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.

In my last post I outlined a series of nine steps for selecting enterprise software that will help optimize your business. In today’s post I am going to dig a little deeper into the first step which is “Defining the Project Vision.”

Before embarking on this process your organization needs to understand what major problems exist and require solving. The art of defining your organization’s problem is accomplished by communicating it via a Project Charter document; it’s the main vehicle for selling the proposed change to your various key stakeholders. Complete this document with care and communicate it with clarity. If you don’t complete this step your project may hit a brick wall and get sent to the “someday/maybe task list”.

To the article in it’s entirety log onto The Strategy Lab