Page 45 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

IT Project Leadership #1: How to stop corridor conversations becoming business
expectations

IT Project Leadership has never been more challenging
and complex.

In this, the first of a short series, I'm going to look at
some of the issues that you and I face and share some
solutions. If nothing, else let's acknowledge that the
challenges are universal and take solace from the fact
that it's not just YOU!

The inspiration for this series came from a conversation
with a CIO friend this week, I'm paraphrasing here but
he said that IT Project Management for business is "like
running a restaurant, the restaurant is full, every table
is taken so we're also building an extension to increase
capacity. All the customers are ordering à la carte.
We're revising the menu constantly and upgrading the kitchen so that we can deliver better.
Meanwhile, all the customers are asking why we're not serving at as fast as a McDonalds."

It is a high-pressure environment. Business needs innovation. I.T. is no longer a back office support
function, I.T. is now a front and centre driver of business change and growth. This is GREAT and it
comes at a cost.

The CIO I was talking with above has a busy IT Project portfolio, it is "scheduled to within an inch of
its life" and although there is capacity for 'the unexpected', these margins for manoeuvre are
slender. The wider business does not always see this and quite often members of his team are being
approached by senior business managers with something that is "needed yesterday".

On a number of occasions, questions asked in passing in the corridor, at the water cooler or even in
the bathroom (!), have become business expectations that the exec asking has requested a status
update on a few weeks later.
The toilet one is actually the best example. The CEO asked a project manager a "would this be
possible" type of question - in the gents!!! Like you do! The project manager said that the thing
would be possible and both men went away with different perceptions of the conversation: The
Project Manager thinking that he'd answered a question about what could be achieved; the CEO
thinking he had set in motion the start of a project to achieve it! When the CEO asked the CIO for a
progress report at a board meeting a month later the latter didn't have a clue what he was talking
about!

This happens a lot, I mean not usually in the lavatories, but many IT Project teams talk of business
"priorities" overwhelming schedules from out of nowhere. So, what can you do about it? Here are
five thoughts: