Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/18157
AN INTERVIEW WITH COREY WELLS the concept, but we took it a little further. We have about 16 in IT, five of whom have attended project management training. And we have a project manager on staff. When we started this initiative, we sat down with service team leads and divvied up all the different documents we thought we’d need to have a successful project, including intake form, charter, communication plan, risk management plan, etc. Each team lead was responsible for one piece of the documentation, and our project manager oversaw it all and kept us on track. Every Wednesday for a year we had a project management meeting. Lunch would be brought in and we would tweak and hash out the documentation. There were quite a few revisions. This process really worked for us. We got a great chance to test our newly acquired skills when the OCS project came in. You can’t wing a project of this size; there has to be structure and a point person — someone to be the task manager to keep everything running smoothly — so it was really great that we had a project manager to shepherd us through it. It was a fabulous experience being able to go to her at any point during the project and find out what tasks we were behind on, what we needed to focus on, what our critical path was and where we deviated … and then quickly get the project back into line. Were there some unexpected obstacles or challenges that popped up? If so, how did you tackle them? To tell the truth, there really wasn’t a lot that popped up we weren’t ready for. Our project manager was highly methodical in her approach to risk management. We spent a couple of hours with a couple of hundred “yellow stickies” jotting down everything we thought could go wrong, then she had us prioritize those things from “likely” to “shots in the dark.” So we were prepared for most things. There were some surprises — discovering, for example, there was an unplanned-for issue with the outbound caller display. Because we were so well prepared for the major things, none of the little “blips” slowed us down for long. What did you learn from managing and delivering this project that you would apply to future McInnes initiatives? What advice would you offer to your peers who may be facing similar projects? Well, I admit I was a bit skeptical at the very beginning. A lot of the time spent was upfront planning. Most IT people just want to hit the ground running — you know, we get an idea and we just want to make the thing work. But with a project this size, the project manager made us realize that to be successful, we had to slow down, take our time, plan upfront, plan communication, plan risk management, plan deployment, plan everything. We had a pretty good idea what would happen before we bought our first piece of hardware. That was my biggest lesson — if you want a successful project, take your time and emphasize planning upfront. My best advice? Any firm that’s about to implement a large project and either doesn’t have a project manager on staff or project management experience in-house, go get a consultant. There are too many pieces to risk leaving it all to chance. Project management — and a great project manager like ours — help mitigate that risk! ILTA www.iltanet.org Project Management 23