VIDEO: Hidden-Cost Savings Project Tips

There are fundamental, critical, cost saving elements which comprises any project, that when missed, inevitably causes process breakdown and terrific waste.  This should be well know.  Knowing and applying these fundamentals and strategic rules, how these interact, saves businesses millions in lost productivity and unwieldy deliverables.  The actions covered are especially key for Information Technology program managers, executives, security specialists and architects. From Help Desk to Architects to even CFOs – every aspect of an IT Organization will benefit from knowing and applying these terrifically basic fundamental.

FACT: Project success and savings depend on an understanding and use of these fundamental rules.  Ensure to gain certainty, for yourself, on the particulars of these fundamental rules.

COST SAVING FUNDAMENTALS

Hello!  My name is Shawn May.  I am the owner and principal architect for Dynamic Technical Solutions.

Thank you so much for joining me. Today we will be talking about how to design a successful project, as well as the TWO, most important, elements involved in any sort of IT project – whether building new or troubleshooting an existing.  Knowing these TWO critical elements will help in any project you’re involved in.   Let’s begin.

The first thing we are going to cover, or talk about, is FUNCTION. Whether referring to DESIGN or Function, you can really intermix these two.  Design is analogous with FUNCTION. DESIGN is the center, most critical, element in any kind of project.

FUNCTION & DESIGN GOALS:

• What are we looking to achieve?
• How do we want this thing to work?
• Where do we want to go?

In FUNCTION, or DESIGN, it’s important to capture and define the ACTUAL requirements for these two distinct areas. Let us take, for example, operations; this entire department is devoted to supporting your organization’s staff.

Take for example:

• Operations wishes to lower their costs – How much does it cost to maintain the computing environment?
• Operations wants to reduce how long it takes for an employee to connect to (or setup) their mobile device – get in and begin to be productive.

This would be a FUNCTIONAL or DESIGN requirement. How could we accomplish this?

Perhaps there is an application requirement to deploy and sell a brand new line of shoes. The department wants to build and associate an application for online ordering. This application need to meet certain:

• PCI requirements
• Budgetary requirements and
• Operational needs
• It must also have an online application.
• It must be must also be highly available.

There are certain requirements that MUST be met.  There are also nice-to-haves.  Then there’s CRITICAL – things that absolutely need to be met, happen or be present.

With these varying and different requirements, how do you determine which ones are critical versus not so?  That perfectly resides in your defined FUNCTIONAL requirements set forth.

Understanding your FUNCTION and DESIGN deliverables is absolutely key to help others align with what you are attempting to achieve.

Having FUNCTIONAL and DESIGN requirements properly:

1. documented
2. understood and
3. prioritized remains a critical to any project.

In summary with DESIGN, we have laid out how we functionally want it (e.g. application) to work… We have our security and operations elements. We want to reduce costs (promoting cost savings).  We want to make it easier.  We want to make this highly available. We have a number of diagrams where everything now looks fantastic…

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

Your next significant step of the project involves STRUCTURE, or the MECHANICS. This is a particular phase of the project.

The first phase (covered above) rather dealt with defining FUNCTION, or the DESIGN.

Now you have the second phase which is your STRUCTURE.  That is how you implement the project.

Putting it into practice, or actually use, is really your MECHANICAL step.

This is where you put it into use; where you’re really going to test this thing out to ensure it FUNCTIONS, or works, how you think (or envisioned) it’s going to.  This is where you going to take your theories (from DESIGN) to verify “this is how it actually works.”

Take for example, you have an IT project where you want to make something easier, or perform better, on a mobile device.   This is where you’re:

• Pulling the mobile device out
• Loading the application
• Implementing the security requirements (folding it all together)
• Putting it in the cloud and ensuring it works (as expected)

Unfortunately, not all cases, when you’re dealing with FUNCTIONAL, or DESIGN, do requirements always align to the MECHANICS (structure) or the technology.

Say it needs to be highly available, in these three (3) circumstances.   Perhaps the particular country doesn’t have (or support) those defined options.

A significant cost savings comes by identifying where you run into roadblocks with STRUCTURE.  Where the MECHANICS simply do not work.  It simply does not FUNCTION that way (or the way it was envisioned).  Engineers however are trying to squeeze in this DESIGN element.  They are attempting to make this FUNCTION, or DESIGN, work where is simply does.

STRUCTURE does not always align with DESIGN.

In cases where your STRUCTURE does not match FUNCTION, or DESIGN, requirements…  Where perhaps some element does not quiet work, doesn’t prove-out or fit — maybe in a lab environment, testing etc.  In such a case, you MUST reset back to FUNCTION and obtain alignment.

Really review those FUNCTIONAL requirements.

When you are resetting back to your FUNCTIONAL (DESIGN) requirements – that higher level – always analyze where the STRUCTURE or MECHANICS failed. (Blog: Top 3 – Most Expensive IT Challenges)

Remember, a significant cost savings element (action) is to reset to DESIGN when STRUCTURE has failed.

Rapidly resetting back to DESIGN will save a lot in cost especially when you have engineers in there spinning and spinning their wheels, and frankly getting lost.

Two key ways to ensure a project goes well is understanding your DESIGN and FUNCTIONAL section of the project, and then your actual IMPLEMENTATION, or your STRUCTURE — the MECHANICS.  How does this is ALL fit together.

If your engineers are implementing a solution, and it’s not quite working or it’s going off your timelines, perhaps it’s not hitting certain targets, go back (return) and look at your FUNCTION and your DESIGN requirements.

Summary:

FUNCTION Drives STRUCTURE

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