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Hub You - Six Rules for Great IT Project Success
Fleet Management is an issue that any company will be faced with if they have a number of trucks that are used in the course of business. Fleet management is a means of controlling, tracking and monitoring the vehicles that are used in the company. Examples of business that may find fleet management useful are delivery services, public transportation systems, limousine companies, cab companies and any business that uses multiple vehicles in the course of business. The importance of fleet management is to help keep track of schedules and budgets. Choosing a fleet management system will greatly depend on the needs of the business and what the owner wants to accomplish.For tracking purposes, a GPS fleet management system can be an ideal source. Using a GPS fleet management system will allow a company to track where a vehicle is at any given time. This will help in a variety of ways. The control center can keep track of all vehicles and where they are so if a vehicle is off course, they can contact the driver to find out why. If a driver is lost, the control center can locate where they are and get them to their destination using the most convenie
There are two techniques to determine which efforts produce 80% of your results:
1. Ask your customers and your team, “what of our efforts are producing most of the results for you?” Be ruthless; eliminate or postpone every trivial task that does not directly contribute to the delivery of the business benefits of the project.
2. Post the project goals in your office, in presentations, on your project website, etc., and turn attention to them at every question or change. Ask, “how will this improve our delivery of the benefits of this project?”
SIX: Use Two Linear Betas
All good IT projects have a beta phase. The mistake many project managers make is to set up a group of users or IT personnel as a beta rollout group without keeping in mind the ultimate project goals. To improve your results, set up two sequential beta rollouts.
Beta 1 is strictly for IT personnel who support the various departments that will be using the system (for instance, IT department liaisons). They will provide your project team with a mix of real-world testing and tweaking while gaining valuable experience and comfort with the new system.
After the project team has had a chance to address the issues from Beta 1, set up the Beta 2 group: users from each of those departments. Preferably, select two users from each department, one who has and one who has not historically been friendly to IT projects. The latter represents the one-fifth of users that provide you four-fifths of your results.
Final Thoughts
The more projects you complete successfully, the more credibility you gain. Delivering high levels of business value will bring you, and your business, the success it deserves.
Are you ready?
Copyright 200
SLOPE INDICATOR A slope indicator is an instrument used for measuring angles of slope (or tilt), elevation or inclination of an object with respect to gravity. Also known as a tilt meter, tilt indicator, slope meter, slope gauge, gradient meter, gradiometer, level gauge, level meter, pitch & roll indicator.KINDS OF SLOPE INDICATOR Slope indicators are available in both manual and digital forms.MANUAL SLOPE INDICATOR There are further two types of Manual Slope Indicators: The Ball Type: In the ball type slope indicator, the ball moves to the lowest point of the curve under the effect of gravity and by reading the position of the ball against a graduated scale the angle can be read. The Bubble Type: In the bubble type, the bent tube is inverted and the bubble moves to the highest point. By reading the position of the bubble against a graduated scale the angle can be read. DIGITAL SLOPE INDICATOR Digital slope indicators have an extraordinary precision; the digital slope indicators use an
And yet, according to a recent survey by Accenture, only 29% of IT projects are considered successful. The average cost overrun is 56%; the typical delay is 84%. After decades spent learning and implementing project management methodologies, measurements and controls, the success rate of IT projects is no better than when a single computer took up an entire room.
Now, despite the need for companies in the 21st century to innovatively embrace technology to compete, CIO’s still find themselves hearing second-hand about their company’s strategy while line-of-business executives embrace the “IT as a commodity” philosophy.
For IT to contribute to a company’s bottom-line, IT executive teams need to ensure project alignment with business strategy. Projects, and particularly large-scale programs of multiple projects, need to be run flexibly, with an eye toward the larger business picture.
The following pages present six straightforward principles – culled from our experience with Fortune 100 companies, ten person firms, mid-sized businesses and not-for-profit organizations – to turn your project into a bottom-line success.
ONE: Use Occam’s Razor
Big projects are seductive. They are also inherently risky, costly, complicated and come laden with poor track records.
William of Occam, a 14th century logician, wrote “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” Albert Einstein restated this as “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Apply their advice. Break up large projects into simpler, smaller projects or phases. Delineate each phase by its ability to provide an immediate and direct business benefit.
This approach has five benefits:
1. Requirements are simplified. With tighter constraints, requirements gathering quickly centers on the most crucial. Time-box the remainder as “nice-to-have.” Done well, requirements will be easier to understand, have clear connections between them, and should be easier to complete.
