet your project responsibilities alongside the responsibilities of your day job.

If you do not believe that you sensibly can do both, then you need to discuss this as soon as possible with both your line manager and the project manager. Or maybe you feel that you don’t have the right skills and experience to fulfil the project role. Human nature and business pressure might mean that this is a difficult subject to raise, but you do not want to put either your day job or the project at risk. Perhaps the project manager can redistribute some project responsibilities to make it more manageable, or perhaps some of your day-to-day responsibilities can be backfilled. You won’t know until you ask or escalate your concerns.

For any project, you need the right project team members with the necessary skills, experience, and capacity. It is the responsibility of everyone on the project team to make sure that happens – and to be open and honest about where they can (and can’t) contribute to that.

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The Influence of Scale on Projects

My son is studying for his master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems Mapping (think Google Maps and some of the layers of data in there) and he has to write a paper on how he would approach a project to assess and implement a new GIS system. Given what I do for a living he asked me for some advice (first time for everything!). I took him through some project basics, and we got on to the subject of size. “Dad”, he asked me “Does size matter?”.

“Where do I start?” I thought. Yes, yes it does – and it could be the size of the company, the project complexity, the budget, the project team, the project relative to the size of the company, or the company relative to the size of a supplier. Or all those things. With so many variables I tried to split it in to 2 parts: (a) the project concepts that should stay the same regardless of size; (b) how to tailor the project to fit in with the size, culture, governance, and project experience of the company (or companies) that the project is for.

We started with what should stay the same. I told him that the approach you take to a project and the methodology should not change, whether using Prince2, the APM framework, or Agile development. But that the understanding of that approach and the degree to which you use it can vary from business to business. You still need to go through all the various stages such as supplier selection, planning, running the project, development, testing and dress rehearsals, implementation, and post implementation activity. And you must consider all the stages, as you skip them at your peril, but some may be more light touch depending on the size factors. I furnished him with some of my project management notes to review in his own time (yes, I have a small library of notes as even after 20 years in project management I still need to reference the odd thing every now and then).

We then talked about how size should be considered. In my career I’ve delivered projects for large and small financial firms and the experience can be very different. For example, in one firm I worked for the idea that you could just pop in and cross-check something with the CEO was quite refreshing. But depending on the size of client, as a project manager it means you have to be flexible and have to focus on different things to make sure that the project stays on track and is going to be delivered successfully. I drew my son a very basic matrix to highlight some of my observations relative to company size and asked him to relate this to the company he had in mind for his GIS assignment:

Size of CompanyAdvantagesPotential challenges
Large
  • Change framework is established and embedded
  • Varied and in-depth project experience
  • Potentially bigger budgets

 

  • Red tape / level of governance
  • Complex hierarchy
  • Finding the right people / all stakeholders
  • The number of stakeholders
  • High volume of competing projects (projects may be stopped, merged, or pointed in a different direction)
  • Can be complex and / or bespoke processes and procedures, especially if multi-national
Small
  • Can get to speak to the top easily
  • Can get things done quicker
  • Staff/teams more familiar with each other
  • Smaller portfolio of projects at any one time
  • Not enough resources in the business to spread the SME workload
  • Sometimes no Change Framework exists
  • Potentially less project exposure and experience
  • Potentially smaller budgets
  • Processes & procedures not always documented

He then said ‘ok, but what does this really mean in relation to the project?’ I told him it means several things. For example:

Planning – you need to carefully consider the planning process. Understanding how easy it is to get the project fully established and how long it will take to get decisions from those with the authority needs to be accommodated in the plan. You should be clear on the levels of governance required and the volumes and frequency of meetings and reporting as this could add complexity and time into your plan. Consideration should also be given to the lead times for bringing on board any in-house experts, for example checking if subject matter experts are readily available, or are the Business Architects tied up on other projects for the next 3 months. And in larger companies, resources don’t always continue to be available should the project timelines need to be extended, as they are booked to move on to other projects.

Stakeholders – it highlights the importance of identifying and engaging with stakeholders. Large organisations have many varied businesses and departments that could by impacted by the project or could be required to support the project, and you need to find all of these to ensure there are no surprises further down the line. Obtaining stakeholder engagement and buy-in can be a lengthy process but is essential for successful delivery of the project.

