The IT Project-Tracking Database: Keep Your Key People in the Loop

via E-Commerce Times

A project-tracking database should not just be a nominal entity that exists for the sake of existence; rather, it should contain some key attributes that every person in the company can draw important conclusions from — and use them to form the basis of key decisions that impact not just the project itself, but also the overall vision and direction of the company.

Information Technology is a project-centric industry. Every task is either performed as a part of a project or constitutes rollup toward creating a new project. No individual, organization, department or company can escape the rigor of discipline and perseverance that project management enforces as prerequisites for success. However, information Technology often receives a bad rap for the relatively small number of successful initiatives as a percent of the total initiatives launched, compared with other departments.

Technologists are viewed as inherently more disciplined — and more capable of thinking and planning in a structured manner — than their “non-technical” counterparts. I believe this classification is unjust. No matter how trained the human mind, it still cannot replace the uber-productivity tools that assist project discipline today. Initiatives fail mid-stream or fail to take off not because they are not good initiatives, but because of the improper amalgamation of the prowess of the human mind with the appropriate technology (read tools) that it has created for its assistance….