Project management has always been a conservative science and a
traditional art, and it's no different with the implementation of
Web-based projects, writes Annie Gurton
With Internet years compressed - like dog years - to a fraction
of real time, there is always a pressure to implement Web projects
at a terrific pace. No sooner is the decision taken to develop the
electronic component of the business than it is expected to be
done. Common sense and a realistic appreciation of the time it
takes to develop and introduce a new technology and process seem to
be thrown out of the window, whenever the Web is involved.
But there are tangible risks of fatal damage to the business if
a Web-related implementation is rushed. Too much haste can lead to
resistance from individuals, poor integration between applications
and servers and, worst of all, the loss of data integrity with a
high risk of data loss or corruption.
A structured, methodical approach is essential, if the details
are rushed or overlooked the impact can resonate throughout all
departments. Speed is necessary, but not by compromising security
or quality.
The science and art of project management, with all its
hard-learned maxims and principles, need to be applied to every Web
or e-commerce implementation. By investing more resources the
delivery time can be brought closer, but not by short cuts.
There is no replacement or alternative to being properly
organised and that means thinking everything through very carefully
and thoroughly before you begin.
Sean Savedra, a consultant with reseller Morse Computers, is a
strong believer in a process-driven methodology and says, "The key
elements of the project must be clearly defined. There must be
absolute clarity about the business vision that the proposed new
initiative is supposed to support, and how success will be
measured.
"There are many levels of e-business and degrees of
e-integration, and not all businesses need full e-business - at
least in the short term."
Savedra says a Web implementation project must be treated like
any other. "The fact that there is a perceived urgency, with newer
technology and more people with opinions, does not detract from the
need to stick to sound basic project management principles," he
says.
"You still have to understand the requirement, agree the
functionality and user interaction, the architecture, and the
timescale and milestones before you start to build it. Then you
have to test it, deploy it, support it and continue to evolve
it."
The analogy with housebuilding is strong - you can't get the
roof on until the walls are up, and the plumber has to come before
the electrician. The order of actions in a Web implementation are
equally logical, although many Web projects slip into problems
because there has been a failure to tie down the early stages
before moving on to the candy-floss.
One of software supplier Staffware's clients, Netherlands-based
Anovar Insurance, now sees dramatic business benefits and
competitive advantage from its e-business implementation. Manager
Ton de Wit says that, with hindsight, he wishes he had taken a more
orderly approach. "We did not involve the IT people early enough,
and the process of change management was not part of the project
implementation, so that the users and managers involved with the
new system were not properly educated about the impact and changes
before and during implementation. There was unnecessary resistance
from managers who did not understand the benefits, and that could
have been avoided by widening the project milestones to include
education of users," he adds.
It is frequently a temptation to learn on the job. But the right
skills must be in place before you need them. This can be achieved
by hiring in-house or, more often, using a specialist third party
for a short time with an agreement that skills are transferred.
De Wit says, "Their experts would train our people so that when
implementation was complete they would leave and our staff would be
capable of continuing the work and maintaining the system. Skills
transference was an important part of the project."
Some consulting firms have their own methodology for Web
implementations. Rebus, for example, has a system that it calls
"The Method" which has been specifically developed for
implementations involving Internet space.
Malcolm Wolf, Rebus' chief consulting officer, explains, "There
needs to be a phased approach that underpins the whole project
life-cycle. Specific streams of activity based on specific skills
and roles should run through the phases and include project
management, account management, marketing and strategy, security,
infrastructure, content management, design and technology and so
on. Many of these are parallel activities that promote teamwork and
help users understand the 'big picture' of the project."
Wolf says "The Method" is designed to deliver Web projects
efficiently by using established multidisciplinary teams combining
business, technical and creative skills. "The formal approach
increases implementation speed and lowers risk," adds Wolf.
Whether a highly formal or roughly structured approach is taken,
it is always tempting to focus on the technical and overlook the
importance of the cultural integration and pace both alongside the
marketing work.
Bob Wild, an e-business consultant with Compass Management
Consulting, says, "The e-strategy has to be all-encompassing and
efforts focused in the right direction, with a balance between the
technical, cultural and marketing. If the right groundwork is done,
with a pragmatic attitude, the firm should know how fast it should
be proceeding and how much back-office integration needs to be done
at each phase. Once this is done, the implementation becomes a very
simple project."
Wild advocates a series of short chunks of work, with a period
of review and testing after each before embarking on the next
stage. "If the implementation starts with pilot projects and small
chunks of the eventual offering, then it is possible to change on
the fly and the project is more manageable and achievable," he
says. Wild, however, agrees that speed is important in an
e-development.