2. A crystal clear focus is easily achieved when working on smaller, simpler phases.
3. A succession of success can be built by rapidly delivering smaller project phases for people to easily see what they are getting for their money, time and effort.
4. Smaller phases are simpler to manage, perform quality and compliance checks on, fix, tweak or debug, and modify as environmental factors demand.
5. Phased projects are more easily paused (or halted altogether) as business conditions change. Personnel can then quickly pick up other activities.
TWO: Buffer Consistently
Critical Chain Project methodology suggests minimum 20% buffers in your project schedule. Many Finance organizations expect a 10-15% cost buffer over initial estimates on major projects. And in his book Slack (2001), Tom DeMarco points out that to be their most effective, people need approximately 20% slack or downtime during their workday.
Ironically, many project managers set up a 20% buffer in their schedules and a 10% fudge factor in their budgets yet leave their people a 0% buffer. Thus, before scope “creep” or other project changes or problems, the chances for success have been cut by one-third.
Tackle this head-on with third grade math: prior to establishing a budget or plan, assume a 6-hour workday (20% buffer) at 15 project-focused workdays a month (after factoring in vacation, illness, holidays, company meetings, etc.); in other words, 90 hours of project work a month per team member.
THREE: Prioritize the Soft-Side
Because projects are run for and by people, the primary role of the project leader is managing the “soft” people issues. The mistake most IT organizations make is to use the project leader to manage schedules, track metrics, control costs, assign resources, handling reporting and so forth. Instead, our experience has shown that successful project leaders focus first on five tasks:
1. Run “interference” for the project team(s). Projects can quickly become politically complicated. By minimizing the impact of politics on the project team members, the project leader reduces the risk of delay and scope “creep.”
2. Determine the right people to be involved, from project team members to pilot users.
3. Make the final decisions on internal project issues. When money, time and resources are constrained, management by committee is not conducive to tactical success.
4. Focus on specific goal-oriented completion of the project. Projects become imbued with changes, vague expectations, egos, etc. by project members, customers and project sponsors. The project leader must continually ask, “why.” Press for specific answers on how the change, the additional goal, etc. get the project closer to completion. Ultimately, the business needs the project completed to reap the benefits.
5. Perform quality checks at a regular interval on the schedule, the budget and the expectations of everyone involved. These are not detailed-oriented checks, but rather 10,000-foot reviews. Pick 3 random items and delve more deeply by probing with five or more questions each.
FOUR: Communicate to Ensure Accountability
According to Labformatics, one of the top reasons that IT projects fail is lack of responsibility over the project by both project teams and the customers. Take a page from the nonprofit marketplace and utilize three communication tricks to continually draw in end-users and sponsors.
First, build a simple, no frills website focused solely on the project itself. The site should contain the following:
• project goal(s)
• personnel involved
• timeframes (and current status)
• costs and allocations (i.e. “coding of purchasing interface”)
• meeting minutes
• requirements documents
• project team checklists.
You can also post the original business case as well.
Second, regularly distribute a short e-mailed newsletter with quick 8-12 word updates and links to the project website for more information. At minimum, the project update must address two ever-present questions:
• “when are we getting the business benefits from this project?”
• “how much is it costing us?”
Consider using the “5-15” rule: the update should take you no longer than 15 minutes to write and take the reader no more than 5 minutes to read.
Third, set up an unstructured blog environment for the project team members. This is critical if your project is being worked on by virtual or remote project teams, or is in 24-hour shift mode. The goal of the team blog is simple: keep everyone informed.
FIVE: Apply the Pareto Principle
In the 1800’s, Vilfredo Pareto discovered that a small portion of any activity produces a majority of the results. Now called the 80/20 Rule or the Pareto Principle, its application in the IT world is essential to project success. The Pareto Principle is intuitively being applied when you hear the phrase “good enough.”
In essence, if approximately one-fifth of the project will produce about four-fifths of the benefits, then identifying the essential one-fifth of the project will allow you to quadruple your results.
There are two techniques to determine which efforts produce 80% of your results:
1. Ask your customers and your team, “what of our efforts are producing most of the results for you?” Be ruthless; eliminate or postpone every trivial task that does not directly contribute to the delivery of the business benefits of the project.
2. Post the project goals in your office, in presentations, on your project website, etc., and turn attention to them at every question or change. Ask, “how will this improve our delivery of the benefits of this project?”
