Good friends regardless of geography and circumstance

I have been very fortunate to have worked with some fantastic people in the last few years, projects are synonymous with a quick turn around of faces and places but every now and again you manage to forge the odd friendship long after the work has gone.

A couple of years ago, I worked with two such people, on an Asset Enterprise Management system, one was the project's process lead and the other was the technical lead and for 18 months we worked steadfastly to design and build a system which now resides in eight Sub-Saharan countries. It was an impressive piece of work, given the time, financial, geographic and cultural barriers which existed, however none of this stopped us from first becoming good "mates" and then delivering on our intentions.

At the end of the project I was asked to compile a paper which had the following by way of "tips":

* Make sure that the solution focuses on all three areas: People; Process and System, in that order, and not just technical delivery
* Adopt a proven project management methodology and stick to it - it adds credibility and minimises potential project risk
* Define your problem space, no matter how long the wish list
* Think BIG but think practically when you define your solution space making sure that you tie it back to your problem space, then lobby for consensus and move on
* Harvest ideas and champions from previous initiatives within the organisation, this is a way of building support and short-circuiting a lot of potential development work;
* Use knowledgeable experts where possible but know that some of the solutions will have to be built up from scratch
* A core small project team of successfully motivated people will drive it home if there is enough space for them to get on with it
* Consult widely with a view of building relationships but don’t get bogged down, as it is often, "easier to get forgiveness than it is to get
permission."
* Be innovative, we documented 30 define meetings which we had over a three week period using mind mapping software instead of writing formal minutes it took two people four hours to complete.
* Training is important, make peace with the fact that you will have to do waves of it.
* Document the material and find creative ways of disseminating it. Remember people don’t really read, so try to keep it interactive, visual and replicable. We used techniques such as
shadowing, desktop videoing, web pages and intranet forums but ultimately still compiled that training manual just in case.
* And finally you have got to be dogged and persevering, a project of this nature could take up to 18 months plus another few post switch-on, to button down the niggles, so make sure that you have your dedicated resources committed throughout.

Later today I give another lessons learnt feedback session but most of these lessons were learnt by three good friends, one of whom I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with, he managed to come down from Aberdeen with his wife to "hang-out" as friends do.

Footnote:
For my best man and favourite poet in this your time of sadness and remembrance we your friends are here to hang-out whenever you need us.