Governance – it can determine the governance approach and can Impact on how the project is to be managed. You need to ensure all the appropriate controls are in place, and that you understand all of the project artifacts that need to be delivered. Get the governance structure that suits the needs of the company.

Project team – the size and complexity of the project correlates to the number of people required, the roles to be covered, and how the team is structured. It will also affect the time required to manage people and obtain progress updates. And considering the size of the company, how big is the pool of available resources and what breadth of experience do they have.

Budget – how far does the budget stretch in relation to the required resources, taking into consideration in-house or external needs. You also need to consider if there is any contingency to cover additional expense or extended time, any impact on the scope (e.g. you can’t have everything you want) or does it limit Change Requests and anything targeted for a phase 2.

Supplier – it can influence the company’s bargaining power and how this relates back into budget or scope. You also need to consider if the supplier is going to be able to cope with the scale and demands of a large company in relation to the project.

‘Plenty of food for thought’ he said as he disappeared to start his research.

I’m keen to see how our discussion plays back into his assignment on the conclusion that size does matter.

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Is it time for an office move?

Did you know that the average cost of a desk in central London is more than £8,000 p/a? Whilst it is slightly less expensive in other cities around the UK, that is a large overhead for any company – particularly if the space is not being used.

Almost 75% of City firms are reviewing their office space provision, focussing on how much space they really need. This follows the significant increase in remote working and flexible working during the pandemic. This is likely to be the new normal once the world recovers from these challenging times.

But have you ever wondered what is really involved in considering an office move? There may be more thank you think. From my experience there are four main stages: Strategy, Business Case, People Impact, and Planning. Let’s have a look at each of these in a little more detail.

Strategy

It seems obvious, but the strategy must consider if reducing your footprint is better achieved by relocation or by downsizing within existing space. And if a move or downsize is not viable, then you should consider how best to optimise the use of the existing space e.g. through subcontract or introducing franchises.

Depending on your size, you may also want to consider alternative arrangements that would satisfy your need, such as a central hub with spoke sites for drop in space established on the city periphery. A lot of the larger serviced office providers have multiple locations in a city, so it is possible to supplement a core location with multiple, flexible workspaces.

To help make these decisions, your initial thinking should be about where the office needs to be. Primarily this should fit with the overall business strategy and the client proposition. If you can, consider where the majority of your staff are located and how easily they can access the location.

Once that is clear, you should consider the alignment with Business Continuity plans, security requirements, and the levels of facility support expected (e.g. repairs, maintenance, cleaning).

officefloorplanNext, work out how you calculate the business needs and how much space is actually needed by considering desk space, offices, client meeting space, reception areas, break out areas, storage space, server rooms, and facilities (e.g. kitchen areas, locker rooms, showers, recreational space). This data may already be to hand, or you may need to start monitoring current utilisation. Fitting it all together and creating floor plans is the fun part.

Also consider your future headcount projections, taking account of peak periods. The shape and size of the teams, and how the resource or teams are split will be important. As will understanding which people need to be in the office, which teams need confidential space, which people can work remotely, and how you accommodate team working/meetings (bearing in mind being physically together can inspire innovation).

Finally, consider the terms of the existing lease and when it expires. This single factor may drive the strategy if you have a long lease that you cannot exit from early.

At this point you should understand what your options are, but not necessarily if any of these options are viable. For that you need to consider the numbers.

Business Case

I’m making a general assumption that if you are considering a property move then a budget will be able to be secured against other competing priorities.

You should already know the existing lease costs. You may also know the likely renewal costs and if these can be negotiated favourably (hopefully you are on good terms with the landlord!). For a move to new premises you should be able to obtain indictive costs for a new lease.

With regards to the move costs, you should include infrastructure costs for internal fit out/build, IT installation, new kit, the actual cost of moving, decommissioning, & lease exit costs. It will be more than you think.

Depending on whether you are relocating and where to, there may also be redundancy and recruitment costs (subject to HR policies and what is reasonable in changes to travel time).

Once all the costs have been collated, assess them against the perceived benefits derived from reduced future costs. There are likely to be different options, each with varying payback periods.

People Impact

From an individual’s perspective moving offices, or even moving space or floors within an office, can be an emotional event. Not everybody embraces change and some like things just as they are.

