Queen\'s Medical Center, Nat Public Radio, Worldspan, anda Others: Your IT Proje
ID: 416168 • Letter: Q
Question
Queen's Medical Center, Nat Public Radio, Worldspan, anda Others: Your IT Project Has Been Backlogged REAL WORLD CASE Saill, application demand remained. There may have be wants some shiny new piece of technology Doctorsless developent during the years when compun anel nurses who have seen a new pharmacy manage focused on survival and keeping costs down, ur nis were veryone at The Queens Medical Center in Honolulu ment system demonstrated at a recent conference thinkhe had their wish lists," says Stephen Rood CC ar" hospital should have it. An administrator wants his depart Technology an IT consulting firm that adviv ment to have PDAs for wireless access to e-mail. Someone midsize companies. Now, those needs are 0 dlse wants a hospitalwide dietary management system but again, fueling CIOs' concerns about doesnt have the budget to fund it. All of these people want CIO and vice president of IT Ken Kadla to get it all for them. to two factors: the source of the demand are open any backlog boils dow projects How one defines and deals with Holstein identifies two differest type Yet before he even thinks about eking new systems out of his S13 million annual operating budget, to contend with the 30 projects he has going on right now. He's yearning for) and a backlog of commitment (projects u in the middle of upgrading the hospital's network and de- Kudia has to of backlogs: a backlog of desire (applications that uses a approved but not started). CIOs need to pay attentice t place the seven different systems that make up his hospital radar screen, "they perceive there's a backlog because the t information system. Meanwhile, he's trying to finish a docu shop can ment imaging project begun back in 2002, for which funding has been scarce. "CIOs are being bombarded,"he supys Theres says, "expectations have been set and not fulfilled. It mayb Hes due to re both. If internal customers can't get an IT project on a Co When projects have been promised but not delivered be that an IT organization hasn't planned properly, or due 't do what they want. Holstein says. a pent-up demand for Kudia isn't alone. According to "The State of the CIO nagers aren't tracking projects well, or that developers are 2006, an annual survey by CIO Magazine, demand for ITis taking time to assess the ins and outs of a project. Whutever back with a vengeance. It's almost like the late 1990s, except the reason, users have not gotten what they were promised that what's missing now is the money, staff, and late-night takeout to deal with today's demand. In turn, the requests for spectrum of projects that IT is currently working on but has IT projects are piling up. CIOs say that managing this ap not finished, in addition to the ones ready to go. Powers has plication backlog is the number-one barrier to their job efa list of 100 projects at Worldspan that have funding and fectiveness today, regardless of industry or company size One way to look at the backlog is to consider the whole that IT has started. Outside the top 100 are projects that How CIOs manage this burgeoning demand has a direct on deck. "When you finish (project] three, you bring in impact on whether or not business leaders view IT as re- [project] 101," she explains. If she doesn't have the right suf sponsive to their needs. "Any CIO who sets an expectation with the right skills available for the next project on the lis that something will get done-and it doesn't-will be com- she mitting career suicide," says Bob Holstein, CIO at National about one year's worth of work. But because we prionitas Public Radio. The challenge for CIOs, then, is that may skip to another. "We tend to have a backlog of every two weeks, some items never make it to the active ls ensure with to ensure changing business priorities, to manage business-side expec- tations, and to control new sources of application demand No matter how good CIOs are at keeping a grip on backlog, ever-shifting business priorities s miore way you can in shake up the IT agenda. One of the toughest tasks for CIOs for resources widh the terpret this problem is that users have a lot more apprecia tion of whats possible," says Holstein, "Or that the technology world has moved very quickly, and those business units want more, and they want it faster is to align the jumble of projects vying company's strategic needs. In a fast new -paced basiness dlimate those that come from the top tloor--scream for attention. "They can also come about external factors that Whatever the source of the application backlog. CIOs quite innocently, Holstein says, due to should follow this cardinal rule. Don't complain; nobodycause the business climate to shift. "What was a top especially your CEO-likes a whiner. "I tell my staff, 'Youbecomes priority number 10." can't be a victim," says Susan Powers, CIO of Worldspan. I don't accept the victim mentality. major contributor to the application backlog has To some extent, backlogs have always been around be- Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA regulations. IT has to projects, such as investments fo cause users have always cried for the latest applications. Ten those projects by set dates, and in many cases, these years ago, during the Internet buildout, everyone got whatture projects require substantial IT resources. they wanted. Then Y2K put the brakes on many less-critical Holstein, implementing compliance projects Perhaps that started some of the backlog." Kuda farther down the to-do list. At Worldspan, Powers Invariably notes pashes ochers says. Then came the dot.com bust, 9/11, and bad times for compliance-related projects aimed to improve how the company prioritines is nExplanation / Answer
1) The CIO has the alternative of either going on to finish the project as it was already planned in spite of that being obsolete, modify the project charter and its deliverable to ensure that it remains relevant or scrap the project to save time and resource spent on the project. If the project can be modified to suit current situation, then it is worth pursuing the project and finishing it with subtle changes to make it relevant. In case the project has become absolutely obsolete and irrelevant, then it is only prudent to scrap the project in order to save the precious time and resource of the company.
2) The statement is true as in a big organization, there ae several demands from different functions for various enhancements or deployment of new applications to increase productivity and efficiency. However, given that any IT team would have finite amount of time and resources available, there is a constant pressure to prioritize things and in this process, some of the applications cannot be delivered and remains as a backlog which the organization has to manage to live with.
In order to effectively deal with this situation, IT executives should do the following:
3) The approach taken by Susan is an appropriate one as it ensures that the IT resources which are critical and is short supply to deliver the required applications are scheduled and prioritized in an efficient manner.
By ensuring that the IT team is a valuable resource, they get to work on those projects first which are of absolute importance for the company and the other projects are stalled. This ensures a natural process of prioritization and scheduling which ultimately works well for the company as in spite of a backlog, at least the most important applications are rolled out as per plan.
4)
IT is a different department than finance or marketing as it is a critical support function which is catering to the requirements of various functions. They are also facilitating to make the operations more efficient and the challenge they are facing is that the paradigm in which they are working keeps changing because of change in strategy and change in technology which other departments don’t have to contend with. Also IT requires human resources to be highly qualified with advanced knowledge in computer programming and thus acquiring resources takes time and effort which is relatively lesser in other departments.