Blog / Scoping Projects
Including IT When Scoping Projects Saves Time, Money, and Headaches.
It goes without saying that different departments in an organization have different needs. For example, your Accounting department can’t finish payroll and reconcile payments without the right software, typically an application that most other departments have no need for. So it seems logical that the best people for scoping projects and deciding what tools are needed would be the accountants (or whoever’s going to use them).
The problem is that that logic only works on paper, because it doesn’t recognize how interconnected business departments often are. After all, the average accountant doesn’t know how backups work, and if they do they likely don’t have the technical knowledge to properly analyze any deep technical issues. They’re also not likely concerned about any IT plans to phase out old equipment or other technical factors that could impact them. We’ve seen this behavior from many departments in many organizations so we’re not trying to single out Accountants (they just make for an easy example), but it’s usually only after software has already been decided on, contracts signed, and bills paid that IT gets notified about an upcoming change.
However, as we mentioned, if you’re not in IT you probably won’t be asking any deeply technical questions and rightly so; you should be focused on how a prospective solution addresses any issues and paint points in your job, whereas questions about the operating system’s compatibility with an application or memory and storage requirements are the rightful domain of the IT department. But when the IT team hasn’t been consulted (or sometimes not even informed) about new soft/hardware purchases until after they’ve been you’re just asking for implementation problems be they configuration problems, compatibility issues, minimum requirements, and the like. Too often license agreements are signed and purchases made by other departments that believe IT’s job is just to “make it work.” Not only are you inviting technical problems into your implementation due to a lack of foresight/insight, but you could also be creating damaging interdepartmental friction, or, in less professional terms, overstepping boundaries and pissing people off. After all, nobody wants to discover a surprise project they knew nothing about waiting on their desk, especially if the first thing they notice about it is a list of problems that could’ve been avoided had they been included in the project from the start.
Properly scoping projects is essential to completing implementations in a timely and efficient manner, and means engaging everyone necessary to make that project a success, not just the end users. Unfortunately we’ve seen this exact scenario play out over and over again, either from purchasing inadequate hardware or installing unsuitable software.
This week’s quote comes from Romeo and Juliet, “Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.”
If you need help properly scoping projects for your organization, contact a TRINUS IT professional and our team of experts will be happy to help out with some stress-free IT.
Be kind, courtesy your friendly neighbourhood cyber-man.
