Reporting on projects: get it right: Insight

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Reporting on projects: get it right

By Vivienne Fisher, ZDNet Australia
March 11, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/soa/Reporting-on-projects-get-it-right/0,139023731,120272731,00.htm

OPINION: Keeping other managers, your own staff and the board in the loop about projects can seem like communication overload. But getting it right from the start could save you from backlash down the line.

As a CIO or senior project manager, it's easy to start getting a bit jumpy if a project looks to be getting off track. At that stage it's natural to start firing off e-mails to figure out where it's going wrong, and to start informing other managers about the problems.

Yet keeping the communication channels open throughout a project can reduce the scramble and e-mail overload when problems do crop up. Ascertaining from the start how often--and what depth of information--to provide to other managers and the board is important.

For some, weekly or fortnightly updates about whether the project is tracking against time and budgetary goals are all the detail which is needed. Other managers may prefer, or require, certain areas to be explained in depth in order for them to report to the relevant people in their departments.

How do you judge how much information to provide about projects the IT department is working on? Is it better to provide less or more detail to other managers?

You don't want to find that providing regular updates prompts other managers to interfere, change technical requirements, or unnecessarily add to the scope of the project. But, conversely, as an CIO or IT manager you don't want to be asked 'why didn't you tell me about these problems earlier?'.

By keeping other departments in the loop it may be possible to identify potential issues earlier, to defuse any conflicts, and make the whole project run more smoothly.

When you're overseeing projects, how do you manage the communication issue? Do you think IT professionals should regularly provide detail about how a project is tracking to other business units?

Please send your comments to Talkback below or e-mail us your tips to itmanager@zdnet.com.au