SIX: Use Two Linear Betas
All good IT projects have a beta phase. The mistake many project managers make is to set up a group of users or IT personnel as a beta rollout group without keeping in mind the ultimate project goals. To improve your results, set up two sequential beta rollouts.
Beta 1 is strictly for IT personnel who support the various departments that will be using the system (for instance, IT department liaisons). They will provide your project team with a mix of real-world testing and tweaking while gaining valuable experience and comfort with the new system.
After the project team has had a chance to address the issues from Beta 1, set up the Beta 2 group: users from each of those departments. Preferably, select two users from each department, one who has and one who has not historically been friendly to IT projects. The latter represents the one-fifth of users that provide you four-fifths of your results.
Final Thoughts
The more projects you complete successfully, the more credibility you gain. Delivering high levels of business value will bring you, and your business, the success it deserves.
Are you ready?
Copyright 2006
There are many software applications available for managing customer interactions, or customer relationship management (CRM). It is a mistake to assume that once you've seen one, you've seen them all, because they are not all the same.One of the easiest ways a prospective client can reduce the risk of failure in CRM implementations is to fully engage and co-operate during the discovery phase.Some prospects are reluctant to provide information about their businesses and keep insisting "I know what I want". Unless a person has actually implemented CRM applications before, knowing what you want and knowing how to implement it in your CRM application are two different things.It is wise to engage in the discovery process, so that the person providing your CRM solution can recommend the best business application that suits your business. During the discovery process, issues that may affect your CRM implementation will be looked at, and training needs of the business end-users will also be discovered and planned. In addition, the consultant implementing your CRM software will understand what your business needs and can then implement your CRM s
This approach has five benefits:
1. Requirements are simplified. With tighter constraints, requirements gathering quickly centers on the most crucial. Time-box the remainder as “nice-to-have.” Done well, requirements will be easier to understand, have clear connections between them, and should be easier to complete.
2. A crystal clear focus is easily achieved when working on smaller, simpler phases.
3. A succession of success can be built by rapidly delivering smaller project phases for people to easily see what they are getting for their money, time and effort.
4. Smaller phases are simpler to manage, perform quality and compliance checks on, fix, tweak or debug, and modify as environmental factors demand.
5. Phased projects are more easily paused (or halted altogether) as business conditions change. Personnel can then quickly pick up other activities.
TWO: Buffer Consistently
Critical Chain Project methodology suggests minimum 20% buffers in your project schedule. Many Finance organizations expect a 10-15% cost buffer over initial estimates on major projects. And in his book Slack (2001), Tom DeMarco points out that to be their most effective, people need approximately 20% slack or downtime during their workday.
Ironically, many project managers set up a 20% buffer in their schedules and a 10% fudge factor in their budgets yet leave their people a 0% buffer. Thus, before scope “creep” or other project changes or problems, the chances for success have been cut by one-third.
Tackle this head-on with third grade math: prior to establishing a budget or plan, assume a 6-hour workday (20% buffer) at 15 project-focused workdays a month (after factoring in vacation, illness, holidays, company meetings, etc.); in other words, 90 hours of project work a month per team member.
THREE: Prioritize the Soft-Side
Because projects are run for and by people, the primary role of the project leader is managing the “soft” people issues. The mistake most IT organizations make is to use the project leader to manage schedules, track metrics, control costs, assign resources, handling reporting and so forth. Instead, our experience has shown that successful project leaders focus first on five tasks:
1. Run “interference” for the project team(s). Projects can quickly become politically complicated. By minimizing the impact of politics on the project team members, the project leader reduces the risk of delay and scope “creep.”
2. Determine the right people to be involved, from project team members to pilot users.
3. Make the final decisions on internal project issues. When money, time and resources are constrained, management by committee is not conducive to tactical success.
4. Focus on specific goal-oriented completion of the project. Projects become imbued with changes, vague expectations, egos, etc. by project members, customers and project sponsors. The project leader must continually ask, “why.” Press for specific answers on how the change, the additional goal, etc. get the project closer to completion. Ultimately, the business needs the project completed to reap the benefits.
5. Perform quality checks at a regular interval on the schedule, the budget and the expectations of everyone involved. These are not detailed-oriented checks, but rather 10,000-foot reviews. Pick 3 random items and delve more deeply by probing with five or more questions each.
