Secrets to a successful project scope for SME's

How do you measure success?
It is important to document what will determine a successful project. This is driven by understanding the key objective, this could be; to save money through efficiencies, possibly to result in the reduction of headcount in some areas of your business to allow for more efficient recruitment to enable your business grow in terms of increasing your market share, streamlining operations to allow for investment in machinery and so on … whatever the objective, using it as a measure of success will act as a motivator for all those involved during the implementation and help to keep the project team focused and on track. Assigning key performance indicators (KPI’s) to the project will help you to manage the project successfully. However, this may sound obvious, but make sure everyone understands the KPI’s that you are assigning to the project to measure it’s success.

Understand your business processes and look for improvements
Before you do anything, and this may sound obvious, you must understand your business processes. It is imperative that the project owner talks to employees throughout the whole organisation to understand what they do and the dependencies of other departments. There is a well known saying in the world of IT “the devil is in the detail.” By undertaking this study you may also find ways to improve the existing processes and drive some efficiencies before you even look at software.

Define your requirements
Don’t be ambiguous when you define what you need. Even if this is a “wish list” of what you would like a new system to be able to do, it will help you to evaluate software suppliers on a like for like basis.

Basic functionality
To add basic functionality to your scope is a waste of time. Software has developed enormously in the last 5-10 years and the basics can pretty much be taken for granted. Spend time on the requirements that are unique to your business or that give you the competitive advantage.

Define what is critical through to nice to have
Prioritise your requirements. Use a system that allows you and suppliers to understand what is critical, medium and low priority. You should end up with a balance – if you have the majority of any one of these you may need to think again!

Project management
Don’t under estimate the value of professional project management. This should include; management of the scope, budget and time to implement. If you don’t have this experience in-house you could follow a structured methodology as published by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Or engage with a consultancy that specialises in SME’s such as IT-Project Management, www.it-pm.co.uk. Engaging with a consultancy has many benefits and will help your project to be delivered on time and to budget. Ensure that the cost of a consultant doesn’t spiral out of control and ask for a fixed cost for the duration of the project. Make the best use of their time for example don’t waste their time and your money in areas such as supplier research as this can be outsourced. At the moment there is only one company in the UK that offers this service free of charge. IT-shortlist has an extensive database of over 800 software suppliers at their fingertips and they can deliver a shortlist of suppliers with the best solutions for you to select from.

Employee involvement
Your employees have a significant amount of knowledge and can make significant contribution if allowed to. Involve your employees, not only will they give you valuable input, but you will securing their buy-in.

Internal champion
Even the most difficult projects have become a resounding success due to an internal champion doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Assign you best “can do” person at the beginning of the project to ensure their commitment.

Risk Management
Every organisation has at least one negative voice. Encourage the involvement of your negative people to help you to identify the potential risks, their impact and likelihood of occurrence. Use this information to help you to develop strategies that will mitigate the risks. Not only will you avoid problems you will also get further buy-in and limit the negativity of these employees.

Management buy-in
Ask the management team to develop or approve the measurements of success. Agree the critical path of the project and communicate the development at each critical step. Having been involved in the measurement of success it will be easier for them to sign off each of these steps and will ensure you have a collaboratively successful project.