I never understood why people treat IT projects as simple on-off events.
Maybe it’s a matter of perspective.
In my career, I’ve suffered from too many instances of technical teams forgetting that they have to train the people who need to use the thing they spent all that time developing.
It’s too easy to focus on getting the thing turned on.
It’s too easy to forget that these tools are only as valuable as people use them.
It’s too easy to underestimate the impact of the new solution on the end user.
Especially when it is supposed to be “intuitive.” How often have you encountered a truly “intuitive” application?
Without exception, a project is a change initiative for someone in the organization.
Even your back-end wiring projects are a change initiative. The end users, in those cases, are the technicians who have to maintain and operate the new infrastructure. They need to work with any operational changes that occur as a result of the new wiring. They also need to be able to communicate the new capacity and limitations to engineers for other projects. They may discover unintended changes too. Maybe that new wiring is tastier to mice.
They need to work with any operational changes that occur as a result of the new wiring.
They need to work with any functional changes that occur as a consequence of the new wiring. Has the wiring been re-routed? Are the end-points still the same?
They also need to be able to communicate the new capacity and limitations to engineers for other projects.
They may discover unintended changes too. Maybe that new wiring is tastier to mice.
The new wiring is, unavoidably, part of a larger system. How does that new wiring impact your operational applications? Are those applications still receiving the signals they expect?
The technicians may or may not need training. They will, however, need time to absorb the change. They need time to observe and identify the new behaviors in their re-vamped system.
The staff operating any other system impacted by the wiring change also need the time to observe and identify the new behaviors in their re-vamped system.
A change anywhere in an organization, even if it seemingly does not impact the business, impacts the business organism.
I am heartened to see that the project management community is starting to recognize that all projects are change initiatives of some sort.
My personal goal is to make sure that any project I am leading continues to accommodate the activities and time needed to help that change stick.
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