As the final post in project management series, let's talk about the common mistakes in BPPM implementation projects. Those common mistakes cause BPPM implementation projects behind schedule, over budget, and not meeting the business requirements.
1. No planning phase: This mistake is usually seen with new BPPM customers. Many new BPPM customers start BPPM implementation by immediately jumping into installation without architecture and capacity planning. 9 out of 10 times, whatever they had installed ended up being uninstalled and reinstalled after they eventually figured out the right architecture and capacity.
2. Not planning the initial implementation phase based on available budget: This mistake is usually caused by unrealistic expectation. For example, one BPPM customer I talked to wanted to complete the entire BPPM implementation on $23K budget. If you scale down the initial implementation phase on both features and deployed servers to fit available budget, you can have a small but working BPPM implementation in production. Once BPPM starts adding values in your business, you have a much better chance to receive more budget for the next phase. A BPPM implementation that had to be stopped half way when running out of budget is a big waste of time and money.
3. No WBS (Work Breakdown Structure): This is usually caused by lack of BPPM implementation experience. Without WBS, it is very difficult to track progress and forecast schedule/budget. Not only you need to know what tasks each work package should include, you also need to know how to verify the completion of all tasks in each work package.
4. Hiring one external resource to implement multiple product lines: Each BMC product line has its unique best practices and complexity. It is rare that one consultant who has top expertise on both BPPM and another product line such as ITSM. Just as you see separate doctors for your dental and vision needs, it is much better to hire different resources to implement different product lines.
5. Hiring multiple external resources to implement single product line: Many people believe doubling the number of people in the project will cut the project time in half. That is not true in BPPM implementation. First, more resources increase the number of communication channels as the number of communication channels = n*(n-1)/2. More importantly, due to rapidly added new features and the uniqueness of each IT environment, 'road bumps' are inevitable in your BPPM implementation. Each 'road bump' can delay your project in several days. When you have multiple external resources, each one of them needs to go through the 'road bumps' individually. Having a single external resource can minimize the delays caused by those 'road bumps' thus minimize the total number of man-hours (cost) to complete the project. It is better to use internal resources for on-demand help such as PATROL agent deployment than hiring additional dedicated external resources.
6. Completely hands-off when outsourcing: Outsourcing is a great way to jump start your BPPM implementation project. But outsourcing is not a hands-off process. You must be proactive in requirement analysis, risk management, and knowledge transfer. Remember that your outsourcing organization has different goals and priorities than yours. And your organization is ultimately responsible to see the positive ROI for your BPPM implementation. Perform each milestone inspection before moving forward in your BPPM implementation. If you don't have BPPM expertise in house, hire an expert from a 3rd party to help perform milestone inspection.
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