FOUR: Communicate to Ensure Accountability
According to Labformatics, one of the top reasons that IT projects fail is lack of responsibility over the project by both project teams and the customers. Take a page from the nonprofit marketplace and utilize three communication tricks to continually draw in end-users and sponsors.
First, build a simple, no frills website focused solely on the project itself. The site should contain the following:
• project goal(s)
• personnel involved
• timeframes (and current status)
• costs and allocations (i.e. “coding of purchasing interface”)
• meeting minutes
• requirements documents
• project team checklists.
You can also post the original business case as well.
Second, regularly distribute a short e-mailed newsletter with quick 8-12 word updates and links to the project website for more information. At minimum, the project update must address two ever-present questions:
• “when are we getting the business benefits from this project?”
• “how much is it costing us?”
Consider using the “5-15” rule: the update should take you no longer than 15 minutes to write and take the reader no more than 5 minutes to read.
Third, set up an unstructured blog environment for the project team members. This is critical if your project is being worked on by virtual or remote project teams, or is in 24-hour shift mode. The goal of the team blog is simple: keep everyone informed.
FIVE: Apply the Pareto Principle
In the 1800’s, Vilfredo Pareto discovered that a small portion of any activity produces a majority of the results. Now called the 80/20 Rule or the Pareto Principle, its application in the IT world is essential to project success. The Pareto Principle is intuitively being applied when you hear the phrase “good enough.”
In essence, if approximately one-fifth of the project will produce about four-fifths of the benefits, then identifying the essential one-fifth of the project will allow you to quadruple your results.
There are two techniques to determine which efforts produce 80% of your results:
1. Ask your customers and your team, “what of our efforts are producing most of the results for you?” Be ruthless; eliminate or postpone every trivial task that does not directly contribute to the delivery of the business benefits of the project.
2. Post the project goals in your office, in presentations, on your project website, etc., and turn attention to them at every question or change. Ask, “how will this improve our delivery of the benefits of this project?”
SIX: Use Two Linear Betas
All good IT projects have a beta phase. The mistake many project managers make is to set up a group of users or IT personnel as a beta rollout group without keeping in mind the ultimate project goals. To improve your results, set up two sequential beta rollouts.
Beta 1 is strictly for IT personnel who support the various departments that will be using the system (for instance, IT department liaisons). They will provide your project team with a mix of real-world testing and tweaking while gaining valuable experience and comfort with the new system.
After the project team has had a chance to address the issues from Beta 1, set up the Beta 2 group: users from each of those departments. Preferably, select two users from each department, one who has and one who has not historically been friendly to IT projects. The latter represents the one-fifth of users that provide you four-fifths of your results.
Final Thoughts
The more projects you complete successfully, the more credibility you gain. Delivering high levels of business value will bring you, and your business, the success it deserves.
Are you ready?
Copyright 200
“Once Upon a Cubicle there was a man who wanted out He knew he couldn’t stay here but still was filled with doubt The thought of no weekly paycheck turned his smile into a pout But ‘A business startup is my heaven’ was all that he could shout!”Funny doggerel, you’d say, but this is the kind of dilemma so many men and women go through every day. The dream of being your own boss and living a more wholesome life versus the loss of security of a paycheck is a huge battle. But free sticky notes or the lack of it is keeping fewer and fewer dreamers in jobs that don’t rock their socks any more.The reasons people cite for quitting mainstream, regular jobs and turning to entrepreneurship are wide and varied. Some want to chase a dream, some want to spend more time with family and some are looking for creative satisfaction. Whatever the motivation may be, most entrepreneurs I meet agree on one thing – starting out on their own has given them more satisfaction- personal and professional, than any other job they’ve ever had.There is the satisfaction of being appreciated, of utilizing one’s skills, ideas and capabilities to one’s direc
THREE: Prioritize the Soft-Side
Because projects are run for and by people, the primary role of the project leader is managing the “soft” people issues. The mistake most IT organizations make is to use the project leader to manage schedules, track metrics, control costs, assign resources, handling reporting and so forth. Instead, our experience has shown that successful project leaders focus first on five tasks:
1. Run “interference” for the project team(s). Projects can quickly become politically complicated. By minimizing the impact of politics on the project team members, the project leader reduces the risk of delay and scope “creep.”
2. Determine the right people to be involved, from project team members to pilot users.
3. Make the final decisions on internal project issues. When money, time and resources are constrained, management by committee is not conducive to tactical success.
