INNOVATIVE ICT PROJECTS: OBSTACLES AND BEST PRACTICES

In dealing with IT projects, with a certain degree of complexity combined with a significant innovative component, we must go through at least 3 phases:

(1) from ideas to proof of concept (PoC),

(2) the management of the experimentation, through PoC,

(3) from PoC to fully operational project.

In each of these phases, attention must be paid to some critical issues and to some common sense precautions, which are peculiar to each phase but also extremely useful for the success of the subsequent phases.

The success of the first design phase could be hampered by a low corporate interest, by a merely technical involvement in the PoC objectives and by the difficulty of the business area in understanding the usefulness of the project results. The advice we can give to overcome these first difficulties is to immediately seek firm support from the medium and high levels of the client company, to identify a cross-functional project team people who can act as a glue between different sectors – often speaking different languages ​​(eg IT, Business, Legal) – and to clarify to the business user how and what possible results could be useful to their competence processes.

The success of the second phase of experimentation of the PoC could be hampered by too limiting technological choices in terms of objectives, by an excessive slowness in achieving results and by a corporate culture unable to accept any failure. In this phase, particular attention must be paid to the use of optimal technologies in terms of scalability, costs, performance and above all technological maturity. It is also advisable to use solid Project Management methodologies useful for identifying milestones, defining KPIs and respecting release times. We remind you that the growing involvement of the user in a cross-functional context can already be considered a success, since it often allows to direct any strategic choices in a broader corporate logic.

The third phase of the implementation of the fully operational project always clashes with the user’s resistance to change, often with the difficulty of integrating the new system into consolidated business processes and more rarely with some performance crisis of the system when it is fully operational.

If the indications proposed in the two previous phases have been followed, we will quickly overcome the performance problems, since both the technological choices and the involvement of the IT area will be facts already shared and consolidated. The interest, from the first hour, of the business area will help us in the integration of the new system and increase the capacity of a possible reorganization of the processes. Particular attention to the user experience, the growing involvement of the user, already from the second phase, combined with a constant information and training activity will allow us to overcome that resistance to change, typical of the introduction of each innovative project, at the corporate structures consolidated.

Regardless of the technologies, methodologies and best practices, the people involved in the project still make the difference. In fact, it is always thanks to their professionalism, availability and positivity that project success can be achieved.

ACTION ICT

ACTION ICT is a young, dynamic and innovative IT company. It operates, both nationally and internationally, offering professional skills and design solutions in the ICT field to medium and large businesses. Our highly skilled know-how is housed in three expertise specific departments: ACTION DATA (Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence), ACTION APP (Web & Mobile Application) and ACTION IOT (Internet of Things and Robotics).