The staff experience is a key factor in any move:
cityscene

  • What does this mean for the staff in terms of commuting
  • Are they expected to use workspace management systems (desk sharing, flexible room booking)
  • Will there be parking facilities for bikes/cars
  • What is the surrounding area like (e.g. eateries, shopping, recreation, safety)
  • How will this impact morale. Not everybody wants to work flexibly, and some crave the social aspects of a workplace.

It’s important that you bring staff with you and keep them informed because you need them on your side and functioning positively. Finding champions within the business is always a good first step.

Planning

From a project management perspective, office moves can be a logistical challenge with multiple tasks that all need to be co-ordinated seamlessly, and quite frequently out of hours.

I won’t go into detail here, that’s for another time, but consider that you need to work with a number of suppliers and stakeholders to define the hour by hour schedule of events. And you need to anticipate problems and delays because they will happen, so build in plenty of contingency into the plan if the time allows.

At the end of the day, whatever you decide you need to make sure that every member of staff has everything they need and expect in the right place when they come in on Monday morning. Because no matter how successful everything else goes, that is what is important to them.

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Remote Go-live implementations

Given the option, who would have attempted a core banking system replacement entirely remotely? Definitely not me. I’ve always opted for everyone to be on-site in an effort to ensure issues are escalated quickly and resolved even quicker.

However, as we all know times have changed, we have been thrown into a world of remote working that looks likely to stay in one form or another for the foreseeable future. As a result, Projecting has recently had to manage a completely remote go-live implementation of a core banking system.

UAT & Dress rehearsal

During the final stages of UAT testing , the entire country went into full lockdown which was a bit of a shock.

The project team quickly moved to video conferencing sessions for daily catchups, with very few glitches. An unexpected benefit of this new world was that throughput of testing increased … was this because the project was coming close to signing off UAT and the pressure was on? Or was it fewer day to day business interruptions – phones, emails, or kitchen gossip? Although we will never know for sure it was a welcome side effect.

Once UAT was signed off, the final dress rehearsal and data migrations were all that remained, apart from the go-live process itself.

As the new banking system was hosted externally applying patches and new versions, or running data migrations, were always carried out remotely so that was less of a concern. However, under normal conditions both the system and data migration specialists would have been on-site for both the final dress rehearsal and the go-live.

Given that the implementation was going to be remote, a key part of the dress rehearsal was working out ‘plan B’ processes for absolutely everything, particularly in the event key staff had network issues or contracted Covid-19. Deputies were identified and processes documented to allow those deputies to step in. We would normally do this anyway, but we had to think about it differently this time.

Identified challenges for go-live

The final dress rehearsal (carried out remotely) was successful, but it did highlight several remote working challenges that we had to address prior to the go-live weekend:

Communication – which had mainly taken place over email and/or Instant messenger was not relevant for every situation, so we assessed the types of communication and identified the best medium for each type:

  • Quick updates to the team that required no response worked well over instant messenger
  • Progress updates were provided in a central area on Teams that everyone could see
  • The Issues Log was available on Teams
  • A video conference open session used to facilitate working groups to discuss issues etc.
  • Email was used for final formal signoff

Issue Raising – we had a problem with issues not being raised to the correct team members, which impacted prioritisation and resolution. We added an additional step to route all issues through the head of the relevant business area and they prioritised which issues needed resolved and which could wait. Although this weakness may have been highlighted in an on-site dress rehearsal, it may not have resulted in a change to the process as teams would have been sitting together and discussing the issues. Being remote, it is really important that the process is solid and stands up on its own. Any change to process between dress rehearsal and go-live had to be communicated effectively and the relevant team members trained.

Collaboration – central sharing of Information as opposed to emailing it. For the dress rehearsal, approvals took place over email and there was a lot of email traffic which was difficult to keep track of. For go-live, we moved to a model where all approval forms were stored on a Teams site, updated centrally, and visible to other areas so that everyone was kept informed without the additional email traffic. Only final signoff was done via email.

Data Changes – to capture any late changes to core data which might impact go-live, which we deemed a higher risk than normal with everyone working remotely, we carried out a final, technical data migration very close to the go-live to resolve any issues.

Once the go-live took place it was a long day but hugely successful with clear communication and effective, slick processes that utilised time and resource wisely.

Our top tips…

…for a successful remote implementation are:

  • A solid finish to UAT testing
  • A final dress rehearsal that mirrors a remote go-live
  • Amend processes for go-live after the dress rehearsal based on findings
  • Have deputies/plan Bs
  • Train the team on the go-live processes to ensure they follow them
  • A final technical data migration to highlight data issues
  • Select the right communication channels

If you have any questions on remote implementations or would like to chat through your project options, please do get in touch.

