4 Tips for Avoiding IT Project Waste

What’s at the root of this waste? It’s the lack of project management on both the client and vendor sides. Here are four tips based on the lessons we’ve learned to help you avoid the same fate with your IT implementations.

1. Start with the deal. Some projects should simply never be. Usually it begins when management accepts the vendor’s selling proposal, which turns out to be flawed. Take the case of one of our largest clients: It’s been struggling for two years to work with a vendor, basically to rewrite much of the vendor’s system. The client is determined because there’s a huge potential return on investment. But while it will be a big deal for the vendor when finished, it’s taking that vendor off its commercial systems path. The client should have looked at the proposal more realistically at the start.