How to succeed where others fail

Five tips about how to succeed with your next IT project

Last year, Swedish companies and organisations invested SEK 143 billion (over GBP 10 billion) in Information Technology. But according to one survey, 82% of customers are dissatisfied with the results of their latest IT project. Astonishing figures. The reasons are many – late delivery, budgets exceeded, missing functionality, no actual efficiency gains, and so on. So the question remains, what do you have to do to make your next IT project successful?

Collaborate

Right from the start of the project, communications should be high up on the agenda. Communications between clients, implementors, management – in fact all project members. With Projectplace, it becomes easy to give everyone involved access to the latest documentation. No one has to wait for the information to be delivered – access is only a few button presses away.

Share

The time is long past when individual project members held back information in order to enhance their own status. A properly functioning collaborative arena needs to give something to each member. That responsibility lies with each individual – not on the tool. A virtual tool like Projectplace provides everything needed for success –
but don’t expect it to do everything for you.

Make demands

A project manager must never forget to be just that – a manager. Using virtual project tools can create situations where dissatisfaction grows for lack of will, lack of IT know-how, or lack of time to learn new things.
When the question arises about receiving minutes of meetings by e-mail, the answer is simple. The answer is simply “No, the minutes are available on Projectplace.” The attitude has to be switched from “push” to “pull” – but you will be alerted when something happens.

Get involved

Remember that the deliverables in a project may include something even more important than the purely technical – namely the people who will be using the system. Changes to the daily routine may be seen as catastrophic if people are not well prepared right from the start of the project. Talk to people. Raise expectations. Give them a taste of the system. Make it possible for everyone to feel that they can handle this.

Try out Projectplace.com.

The days are long gone when the Internet was just a temporary craze. It is here to stay. The tasks are getting bigger and bigger – but thanks to more efficient communications, the world is getting smaller and smaller.
Log on to www.projectplace.com and start your next project. Bring together the client in Copenhagen, the project manager in Stockholm, the reference group in Paris and the developers in Germany. With an interface in 6 different languages, this is child’s play for most people. And you as the project manager will discover cooperation at an entirely new level.