5 Signs Your IT Project is Doomed

Many small businesses successfully operate under the careful watch of a dedicated owner and organized management team. However, as businesses begin to grow, you may lack the workforce or knowledge to accommodate such success. As a result, certain projects, especially those related to IT begin to fail. How do you know when additional help is needed? While these do not always indicate problems, if your project has some or possibly all of the following characteristics, your future project may be doomed.

Inadequate Project Planning: There may be no plan. If there is a plan, perhaps it’s not well thought out, too optimistic or missing key parts. A successful IT plan needs to be detailed to the last step and must address all issues that may arise.

Scope Creep: Are new features added every time the team meets with management? Are expectations growing larger than the team can realistically meet? The dreaded scope creep will increase the weight of a project until it crushes all involved.

Insufficient Manpower: Management often forgets that IT staff has duties besides the project at hand. Without attention to manpower, the project can easily take second or third place to more pressing issues. Without adequate staff or even outside help from a professional San Diego IT consulting company, milestones will be missed, pushing the project far beyond agreed-upon due dates.

Lack of Testing Strategy: The change has been implemented and everything looks good. Engineers now pat each other on the back and go home, right? Just wait until Monday morning to see how well that works out. Everyone involved with all hardware and software that this new project touches must in involved in formulating a testing plan and they need to be in it from the beginning.

No Rollback Plan: Overconfidence is a killer. If everything else goes perfectly, what happens if the planned fix or implementation just doesn’t work? A key part of any project plan is figuring out how to back out if these are issues. The rollback plan must be defined well ahead of time, not figured out at the last second when everything is already broken.

These characteristics often cause even the best IT projects to go down in flames. If you see any of these in yours, move fast to mitigate them and you might be able to salvage your project before it’s too late. Whether you’re in the midst of a possible issue or have one on your hands already, contact the computer consulting experts at Syndeo. We can help you create plans to move forward successfully and have all the tools and experience to help you mitigate any that have already occurred. Call us today to schedule a free consultation.