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Elkera's senior consultants each have over 10 years experience in the planning, design and development of complex dynamic enterprise publishing applications, particularly using SGML and XML technologies.
Elkera's consulting expertise is based on direct experience working with clients and on in house publishing and software development projects. We have witnessed first hand the rapid developments in single source or dynamic publishing technologies over the past 10 years.
Among the many lessons learned in that period, six stand out as the critical factors for success in technology and business system projects:
Clearly define the business goals for the project — Business goals or a vision statement must be clearly thought out and defined in a business case for the project. The business case must be based on a realistic understanding of the problems and changes to be addressed by the project. Goals must be defined in a way that, at the end of the project, everyone involved will be able to assess whether those goals have been achieved. The business case should be developed with input from experienced developers who can help define high level requirements, develop a strategic architecture, evaluate technical feasibility and realistically assess benefits and costs.
Establish a strategic plan — A high level strategic plan must be developed around the initial vision statement. Expert input into planning at this stage will pay dividends throughout the project and for the life of the system. If this is not done correctly, the project will be based on incorrect technical and business assumptions, major tasks will be overlooked or not handled in the right order.
Plan to undertake the project incrementally — Except for very small projects, undertake development incrementally, where possible. This provides early feedback and benefits and it builds confidence in the project within the enterprise.
Require a senior executive project sponsor — The project must have the support of and be actively lead by a senior executive decision maker for the affected business units. It must not be left to mid level managerial or technical personnel to implement for the enterprise. The success of the project (in terms of the defined business goals) will be directly related to the influence, support and involvement of the project sponsor.
Focus on user needs before technology — The project must be rigorously focussed on user needs and business process before technology. Avoid the cargo cult of technology projects. Hardware and software products are only tools to achieve business objectives, they are not solutions in themselves. New technologies should not be applied to manual business processes. It is almost always necessary to re-engineer business processes in order to achieve desired benefits. Allied to this, the project team must consist of users who are assisted by technical personnel.
Allow for detailed requirements analysis — Devote as much effort as necessary to requirements development to ensure that user needs are fully explored before starting design and development. Clear requirements for each component defined by the strategic plan are essential to effective planning, budgeting, development and application testing.
These and other factors can be discovered from most information technology project management books. Unfortunately, they are often overlooked and they are not easily carried out. It is noteworthy that none of them has anything to do with particular technologies or products. It is Elkera's experience that if all these elements are in place, the project will have a very high probability of success. The framework will be in place to enable the enterprise to select and develop appropriate technologies. If any one of the six factors is overlooked, there will be a high probability of major delay, budget overrun or even total project failure.
Elkera's consulting services and development methodologies address these critical areas of project planning. Elkera consultants can assist with:
- strategic planning and business case development
- requirements development for overall systems and individual components
- system architecture development
- application evaluation and selection
- data conversion project management
- DTD or schema selection or development
- content management system evaluation and selection
- acceptance testing
- project management
- user training.
Elkera brings a wealth of experience, technical expertise and business focus to all projects. Elkera will provide innovative solutions and sharpen the focus of your dynamic enterprise publishing project at every level to reduce project risks, minimise costs and maximise the benefits to your enterprise.
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