In a recent article on project management from FOXBusiness, contributor Michael Woodward spoke about the “growing field” of project management with Mr. Mark Langley, CEO of the Project Management Institute (PMI). In the article, Langley helps Woodward draw the connection between project management and the increasing need for “internal innovation” in today’s challenging business climate. He also identifies the following three key attributes of a successful project manager.  

In this second installment of our two-part blog post on risks in IT system replacement projects, we’ll look at another five risks common in major IT projects. As before, we’ll offer a few strategies for mitigating their potential effects.   

In this first of a two-part blog post, we’ll look at five of the top ten risks common to IT system replacement projects based on our experience with pension administration system replacements. Following each risk, we’ll consider strategies for mitigating their potential to harm (or completely derail) a project. 

The year of 2011 was exciting for Sagitec.  We witnessed a surge in company growth, announced new professional service offerings for change management and system support, and launched our company blog.  We are grateful to the many readers who visit our content every day, and we look forward to further developing our blog in 2012.

In a previous post, I talked about the benefits of Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions. In case you missed it, or you are unfamiliar with the concept, a JAD session is a workshop in which multiple project members collaborate to outline the development of a software system. Typically, a JAD is lead by a single person given the important responsibility of being the “Facilitator.” In today’s post, I’ll offer a few suggestions that will help you JAD Facilitators out there lead a successful session. These are some of the very same practices used to great success by our own Sagitec delivery teams.

Software development projects are complicated, risky endeavors. Regardless of how solid our methodologies, how talented our teams, how tried and true our technology, eventually things will take a turn for the worse. (You’ve heard of Murphy’s Law, I assume?) But just because things are going badly doesn’t mean we need to make them worse. Following are four things that will definitely NOT help save a failing project.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to hear Diane Oakley, Executive Director of the National Institute of Retirement Security, speak at the National Pension Educators Association’s 2011 Conference. In a terrific speech, Diane explained how, since 2008, media attacks on public pensions have risen sharply. Today, legislators, state representatives, and other legal decision-makers regularly tout negative or misleading facts and figures about public pension plans. Whether rooted in "pension envy," misinformation, or some other cause, these attacks have significantly impacted public pension law, regulations, and policies in the United States. It’s time to set the record straight.

If you’re looking ahead to a future IT project, or are undertaking one presently, chances are you’ll be involved in a Joint Application Design session (or JAD, for short). A JAD is a structured, facilitated workshop in which multiple teams of stakeholders (e.g., the IT vendor and customer) collaborate to discuss the development of the desired system, producing deliverables and tracing RFP requirements to business rules. (If you’re not too familiar with the concept, a quick internet search will net you a smorgasbord of information.)

Like all stakeholders in today’s turbulent pension industry, educators are doing their best to navigate a perfect storm of challenges. With incoming waves of new retirees, sweeping legislative reforms, and large-scale IT replacement projects looming over pension funds, the need for effective education has never been greater. This is both good and bad news for the educator. On one hand, it means their skills have never been more necessary. On the other, it means the pressure to deliver is on.

Last week I stumbled across an interesting article on the web that helps us answer the question as to why IT projects fail. Citing long-standing research performed by the Standish Group, the article provides a list of reasons given during a survey of some 365 different organizations. These are listed in the table below: