Taking the Time to Do it Right

It’s that time of year again.

Every fall, we have clients that want to push a project through before the end of the year. Maybe some extra budget was found somewhere, or perhaps a last minute project needed to get slotted in before 12/31. No matter what the reason, make sure that you have enough time to complete the project successfully!

When considering enterprise software selections and implementations, giving yourself a reasonable amount of time to reach your milestones as well as project completion is often a secondary consideration. Projects can usually be compressed to an extent, but remember that project risk begins to rise rapidly the more timelines shrink.

SoftResources can help with this, bringing our proven selection processes and project management skills to bear, however we often find that we can move much more quickly than our clients. If you find yourself under pressure to complete a software selection and implementation project quickly, we can assist in setting the proper expectations to help your upper management team make informed decisions. Nobody wants surprises!

Some things to remember:

• Project time compression = increased risks
• Ensure that you have appropriate resources available
• Those resources must have the bandwidth to fully contribute
• Don’t forget the holiday season and vacations
• Consider reducing the scale of the project, and/or breaking it into phases
• Software vendors are very busy, and scheduling demos can be challenging
• Exercise proper Change Management – you may not be the only one in your organization with last minute projects!

Not taking the time to do it right opens the doors to enormous operational risk. At the end of the day, you want a successful software selection and implementation. Taking the time to do it right is absolutely critical!