4. Focus on specific goal-oriented completion of the project. Projects become imbued with changes, vague expectations, egos, etc. by project members, customers and project sponsors. The project leader must continually ask, “why.” Press for specific answers on how the change, the additional goal, etc. get the project closer to completion. Ultimately, the business needs the project completed to reap the benefits.
5. Perform quality checks at a regular interval on the schedule, the budget and the expectations of everyone involved. These are not detailed-oriented checks, but rather 10,000-foot reviews. Pick 3 random items and delve more deeply by probing with five or more questions each.
FOUR: Communicate to Ensure Accountability
According to Labformatics, one of the top reasons that IT projects fail is lack of responsibility over the project by both project teams and the customers. Take a page from the nonprofit marketplace and utilize three communication tricks to continually draw in end-users and sponsors.
First, build a simple, no frills website focused solely on the project itself. The site should contain the following:
• project goal(s)
• personnel involved
• timeframes (and current status)
• costs and allocations (i.e. “coding of purchasing interface”)
• meeting minutes
• requirements documents
• project team checklists.
You can also post the original business case as well.
Second, regularly distribute a short e-mailed newsletter with quick 8-12 word updates and links to the project website for more information. At minimum, the project update must address two ever-present questions:
• “when are we getting the business benefits from this project?”
• “how much is it costing us?”
Consider using the “5-15” rule: the update should take you no longer than 15 minutes to write and take the reader no more than 5 minutes to read.
Third, set up an unstructured blog environment for the project team members. This is critical if your project is being worked on by virtual or remote project teams, or is in 24-hour shift mode. The goal of the team blog is simple: keep everyone informed.
FIVE: Apply the Pareto Principle
In the 1800’s, Vilfredo Pareto discovered that a small portion of any activity produces a majority of the results. Now called the 80/20 Rule or the Pareto Principle, its application in the IT world is essential to project success. The Pareto Principle is intuitively being applied when you hear the phrase “good enough.”
In essence, if approximately one-fifth of the project will produce about four-fifths of the benefits, then identifying the essential one-fifth of the project will allow you to quadruple your results.
There are two techniques to determine which efforts produce 80% of your results:
1. Ask your customers and your team, “what of our efforts are producing most of the results for you?” Be ruthless; eliminate or postpone every trivial task that does not directly contribute to the delivery of the business benefits of the project.
2. Post the project goals in your office, in presentations, on your project website, etc., and turn attention to them at every question or change. Ask, “how will this improve our delivery of the benefits of this project?”
SIX: Use Two Linear Betas
All good IT projects have a beta phase. The mistake many project managers make is to set up a group of users or IT personnel as a beta rollout group without keeping in mind the ultimate project goals. To improve your results, set up two sequential beta rollouts.
Beta 1 is strictly for IT personnel who support the various departments that will be using the system (for instance, IT department liaisons). They will provide your project team with a mix of real-world testing and tweaking while gaining valuable experience and comfort with the new system.
After the project team has had a chance to address the issues from Beta 1, set up the Beta 2 group: users from each of those departments. Preferably, select two users from each department, one who has and one who has not historically been friendly to IT projects. The latter represents the one-fifth of users that provide you four-fifths of your results.
Final Thoughts
The more projects you complete successfully, the more credibility you gain. Delivering high levels of business value will bring you, and your business, the success it deserves.
Are you ready?
Copyright 200
People start a start a home based business online but 95% don't brake even and 3% of them brake even and the other 2% actually make a few bucks.Why are the numbers spread apart so far. There are several reasons. It could be the company that you are with. It could be your online marketing skills. But what it really boils done to is you. Are you discipline enough to do the daily duties of running a home based business? Have you written down some goals that you want to reach with your home based business?In the mid 19 hundreds a study was done on a graduating college class to find out how many of them had written goals out. They found only 3% of them actually had written down their goals. The interesting part of the study was done 20 years later. They found the same people in that study and found out that the 3% that had written out their goals where better off socially, mentally, and they where worth more financially than the 97% of the class put together. That is clear proof that goal setting could be the different in having a successful home based
First, build a simple, no frills website focused solely on the project itself. The site should contain the following:
• project goal(s)
• personnel involved
• timeframes (and current status)
• costs and allocations (i.e. “coding of purchasing interface”)
• meeting minutes
• requirements documents
• project team checklists.
You can also post the original business case as well.
