Surviving the recession: a Quocirca series

The latest instalment in this 12-part series looks at the importance of technology delivering benefit within decent timeframes. Quocirca's Clive Longbottom writes...

In the many years I have been involved in the technology space - as an end user, as an IT worker and as a consultant/analyst - the one refrain I have heard time and time again is that the use of a certain technology will improve the company's 'time to market'. Unfortunately, this is a red herring of the worst kind - it absolves the company of any need to look to its core processes.

A company with poor processes that implements excellent technology will find that instead of getting to market faster, it just goes out of business faster. A well-implemented technology solution does one thing for the company - it provides a capability that you did not have before. Like having a car, you now can get from point A to point B faster - if you choose to push the car or not to use it, you'll take even longer to reach point B than you did previously.

A technological 'Time to Capability' may seem a semantic argument but Quocirca believes it is a major area where IT project proposals can be seen to have more impact on the business. The large systems integrators may come in with an 18 month project proposal offering the story that when implemented, this solution will provide Time to Market savings of six months or so - but this is no use when your own company's current market life is only 12 months.

Better to be able to go in saying the proposed project will provide a Time to Capability of three months - that is, the implementation will be up and capable of providing value add to the business within three months. Whether this capability is then utilised by the business to garner a better Time to Market is the business issue - one that you need to be aware of but one that's not the end game of your proposal.

Time to Capability is heavily tied in with the Issue Prioritisation covered in Part 2 (http://www.silicon.com/a49901 ) - you need to demonstrate rapid value add through solving individual issues rather than trying to eat the elephant in one piece. By attacking smaller issues that you have identified one at a time - rather than a 'big bang' approach - you can help minimise the Time to Capability on an iterative basis, and the business can decide whether this gain is worth the financial outlay and the interim business impact.

Time to Capability can provide massive differentiation in the market - provided that the correct business processes are in place. Therefore it is imperative that you are sure that your proposed solution is aligned with the actual business issue - and for this, you will need to spend more time with the line of business than ever.

Yet gaining a full understanding of the true business issue is not always easy - your line of business sponsors may not speak the same technical language as yourself. The solution should include changes to the way the company carries out its business - changes to the core processes that will be facilitated and streamlined by the technology you will be providing.

Your emerging solution may raise more issues - the 'If I'd have know it could do that, I'd have asked for this as well' - which if allowed to happen will end in 'feature creep', longer project times and failure to meet expectations on your part. To ensure your project is a success and that the IT department is seen to be a trusted partner again you have to have a degree of iron control over the project from start to finish.

This points to the bigger problem of project management - the area where most failed projects (both IT and non-IT) come a cropper. If you have any worries over your capability to manage projects of this kind then put in for the training - quickly. Any company that says it cannot afford to train its project managers deserves everything that happens to it - for the price of a few days' training, project savings of millions can be made. I would also say any company unwilling to invest in you as a resource in this way may not be the right sort of company for you to stay with.

For Time to Capability to be a winner through your project proposal. Quocirca believes you will need to cover theses areas:

A thorough understanding of the actual business issue or issues being addressed

A full breakdown of the issue(s) into sub-issues

A prioritisation of these issues to find those which have the greatest impact

The means to solve each of these issues in turn

A set of specification documents that state exactly what you are going to solve, through what functionality and in what timescales. These documents must be fully agreed with the project sponsors - at the business and board level as necessary.

An iron will to be able to stop 'feature creep' coming in from the users

And finally, the requisite project management skills to ensure you run the project to time and to budget

None of this is rocket science but with 60 per cent of IT projects failing, failure to adhere to the basics and to solve exactly what you say you will be doing (namely, providing the capability to facilitate different business processes but not defining the actual business process itself) remain key, critical success factors.

Next week: Creating and using Windows of Opportunity

**Quocirca is a leading, user-facing analyst house known for its focus on the 'big picture'. For a full summary of its activities see http://www.quocirca.com, or reach the company's founding directors by emailing quocirca@silicon.com.

Previous Surviving the Recession columns:
Part 7. The use of Game Theory
http://www.silicon.com/a50677
Part 6. Creating a basic Total Value Proposition
http://www.silicon.com/a50475
Part 5. Supply and demand - managing expectations
http://www.silicon.com/a50295
Part 4. The mobile factor - preparing for the deluge
http://www.silicon.com/a50159
Part 3. Knowing the customer
http://www.silicon.com/a50052
Part 2. Prioritising business needs
http://www.silicon.com/a49901
Part 1. It's a recession - save or spend?
http://www.silicon.com/a49733