"The only way forward is to experiment and take risks," he
believes.
Speed, however, cannot be achieved by compromising security,
says Richard Torr, technical director of Amey IT Services.
"Companies must realise that with the new e-channel to market comes
new security threats and an added reliance on reliable IT systems,"
he says. "Suffering downtime or having information corrupted,
deleted or intercepted can lead to heavy financial losses or even
business failure, and is simply unacceptable."
A risk analysis phase - early in the project - should highlight
the dangers and their consequences, and the steps necessary to
eliminate them. Torr suggests, "Companies have to establish the
appropriate investment in security as a judgement balanced against
the financial impact of each type of possible security breach."
However, in considering the risk of loss of data integrity,
confidentiality breaches or hardware availability outages, the cost
of prevention has to be balanced against the likelihood of them
happening - and the cost to the company of an occurrence.
"There is no point in installing too many protective
procedures," says Torr, "or the cost will outweigh any business
savings and may deter prospective customers."
Part of the project's testing process should include intrusion
testing, says Torr. "It's also necessary to conduct continual
monitoring and submit regular security audit reports on usage and
security exceptions," he adds.
As well as involving the marketing and cultural changes
alongside the technical, the e-development project should also be
sensitively integrated alongside other projects, and developing
other business channels which are not Web-dependent.
There are several other technologies which offer extremely
interesting new routes to market, such as mobile and broadband,
which should be considered as part of the new customer access
strategies, plus the physical locations.
Bill Donoghue, chief executive of Web presence development
agency Ebeon, says, "It's madness to run an e-development project
outside other projects. E-business should form part of an
integrated customer relationship and business development strategy,
which involves call centre provision, product fulfillment, billing
and marketing. In other words, all aspects of a business. It's not
an isolated activity unless you are planning a subsidiary dotcom by
stealth, in which case it should still include all the cultural and
marketing aspects."
The only approach, says Donoghue, is to view the new business
through the eyes of the customer and then plan systems development
to support those expectations.
"We recommend using an e-business mapping model," he says,
"which engages with clients and users and embraces the dimensions
of technical features, design and content, access media, regional
deployment and business scale, and with a map to project the
potential growth over time. This approach enables those
implementing the project to ensure that all issues - such as
platform, architecture, hosting, security, legality, taxation and
content - are balanced between all the interested parties.
"The fundamentals of scalability, security, robustness and
extensibility must not be compromised for content and features,"
Donoghue points out. "Content and features, however, must not be
rushed just to hit a deadline."
Project management has always been a conservative science and a
traditional art and nothing has changed since the arrival of
e-business components.
Ultimately, it is still the careful, methodical approach that is
likely to be the most successful.
Getting your project timing right
If your e-implementation is too fast, you risk building a
tactical solution that soon becomes obsolete because IT:
- Is difficult to integrate with existing systems
- Resists the integration of new future technologies as they come
down
- Fails to allow advantage to be gained from new future
technologies
- Fails to deliver the original business objectives
If your e-implementation is too slow and the project suffers
from inertia:
- You miss the market opportunity
- The site is obsolete before it goes live
- Money and enthusiasm dry up
- Those involved become demotivated
- The company and market needs change during the project
lifetime.
Project hints and tips
- Pressure to deliver rapidly can be met by setting more chunks
and milestones which are met at apparently speedier intervals,
while actually proper project methodologies are not
compromised
- Balance your long-term requirements with the short-term desire
to have an e-presence
- Make sure the project plan includes all streams of work, not
just the technology, such as brand definition, site promotion,
integration with all processes, product availability, and change
management of all users
- Realise that a softly-softly approach is better than a big
bang. Get a basic system running live and then extend and expand
it, rather than trying for the whole enterprise live in one big
effort
- Establish a core functionality and realistic launch date, and
make sure that happens before moving on to extending the
system
- Keep lines of communication open - invite comments and
criticisms and consider their validity seriously
- Keep the site and integration simple - just because special
effects and wild technical features are possible, you don't have to
include them.
Key e-project phases
- Define objectives and constraints
- Form a cohesive team with a balance of technical, marketing and
creative skills. Define administration requirements
- Agree the milestones and key elements
- Specify the technical solution
- Commission content design and writing
- Define and implement appropriate security processes and
technologies
- Select an ISP to host the service
- Initiate a well-documented change management process
- Measure against original objectives