Looking to embark on a significant IT project and want to ensure that you waste in excess of 500K on a failed project? Look no further for an effective how to.
Step 1: Pick a solution. Right now. Google for the latest technologies. Meet with a vendor. It doesn’t quite matter how you pick or justify the solution. You can complete a bit of due diligence if you want, but just pick something quickly and be prepared to stick with it. Send your whole team for training so they understand this new tool in and out.
Step 2: Hold a big demo for your business users showing them the solution. You don’t want to hear what they want unless they understand what your tool can provide for them, right? I bet one of these people will have a problem they’ve been wanting you to solve for years. Let them latch onto your solution. You’ve got a project!
Step 3: Set a go-live date. Don’t bother to figure out the requirements or establish any sort of milestones. Just meet with your project team and get their gut feel. Bonus points for tying it to a significant business milestone, such as a new product launch. Ensure if your project fails, the business will know. Double bonus points for setting the first milestone at least 6 months out. There’s no reason to establish a sense of urgency yet.
Step 4: Skip requirements, start writing code. You can meet with the business manager to discuss his/her goals. Just make sure you don’t get actual new users of the system involved until you have something to show them. Even with six months, the deadline seems a bit tight. You really don’t have time to dig much deeper and deliver.
Step 5: Go live. That’s right, write code and push it live. No testing is required for a failed project, nor do you want to get the opinions of your business team until they can see how it really works in their environment. Make sure you’ve made it impossible to perform a business function that previously worked and you’ve got a sure-fire failure on your hands and with a real likelihood of losing your job.
Of course, this is the extreme, you can do a lot less or a lot more than this and still guarantee failure. But why bother when the path is so simple? 
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By Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg. Laura Brandenburg is an independent business analyst consultant. She is passionate about the BA profession and is committed to contributing by supporting this blog as a forum for business analysts to build on each other's experiences. View more blog posts by Laura (Brandau) Brandenburg |
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Step 6: Always provide a technical solution to any of the client concern or align it with something to do with technology. Never hear what’s the pain area which can also be functional in nature. This possibly can be simple issue, but you provide loads of slides explaining how you can revamp the entire platform. All technology vendors and so called ‘consultants’ are very good at it. This is a good example of seeing how simple things can get complicated.
Gee! That sounds like one of the last projects I was on! Although, the requirements and specs were all written and we had all the resources required, very little was actually coded. $750K was spent on paper-based deliverables! No product was delivered, no testing needed, no project management, equals failed project, lost contract and ruined reputation.