Why your IT project needs to prioritise process

by Nicki Carruth | Mar 14, 2023 | Technical Assurance

The IT project industry is well known for its complexity. The nature of the work involved demands highly skilled technical expertise, but also careful management and governance to ensure that timelines and budgets remain in check. When the topic of ‘process’ comes up, it’s normal for some to react ‘less than enthusiastically’. And while we understand that implementing business processes might not be as captivating as designing a front end for new software, it’s a mechanism that helps everyone work together, easier. In this article we’re going to explore just why IT projects need to prioritise processes.

Making delivery team communications efficient

Much is being made in the corporate world about the cost of poor time management and incessant meetings. Large organisations are making bold moves to cut out days spent in group discussions instead of ‘on the tools’ work. Having processes in place to determine what meetings will occur over a typical work week helps to focus each group gathering. Ways of working like Agile harnesses the ‘stand up’ – efficient, short and focussed group meetings to discuss progress and planned activity. As a project delivery team, having processes to determine the level of communications necessary for each subject matter area can be a budget saver. For example, a technical question that demands one or two people’s involvement to resolve may be best suited to instant messaging or email where the detail can be illustrated easier (e.g. code) as opposed to in person/group discussions. How a specific feature request is to be approached may need more high-level, strategic thinking and therefore be better suited to in person or video group discussion.

Project managers can help facilitate processes and guidelines around the meeting cadences and communication methods. At the start of a project, it may pay to discuss with the delivery team and agree as a collective the best processes for working.

When processes and ways of working are clear and agreed upon, project teams may find that communications are slick and more time is available each day to charge through their workload. Removing distractions from a project delivery team will assist in achieving milestones on time and within budget.

Relationship Between Programmes and Projects IQANZ

Creating a workflow that avoids double ups

A process for managing the completion of work is crucial in IT. Whether it’s a step by step waterfall method of delivery or the continual refinement and feedback enabled within a Scrum framework/sprint, the team needs to understand what work is being done, by whom, and the progress of that work. Having a well-communicated and understood project delivery methodology in place is a big part of implementing a workable process. Daily standups in Agile help to avoid costly mix-ups as there’s a constantly reinforced agreement between teammates of who is taking care of what. Teams need to ensure that everyone knows when a particular feature or element of the project is being planned, designed, developed and tested – this helps each team member provide useful input at the right time (and when to leave it alone). Along with communication between team members, there should be a central tool or set of tools that captures the progress of the project (or sprint).his helps to clearly outline what is complete and avoid misunderstandings of what still needs to be done. Central tools are also useful when the team is made up of part-time or new contract resources that haven’t been in every stand-up.

Ensuring each phase has been completed to specification

Outlining acceptance criteria is a step that has to be addressed at the start of a project – even if the needs change over the life of the project. Without a set of clearly defined criteria, a phase or sprint’s completeness may be left up to interpretation – a high risk for the project’s progress and budget.

Within the acceptance criteria, a defined process for checking and verifying outputs is essential – this will typically include technical quality assurance and testing (including user acceptance testing) and ultimately sign off by the responsible stakeholder. This process should be clear to all involved in the project and allow for meaningful reporting to steering committees and leadership as required to inform Go-Live/No-go decision-making.

Establishing a robust testing and QA framework

Speaking of testing and quality assurance, it is important for the project to have specific and robust processes for the team to follow. We’d suggest documenting and communicating the testing process around the team (not just to the testers but everyone involved) as this will provide clarity on:

What elements are the most important to test
What the acceptance criteria is
What tools and frameworks should be used to test the solution
What scenarios to test that reflects real-world usage
The time allocated for testing
Who is involved in the completion of testing and test exit sign off

Testing frameworks vary greatly, and different organisations and projects may demand different approaches. It’s up to the project manager and their test lead/manager to determine the test strategy and plan and implement testing that makes the most sense for the solution being delivered.

Governance and reporting keeps a project grounded – and protected

Reporting on the status of a project is so much more than a checkbox exercise. As the old adage goes, knowledge really is power, and with more accurate reporting on the qualitative and quantitative aspects of a project’s progress, the more the business can support it to be successful. Without key information about risks, budget, challenges, resources and so on inside a coherent reporting framework, steering committees and leadership are unable to make informed decisions.

Consider the challenge of the budget needing to be increased. Any leader in the business will want to see the reason for this – what factors have led to additional budget being required? Continual reporting and good governance takes all key stakeholders on a journey and makes requests like more budget less of a surprise – it may even empower decision makers to proactively allocate more budget to ensure the project’s success.

Good governance will also keep a project aligned to its strategic objectives – and not lose sight of why it was started in the first place. This is especially important for projects that are long in duration, but no project should be spared from a rigorous governance process. Considerations to make around the process include:

What detail needs to be captured.
How often new information and project status needs to be reported on.
To whom the reporting should be provided to.
What decisions are expected to be made by the governance group.
The format of reporting.

Process helps in managing resource and budget

A complex IT project should follow a methodology with defined delivery processes – and the personnel involved should deliver within this framework. We often see issues with IT projects when the approach to delivery is being dictated and/or changed by key people when the project is mid-flight. Smaller, low risk projects might get away with a more loose approach, but any large or complex projects (the majority of projects we work with) are at great risk of failure without processes around resource and budget management. It is important to have robust resource management processes in place that add value. The sharing of information and documentation across the team (particularly between contractor resource and BAU teams), the allocation of specific tasks to specific people, and ensuring that each team member has the tools and information to complete their jobs each day efficiently is key. To ensure effective budget management, processes should exist around how to capture budget consumption, burn rate of resource, forecasting budget based on progress and risks, and the progress of the project against total budget expended. Resource and budget are inextricably linked as personnel represent the biggest cost beyond technology solutions for most IT projects.

Creating a solution that can outlast the individuals working on it

Any project in the IT space that relies upon ‘key people’ to be successful is what we’d consider a major business risk. For a solution that’s developed to cater to a core business function such as accounting, customer relationship management, communications and so on, the project is a comparatively short period of time in the solution’s lifespan. Those working on the project will not begin working with the solution until the end in most situations. Even within the project’s lifespan there will be people who start but not finish the project, or contractors who come in for specific deliverables.

Process must exist to ensure the solution can be adopted and adapted by future teams without requiring major investigation. The passing of information and intellectual property can happen on a one-to-one basis, but must be backed up by robust documentation. Whenever a project team identifies an aspect of an IT solution that requires a specific team member to guide, therein lies a business risk.

Developing documentation for using and maintaining the solution

We encourage every IT project to build up clear, accurate documentation and refine this over the development of the solution. This helps both future project team members and operational/support resources to understand how the solution was designed and developed. If refinements need to be made (as is often the case), there’s a source of information to reference. Many organisations hold this information in a ‘wiki’ style information repository, where updates are captured in a central place with the history of development clear for all to see.

Need guidance on your IT project?

IQANZ provides specialist assurance services for technology projects across the private and public sectors. We apply proven assurance methodologies along with a high level of technical expertise to help guide projects and programmes to success. If you’re interested in getting independent, expert help on your technology project, get in touch with our team.