Project Delivery

IT projects are inherently prone to failure and the key to ensuring the success of a project is ultimately down to good project planning and good project management. Professional project management is not just desired but is crucial to delivering products and services on time and within budget. Phoenix use a tried and trusted methodology PRIMA© when approaching project implementations to ensure success for us and our customers. Each customer has their own specific goals and objectives when embarking on a project so to achieve these objectives, Phoenix focus on providing the right blend of product, people, processes and technology.

We provide complete end-to-end project implementation, from feasibility, to design and development right through to technical support and maintenance post go-live. The key aspect to the Phoenix project philosophy is the creation of the right blend of business and technical expertise on our project teams.

10 Steps to a successful project

1. Identify the project goals in clear business terms, the groups they impact and the executive sponsor.

2. Build a business case which clearly defines the financial benefits of the project, the expected costs and the likely pay back period.

3. Identify project resources and create a dedicated project team who are focused completely on the project and empowered to make decisions.

4. Create an Executive Steering Group (ESG) whose primary purpose is to set the strategy and critical success factors for the project and to monitor and measure the progress of the project against the plan. The ESG should take into account other projects within the organisation and guide the project team where conflicts may arise.

5. Ensure user involvement, through the creation of a model office and a clear communication plan. It is ultimately the users who will decide on the success or failure of the project so their involvement and buy in is critical at an early stage.

6. Define the scope and timescales for the project identifying distinct project phases to minimise risk. Introducing key functional areas in phases will accelerate user adoption, obtain early business benefits and provide valuable feedback. It will avoid overwhelming users and give them the opportunity to air their viewpoints on the solution.

7. Create a detailed project plan to identify key milestones, roles and responsibilities. The project plan should remain a working document, continually amended to reflect project changes. The plan should cover all elements of the project from requirements gathering to development, training, testing, installation and rollout, identifying interdependencies and clearly defining project constraints.

8. Maintain project focus at all times. Too often projects fail because they loose focus on the original goals and business benefits. There may be lots of ‘nice to have’ features but do they really deliver any of the financial savings defined in the business case? Regular project meetings are critical to keeping the project on track, to review issues that may arise and find early resolutions to problems.

9. Define clear acceptance criteria for the project. Acceptance criteria should be defined early in the project lifecycle and should be realistic in terms of project complexity and resource availability.

10. Don’t stop there! Continue to evaluate and evolve the solution to deliver greater value. Is the solution of value to other teams or departments? Can you enhance functionality or reduce ongoing management costs. All of these factors help improve the ROI over time.