Delivering Successful Projects

The key to delivering successful projects is planning. Planning can also be done for the pre-project phase to get work done.  Getting into the details of the customer requirements and deriving the scope to be delivered is a key part of the exercise. In one of the projects we did, we had an 11 month project plan and managed to go live exactly on the date planned, without any delay.

In the case of ERP projects where there is fair amount of customization, detailed testing is the key and having independent testers who can test the work of developers, as well as perform SIT, can work wonders. 

The usage of CRPs is very important to get the customer concurrence on the processes and designs provided and have been proved to be very valuable in our case. The relationship with the customer team is paramount and having a good relationships across the board as well as direct lines of communication are extremely helpful.

The importance of getting the right team cannot be emphasized enough from the Project Manager to the business analysts, developers and testers, each of whom have well-defined skill sets and roles.  It is the responsibility of the IT vendor to motivate the team and ensure that any issues are resolved, which can help result in a successful project, delighting stakeholders and earning accolades for both the customer and vendor organizations.