7 P’s To Successful IT Projects

It is always a shame when IT projects fail because of a lack of the ‘7 P‘s.’

Positive Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance are words to live by. You can use them in just about every aspect of your life, but we’ll focus here on how they apply to IT projects.

1. POSITIVE - You’ll be doing yourself a favor by identifying some [if not all] options available long ahead of an IT project’s implementation date. Most projects come with a sufficient amount of lead-time allowing you to develop that ultimate Plan A and [at the very least], a Plan B. Seldom is planning a negative experience and more often you jump off on a positive step with this first of 7 P‘s to successful IT projects.
2. PRIOR - Not that this needs much explanation, but the last thing you want to do is procrastinate until you’ve hit the 11th hour. The effects of not readying your plans ahead of time will be devastating. It’ll reflect terribly upon yourself and everyone around you who owns buy-in on the project. If you haven’t at the least scribbled out your thoughts and concerns surrounding the project well in advance (let alone a nicely done GANNT), then you are way behind the curve.
3. PLANNING - This is one of the key 7 P‘s. Without it you’re lost. No sense of direction. No purpose. No strategy. Without having a grasp on ‘the plan’ your risk of failing increases exponentially. Planning also gives you heightened command and control over your project’s outcome. Planning tends to include pre-coordination and encourage participation across the affected business towers.
4. PREVENT - The 7 P‘s give you a strong vaccination against viral failure as well. Prevention will be your best medicine if you understand the implications of your project failing. Knowing ahead of time what areas are susceptible to failure gives you the distinct advantage of preventing failures in your end result.
5. PISS - Read on.
6. POOR - This is the last word any of us want associated with our good names. But with an IT project on the brink of failure or one that ‘has already’ failed, you might as well chalk it up to overall poor performance on your part. There’s little-to-no tolerance for IT projects that don’t meet expectations due to poor performance by in-house IT staff. What’s stopping management from outsourcing your position [or the project] if you can’t complete the work.
7. PERFORMANCE - Last, but not at all least, the ultimate gauge of your success in an IT project is — performance. This final ‘P‘ of the P‘s is what tells all. Everything you’ve accomplished in positive prior planning prevents piss poor performance. It all culminates with, performance. Your’s is either met with applause or it’s booed off stage. There’s really no room for any in between.

Successful IT projects have potential to do wonders for your business and add notches to your career belt. A significantly low performance or the [lack there of] can do the complete opposite and burn you.

You can make or break yourself on an IT project just by using or not using the 7 P‘s. Get a grip on your project scope, understand what’s required to get the job done, start early and have a contingency plan [or two]. You can’t go wrong.