Steps to control IT project complexity

Discipline must be seen as a critical success factor in any IT development project. When dealing with the issue of the control of IT project complexity, the work can be made considerably easier if an appropriate level of discipline is a component of the development process. The importance of discipline as it relates to project success has to be recognized, and its application must be consistent throughout the entire development process.

Moving to a higher level of discipline, particularly in organizations where it has been lacking, can be a difficult task. Attempting to improve the discipline associated with maintaining and controlling the size and complexity of IT applications projects is not easy. Adopting a more disciplined project management approach is likely to open the IT department to charges of being unwilling to provide higher levels of service, of being uncooperative, and of lacking a sense of customer service. In organizations in which there is already a level of hostility between the IT department and other sections within the organization, attempting to raise the level of IT project development will increase that hostility.

When it comes to the issue of project discipline, one of the duties of those who have responsibility for the eventual success of the project must be to very carefully assess the size and complexity of what is being proposed within the project. Although there is a natural tendency to want to accommodate any and all requests for features and functions within a particular system, that tendency must be modified by the reality of the possible. Accommodating every request should not be the goal of the project; rather the goal should be to deliver a reasonable set of functions and features on time and within budget. If project discipline is in place at the beginning of the project, and is consistently maintained throughout the project, the eventual result is much more likely to be what everyone had expected. When that occurs, everyone benefits.

Assessing proposed IT development projects in terms of the size, features, and functions to be delivered within the established project funding and schedule should be seen as being a joint effort between the IT department and those business units in which the new applications will be used. To be effective, the work associated with coming to a realistic project size cannot be done through a process in which the members of the IT department attempt to mandate project size. The approach has to be to include every area that has an interest in the ultimate result of the project and to work out a compromise that comes as close as possible to meeting the needs of all the areas. Those needs must be met within the context of maintaining reasonable project size and complexity.

What constitutes “reasonable” project size and complexity? There will be a different answer to that question for every organization and every project. Each time an IT project is proposed, except for small projects, the issue of reasonableness is going to have to carefully considered. Taking the time to make that consideration should be seen as one component of improved project management discipline. It is understandable, given the pressure on everyone involved to deliver more function and features at an increasingly rapid pace, to want to be as responsive as possible. The apparent way to do that is to include as much as possible into a single project. That issue can be compounded by the need for various features and the very real possibility that, if they are not included in the current project, the opportunity to get them may simply be lost. Where the need is recognized, along with the often real situation that now may be the only time to obtain the particular features, it is very

difficult to resist loading as much into the project as possible. However, the important question here has to do with the probability that the project, having grown too large to effectively manage, will fail, and nothing (or perhaps very little) will be delivered.

Having come to a realistic assessment of what can be delivered in terms of IT projects within an organization, IT management has both an obligation and a duty to set and hold the line on project size and complexity. If developing the project in phases or as several or even a series of smaller projects makes good business sense, that route should be taken. The idea has to be to assist the organization to avoid making project mistakes.