Transform - Make sure you are solving the right problem
I am sure we have all witnessed that the best IT solutions in the world can flop if users do not like and adopt them. To make matters worse, bad press for a new system spreads fast, and you can quickly find yourself defending a perfectly functioning system against its own user community; never a good place to be. During a Microsoft Office 2007 roll-out an administrative assistant decided that she did not like the new look and feel. Did she talk to IT? No, she went and talked to everyone else, telling them the old way was better and not to upgrade! It took the department weeks to get the deployment back on track. So make sure you know what success looks like. Who will this make happy? At what cost? Did the right people define the problem? Was the solution mandated from on high, or did it involve the customer? These may all seem obvious, but it is questions like these that keep you on track. We have talked about iteration, but across the project you need to review with your customers to ensure you are on track. Have their requirements changed? Did you establish how you would handle scope-creep? There are times when what looked good in the beginning does not look good at the end. Also, when you are addressing problems you have tackled before, make sure you are listening for the nuisances of this particular project and that you are not just reusing previous solutions. Make sure you are listening from the start. Often, time spent solving the right problem for the customer will insure that your team is benefiting from the project!
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