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Cómo ralentizar, interrumpir o detener proyectos de forma segura

Una vez se ha tomado la decisión de que un proyecto debe ralentizarse, pausarse o detenerse, hay varias actividades a llevar a cabo. Algunas actividades aplican en todos los casos, pero otras solo aplican en función de la decisión específica que se haya tomado. Comencemos con las que aplican a todo:

  • Validación de decisiones. Todos los responsables de la toma de decisiones del proyecto deben ser consultados e, idealmente, estar de acuerdo con la decisión. Siempre vale la pena verificarlo dos veces.
  • Claridad en próximos pasos. A medida que comience a comunicarse tanto con los que han tomado las decisiones como con el público en general, habrá preguntas y desafíos sobre la decisión. Hay que prepararse, de antemano, tanto como sea posible. Hay que ser claro sobre la justificación de la decisión y los pasos específicos que se tomarán para desacelerar, pausar o detener el proyecto. Es clave comprender las dependencias y anticipar preguntas sobre el impacto en la organización, las personas, las empresas externas o los proveedores.
  • Comunicación. Cada organización es diferente, pero un orden lógico es comunicárselo primero al equipo del proyecto y a los comités ejecutivos (Comité Directivo, Junta de Programa, etc.), seguido por el personal afectado y las áreas comerciales, seguidos por proveedores o empresas externas que tengan alguna dependencia del proyecto. La comunicación debe ser rápida para que, idealmente, todos los que necesitan saberlo se enteren el mismo día. Es importante comunicar también los motivos de la decisión y los próximos pasos, no solo la decisión en sí.
  • Sensibilidad. Las personas pueden sentir una sensación de decepción o pérdida si un proyecto se interrumpe o se detiene, ya sean miembros del personal, contratistas o proveedores. Para algunos, esto también puede ser una pérdida de función o una pérdida de ingresos. Hay que tener esto en cuenta al comunicar las noticias.

 

Luego están las actividades que dependen de la decisión que haya tomado.

Ralentizar

En este contexto, nos referimos a donde un proyecto va a continuar, pero necesita acomodarse a una reducción de fondos y/o recursos. Si el proyecto necesita ralentizarse rápidamente, es poco probable que sea posible hacer un análisis detallado y una planificación completa. El gerente y el equipo de proyecto deben realizar algunas evaluaciones rápidas centradas en la productividad de los recursos, la importancia de los plazos, el alcance y la calidad. Disminuir la velocidad puede no significar retrasar los entregables. Si es posible lograr los mismos resultados a corto y medio plazo con menos recursos, esto permitirá que el proyecto continúe con el mismo alcance, plazos y calidad. En la mayoría de los casos, eso no es posible, por lo que las 3 palancas de gestión de proyectos son:

 

  1. Plazos: ampliar el proyecto para suavizar la carga de trabajo
  2. Alcance: reducir el alcance para centrar los recursos/ fondos en áreas clave
  3. Calidad: no entregar “entregables de oro” cuando un producto viable mínimo puede ser suficiente

 

La extensión de la fecha límite suele ser la solución más simple. Si los plazos no pueden extenderse, entonces se puede disminuir el alcance; si no se puede disminuir el alcance, se puede enfocar en un producto mínimo viable. Si se eliminan elementos de alcance especificos, o incluso flujos de trabajo discretos, esto ayudará a reducir la necesidad de una planificación detallada. Sin embargo, cualquier cambio acordado requerirá una revisión de la documentación del proyecto sobre recursos, plazos y alcance. Todo esto debe hacerse teniendo en cuenta las dependencias internas y externas del proyecto.

