Technology Scorecards: Aligning IT Investments with Business Performance

Chapter 8. Umbrella Considerations

Umbrella considerations are some of the most important life cycle considerations that a new practitioner does not even know about. To ensure the success of the project, you have to know and plan for each one right from the start, even if for no other reason than that they impact the project budget considerably. Clients have asked me to plan and forecast the costs associated with each consideration at the inception stage in order to establish an accurate budget estimate. It is actually the lack of accurate budget estimate that is behind the cost overruns and missed start-up dates.

Change Management

Managing change in today's business environment is part of everyone's job, whether you are in a management, professional, or nonmanagement position. Managing change includes change management planning, understanding stakeholders, risk analysis, and effective communication to support change initiative.^[14]

Change management is the process of developing a planned approach to change in an organization. Typically the objective is to minimize disruptions to the normal flow of activity. Change management can be either reactive—in which case management is responding to changes in the macroenvironment (i.e., the source of the change is external)—or proactive—in which case management is initiating the change in order to achieve a desired goal (i.e., the source of the change is internal). Change management can be conducted on a continuous basis, on a regular schedule ...