Project Management Tips

Money Can't Buy Good Beginnings

Keeping goals modest and breaking down deliverables is key to success

The ancient rabbis of the Talmud explained that, "all beginnings are difficult."

It's an insightful thought, and here's a true story of beginnings. In a large, downtown boardroom, the top executives gathered to discuss a new IT project for their multinational firm. The orders came down from the top that a new e-commerce system had to be implemented within a year to handle all of the company's business. It was a large undertaking, and everyone was brought together to talk about getting it done.

The Chief Financial Officer interrupted the din of conversation by raising his hands and bringing the room to a quick silence. "I would like to tell you all a story," he said, and dropped his hands to his side. "This story is important," he continued, "because it's about another project that we attempted in this company. A large undertaking. A tremendous undertaking. Two hundred million dollars, in fact." He paused and looked from face to face before he spoke again. "And the worst thing about the project, is that it's never seen the light of day." The CFO adjusted his blue tie, pulling on it slightly as if to ground himself to the chair.

He continued to speak, "Two years ago I received a call from the Chief of Technology. He explained that since his hire six months prior he'd discovered that the company had over 300 disparate database systems, each integral to the operation of the company. In addition, he told me that none of these systems could communicate with one another, that there were no conduits between them. We were wasting millions of dollars he insisted."

The CFO got up from his chair, walked over to the refreshment table, and poured himself a cup of coffee. "You see," he said, "I am a skeptical guy and wouldn't believe this new Chief of Technology right off the bat. So I hired a hotshot consulting company to come in and do a full blown analysis of the systems in question." He walked back to his chair and sat down, taking a sip of his coffee.

"After several months of investigation," explained the CFO, "the consulting company sent me a three hundred page document that, to be completely honest with you, was difficult to entirely understand. However, from the gist of its summary, there was confirmation of large scale IT trouble."

The CFO put his coffee on the table, stopped talking, and looked at each of the people around the room. He leaned forward resting his elbows against the boardroom table. "Somehow, the Chief of Technology at the time, his name was Robert M**** was able to convince the company's board of directors that something massive and all-encompassing had to be done to correct the technology situation."

"Why is this story important to the task at hand? Because after spending two hundred million dollars, we've still failed to bring these databases together. We are still far from solving our IT nightmare despite thousands of hours of work, and an insane amount of money thrown at the problem. And what's the message? Be careful to make sure your e-commerce project is not out of control like the database project we have failed to deliver."


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