Complex IT Project Management: 16 Steps to Success

7.12 When Late Matters

In the Chapter 5 discussion of Plan Bs, risk analysis was approached largely from a technical perspective (i.e., by preparing for the eventuality that the technology does not pan out). From a timeline perspective, the question is a little different. As we monitor progress against the schedule, we may find ourselves wondering about the negative impact that could accrue if we deliver well but late. In other words, what are the consequences if the project team, or one of the vendors, overshoots a date?

Again, this exercise is not so much academic as it is about understanding your schedule, particularly the critical path and dependencies. Going back to the Big Thirteen interrogatory in Chapter 1, it is also important to leverage your understanding of the environment and business drivers that are an integral part of your project knowledge base. Let us examine a few scenarios to see what this is all about:

• Circuits are delivered late. If project scope is adding bandwidth out to the Internet or to other corporate sites, the impact may be modest. If the circuits add connectivity to a new site, however, this could impact move dates or system rollouts. In other words, late turnups could have serious implications. Because there may be no workaround, you must stay on top of the vendor mercilessly and, hopefully, have a time cushion built into your downstream schedule. For your information, this class of vendors can be preposterously late.

• The servers hosting the new payroll application will not be ready for parallel testing during the next payroll processing period with the legacy system. Although your wishful thinking suggests that the test can be postponed, you get chest pains after learning that the business staff assigned to the test will be tied up with other duties for the next seven payroll cycles, so rescheduling your test is not an option. In this situation, it looks like you have to find a way to meet the original schedule when testing is feasible.

• Your new building will not be ready for occupancy per the move schedule. Before addressing this, be sure you understand whether moving people out of their current location is actually more compelling than getting them into the new one. If that is the case, the right answer may be to find short term staging space for them. Do not overlook things like desks and chairs, filing cabinets, network connections, phones, and security access to the temporary site.

You may be familiar with the old canard that asks, "If it takes one woman 9 months to have a baby, how many months would it take nine women?" Although slippage can be mitigated with added resources, some tasks appear to be immune to the piling on of resources or additional funds. Understand how this might apply to your time line.

The bottom line is that some deliverables can slip and some cannot. Remedies are available for some missed deadlines, whereas others cannot be fixed or explained away either, unfortunately. One reason why deliverables often lack the quality or performance originally envisioned is because these quality assurance processes get turned down or shut off to meet hard target dates. Typical processes that get short-circuited are extensive testing (and repair), training, documentation, and the thorough turnover of new systems, facilities, and processes to trained and enthusiastic operations personnel.