In my current role as Director of Sales & Marketing, I serve as a principle in the various projects that we run and am ultimately responsible if the project succeeds or fails. From my vantage point the biggest reasons for failure is lack of communication which leads to missing the mark on meeting customer expectations.

Managing all of the stakeholder’s expectations is critical and great care should be used in communicating often. This includes listening, asking for feedback and constantly asking each and every stakeholder what their overall goal’s of the software project are so that those expectations are met. The following video is a discussion on what defines an IT failure, perhaps it will give you some ideas on what to do to avoid an IT project failure.

What do you do to avoid IT Project Failures?

I’ve developed a 9 stage framework that I assist my customers with when looking to implement enterprise software.  Depending on the size of the engagement or software investment I often scale up or down on the level of activity I conduct during the selection phase.  I’ve embedded my presentation below for your use and review.

13rh Century Clock - Photo care of RockN on Flickr

But what about Clocks?  As both a lover of history and technology I found myself pondering if the invention of the clock in 13th Century Europe is an example of an early Information Technology development.  The clock has allowed us to use information and accurately record and monitor what we do.

Here is a brief list of other benefits of the clock:

• Accurately tell time and depend less on the sun and moon
• Provide the possibility to order our day
• Measure the cost of labor more effectively
• Track the number of hours that go into a specific project

The clock gave us information that allowed us to make time a measurable value and it altered history forever.

What other older taken for granted Information technologies can you think of?

Having breakfast with over 700 “nerds” and “technology executives” is not only nourishing for the stomach but also for the brain. When Steven Wozniak appeared at the keynote at this mornings Tech-working breakfast in Waterloo you can be assured that everyone left feeling full of delicious advice.

Mr Wozniak (aka “The Woz”) offered up a buffet of advice on design,  and technology. Here’s  a summary of a few tips that I picked up.

• Build products that behave and interact in a way that is intuitive by the way we move, touch and feel.
• Try not to fit technology into a product because it exists – instead focus on making the experience intuitive (make it great)
• Where do you get the best design ideas from?  Parachute into a project and try to re-engineer it.  Try to put yourself in the shoes of a person that has been parachuted into how computers work today with out having any prior knowledge or experience to the technology.  Are the way things are done really that efficient?
• Don’t assume the way you’ve done it before is the best
• Be an engineer that is also an artist – just make it beautiful!