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"That does take time away from coding, but [when coders] understand directly from the user what the project goals are, they do a much better job," he says. "It's a sacrifice that has always paid off for us."
A deep understanding of the business is vital for IT at Wall Homes, Brimberry says, because construction managers in each major city have the right to manage their work as they see fit. For that reason, it's important for systems to be readily adaptable to changing and sometimes conflicting requirements, he says.
Managing Projects on a Budget
While IT managers at companies facing robust growth in 2008 are likely to be challenged by stepped-up demand for projects, those experiencing financial uncertainty or retrenchment have a different sort of problem, says Danny Siegel, director of worldwide technology engineering at Pfizer Inc. The New York-based pharmaceutical company's sales have been flat for four years, and it has seen recent steep declines in the sales of some of its major drugs.
The problem at such times is that the business units that use IT have cut staff and are facing budget squeezes too, so they are less able to provide vital support for IT projects, Siegel says. "So the project manager goes to the customer groups and says, 'Help me define what we are trying to do,' and the customer group says, 'Thanks for asking, but we have no people.'"
Still, Pfizer has managed to sidestep a shortage in project management support by outsourcing most of its IT. What was once project management has morphed into vendor management, Siegel says. The job of internal IT managers has increasingly become one of setting standards and ensuring consistency and repeatability across projects.
"Now it's a matter of saying, 'Here are the tools, here are the platforms; go make it happen,'" Siegel says. "We have stopped managing our vendors at a project level. We have started certifying them at a vendor level, saying, 'We are going to audit you, but we are not signing statements of work that say, for example, that over the next six weeks you are going to deliver the following three things.' "
Managing IT projects has never been easy, but a company has an advantage when rigorous project management principles already pervade its operating units, as is the case at PCL Constructors Inc. in Edmonton, Alberta. The basics of budgeting, planning, scheduling, workflow tracking and cost control are ingrained in the work practices of the people constructing bridges, buildings and airports at PCL, says Brian Ranger, the company's general manager for systems and technologies.
PCL didn't always have strong IT project management, Ranger says, but the rest of the company came to demand it. "Our business [managers] used to be frustrated that they couldn't hold us accountable to schedule and budget," he says. "But over the past two years, IT has gotten the project management religion and now works with users on terms they understand. We are trying to operate like the business."
To help develop better project managers, Ranger dispatched "key lieutenants" to the Project Management Institute (PMI) to take courses that would lead to Project Management Professional certification, a step that costs about $6,000 per person. "It's expensive, but well worth it," he says.
But all IT staffers get some PMI training - at least enough to introduce project management concepts, which apply to both construction projects and IT projects, Ranger says. "I want everyone to understand these principles and how they work so they can be part of them," he explains.
But IT consultant Glen cautions against assuming that project management techniques that work in largely mechanical arenas, such as construction and manufacturing, can be readily applied to IT. "IT project management is part science and part art," he says. "But we, as engineers, have the bias that we can engineer solutions to fundamentally human problems."
Glen offers this advice to project managers: "Look for flexible minds, and beware of people who believe they know the answer."
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