Interrumpir o detener un proyecto

Un proyecto “en pausa” se reiniciará en el corto a medio plazo; un proyecto “detenido” no se reiniciará. Cuando interrumpamos o detengamos un proyecto, hay que realizar los siguientes pasos:

  • Acordar la decisión formalmente con los órganos de gobierno apropiados
  • Pagar las facturas finales, cancelar las órdenes de compra, etc.
  • Actualizar toda la documentación, en particular el plan del proyecto, los informes de estado, los registros RAID, la matriz RACI y los datos de contacto de los miembros del equipo del proyecto (incluidos los proveedores externos)
  • Compartir todos los documentos, incluidos los correos electrónicos relevantes, que pueden ser específicos para un individuo, en una única ubicación común que sea accesible para todas las partes relevantes y asegurarse de que la ubicación sea conocida por todos
  • Realizar un análisis de “lecciones aprendidas”, si el tiempo lo permite, para alimentar al proyecto o marco de gobierno

 

Algunas de estas acciones pueden parecer irrelevantes para un proyecto que se está deteniendo, pero a menudo sucede que los proyectos resurgen de una forma diferente y puede ser útil tener información histórica del proyecto disponible.

Además, para un proyecto en pausa es conveniente:

  • Crear un “registro de inicio” que identifique las acciones iniciales que deberán realizarse para reiniciar el proyecto.
  • Programar un recordatorio quincenal / mensual para verificar el estado del proyecto en preparación para el reinicio

Nuestro próximo artículo se centra en el reinicio rápido y ampliaremos más sobre el “registro de inicio” y los contenidos.

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Steps to Success on Technology Projects

We recently posted a link to a news article about the rate of IT project failures. There have been some very high profile, and some less high profile, IT project failures and outages in the past couple of years.

IT projects and programmes, large and small, are often both complex and complicated. Particularly when they involve the migration of data from existing systems to new systems. If you have worked on this type of project, then we aren’t telling you anything new.

We thought it might be useful to talk about why these projects can be difficult and how you might increase the likelihood of success.

The Challenges

The level of difficulty in these projects is driven by the:

  • Number of existing systems, the connectivity between systems, and external interfaces;
  • Functionality of the new system(s), any customisation, and the regulatory requirements;
  • Amount of data to be migrated, the structure of the data (clients, accounts, funds, stocks, etc.), and the data quality;
  • Number of system users, internal subject matter expertise, and internal project experience.

And that is only part of the delivery challenge. There will usually be an overlay of cost constraints, time constraints, and, sometimes, political constraints. It may be a multi-national project, it may span different divisions or businesses, and it can be across time zones. All of which increase the time, cost, and complexity.

Changes to any one of the things in the list above can, and will, affect everything else.

So, what can you do about it?

The core aspects of project management – governance, plans, risk logs, dependency tracking, etc. – are all important for a successful project but we would like to be more specific than that. These are our top tips based on experience:

  • Look before you leap. Everyone wants to get in to the action, but you must not skip detailed planning. We know it is laborious, uses lots of resources, and it can feel as if you are getting nowhere, but if you look at every component in detail you are much less likely to come a cropper later.
  • Mobilise properly. If you start the project with the wrong mix of skills and experience, it is difficult to recover, and you will lose both time and momentum. In your planning, make sure you understand who you need and when.
  • Map it out. Whether it is the system components, interfaces, or data migration, map it out. The more you understand about how everything is connected, the easier it will be to manage the project, keep it joined up, and assess the impact of any changes.
  • Never stop testing. It can be the easiest corner to cut, often backed by the implicit assumptions that “everything will be fine” or “we can fix it afterwards”. As recent press coverage shows, these assumptions are not necessarily correct. Test the functionality, interfaces, migrated data, systems access, volume, overnight processes, and everything else. You need to be confident.
  • Reconcile everything. It is one of the hardest things to do but it is critical. Reconcile your existing systems before your start, reconcile at every stage of the project, reconcile when you are testing migration, reconcile when you go live, reconcile across new systems and interfaces. Reconcile clients and accounts, reconcile financial amounts, reconcile static data. You need to know that everything is right.
  • Make good decisions. At each stage of the project making good decisions is key. Everyone will have worked hard to determine scope, timescales, and budgets. There may be good reason to change something but don’t do it without considering the evidence and expertise available to you. Quick decisions, sometimes forced by political pressure, almost always cause future problems.

This is a wide-ranging and multi-faceted subject to cover in a very short article. Every one of these projects have complexities and nuances that you could never conceive of at the outset but will be expected to manage when they arise, against a backdrop of time, cost and political pressure.

There is no magic solution but if you focus on detailing and mapping everything up front, making sure you test and reconcile everything as thoroughly as you can, and making open and honest decisions as you go through, you will increase your chances of success.

You can probably tell that we enjoy this stuff. If we can help, or you just want to pick our brains, feel free to get in touch.

/por