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The
project team may need to be relieved of other duties
One of the lessons learned that has come through again and again from
these companies is that it is likely that the Project Manager and
the team will have to be relieved of their regular duties. When planning
a project, it’s essential to accurately assess the workload of
managing an eBusiness Project. Typically this is significantly underestimated.
The plan then needs to address this issue by ensuring that the proposed
Project Manager is “back-filled” or replaced while he/she
is dedicated to the project. Obviously the same process needs to be
considered for each member of the team: what’s the likely workload
and who will take on existing responsibilities?
Jimmy Dalton, the Administration Manager of C&D Foods was a key
decision-maker of the eBusiness project at the company. Jimmy mentioned
a recent report he had come across that recommended allocating three
days of staff time to every consulting day you purchase. C&D Foods
did not have the resource in place to do this. It was also felt that
insufficient internal resources could offer suppliers a convenient
excuse for failing to deliver.
Combilift had a similar experience. At the start, Colin Gray, the
IT Manager was not working full time on the project. The implementation
took more of his time than was originally thought. The learning was
that a project like this needs a fulltime project manager from the
start in order to ensure successful implementation. It is easy to
underestimate the resource requirement and then difficult to make
up time later. So a key part of the planning process involves releasing
the Project Manager and the team from existing responsibilities.
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