Second, regularly distribute a short e-mailed newsletter with quick 8-12 word updates and links to the project website for more information. At minimum, the project update must address two ever-present questions:
• “when are we getting the business benefits from this project?”
• “how much is it costing us?”
Consider using the “5-15” rule: the update should take you no longer than 15 minutes to write and take the reader no more than 5 minutes to read.
Third, set up an unstructured blog environment for the project team members. This is critical if your project is being worked on by virtual or remote project teams, or is in 24-hour shift mode. The goal of the team blog is simple: keep everyone informed.
FIVE: Apply the Pareto Principle
In the 1800’s, Vilfredo Pareto discovered that a small portion of any activity produces a majority of the results. Now called the 80/20 Rule or the Pareto Principle, its application in the IT world is essential to project success. The Pareto Principle is intuitively being applied when you hear the phrase “good enough.”
In essence, if approximately one-fifth of the project will produce about four-fifths of the benefits, then identifying the essential one-fifth of the project will allow you to quadruple your results.
There are two techniques to determine which efforts produce 80% of your results:
1. Ask your customers and your team, “what of our efforts are producing most of the results for you?” Be ruthless; eliminate or postpone every trivial task that does not directly contribute to the delivery of the business benefits of the project.
2. Post the project goals in your office, in presentations, on your project website, etc., and turn attention to them at every question or change. Ask, “how will this improve our delivery of the benefits of this project?”
SIX: Use Two Linear Betas
All good IT projects have a beta phase. The mistake many project managers make is to set up a group of users or IT personnel as a beta rollout group without keeping in mind the ultimate project goals. To improve your results, set up two sequential beta rollouts.
Beta 1 is strictly for IT personnel who support the various departments that will be using the system (for instance, IT department liaisons). They will provide your project team with a mix of real-world testing and tweaking while gaining valuable experience and comfort with the new system.
After the project team has had a chance to address the issues from Beta 1, set up the Beta 2 group: users from each of those departments. Preferably, select two users from each department, one who has and one who has not historically been friendly to IT projects. The latter represents the one-fifth of users that provide you four-fifths of your results.
Final Thoughts
The more projects you complete successfully, the more credibility you gain. Delivering high levels of business value will bring you, and your business, the success it deserves.
Are you ready?
Copyright 200
The urban wear market is picking up steam, as its appeal spreads beyond the confines of the urban market.Spreading due to the popularity of rap music, rap inspired video games, and films featuring rap artists, the urban wear market has been steadily rising.Many retailers have been trying to increase their sales by tapping into this lucrative market.While the urban wear market does present many compelling opportunities to make money, retailers need to be aware of the fickle nature of the market.For instance, brands gain and lose their popularity in relation to the level of popularity of the rap performers that market the brand.In other words, for a retailer to carefully decide which urban brands to stock, he needs to keep track of the popularity of the musicians who wear and promote the clothing.By reading hip hop magazines, and following media reports, retailers can gage which urban brands are experiencing demand, and which are experiencing a diminishing level of popularity.For example, when 50 Cent, a well known rap artist, appeared in a major film his clothing line experienced a strong level of demand.
There are two techniques to determine which efforts produce 80% of your results:
1. Ask your customers and your team, “what of our efforts are producing most of the results for you?” Be ruthless; eliminate or postpone every trivial task that does not directly contribute to the delivery of the business benefits of the project.
2. Post the project goals in your office, in presentations, on your project website, etc., and turn attention to them at every question or change. Ask, “how will this improve our delivery of the benefits of this project?”
SIX: Use Two Linear Betas
All good IT projects have a beta phase. The mistake many project managers make is to set up a group of users or IT personnel as a beta rollout group without keeping in mind the ultimate project goals. To improve your results, set up two sequential beta rollouts.
Beta 1 is strictly for IT personnel who support the various departments that will be using the system (for instance, IT department liaisons). They will provide your project team with a mix of real-world testing and tweaking while gaining valuable experience and comfort with the new system.
After the project team has had a chance to address the issues from Beta 1, set up the Beta 2 group: users from each of those departments. Preferably, select two users from each department, one who has and one who has not historically been friendly to IT projects. The latter represents the one-fifth of users that provide you four-fifths of your results.
Final Thoughts
The more projects you complete successfully, the more credibility you gain. Delivering high levels of business value will bring you, and your business, the success it deserves.
Are you ready?
Copyright 2006 John Avellanet
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