E-Business Solutions

Control and creativity

IN TRADITIONAL PROJECT management, control lies at the heart of our toolset - managing the time, cost and quality dimensions of the project.

We've all been taught that what you can't measure, you can't control. So we estimate and plan, we monitor our plans, we track our earned value and we manage our risks and issues, and we suck in our teeth when we're handed a Change Request.

In the web world, this approach just won't work. But there are alternatives, which will still deliver projects that meet the business goals. These approaches centre much more strongly on people skills and softer methods of control.

I was reading an excellent article by Phil Davies, head of IT at Wesleyan Assurance Society, in the British Computer Society's Bulletin magazine. The article made several very good points about the way that projects are changing.

One particular point described the challenges of developing a web presence for users who you'll never know. The audience is anyone out there with internet access. How can you deliver a product that will meet the users' expectations when the user base is that diverse and that dispersed?

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