InformationWeek

Choose Your Allies With Care

Project directors from business units can be dreams--or nightmares

By Herbert W. Lovelace
Issue column appeared: July 8, 1996

One of my rules is that a successful project always needs a director chosen from the business community. This approach works really well. In fact, I can certify that it has helped me beat the longevity odds for CIOs. From a CIO's perspective, it is an excellent way to communicate to your peers that you want to work with the business units and have no Machiavellian designs on their turf, or at least none t hat you want to push at this time. Beyond that, a good project director from the business side can be a real asset to a project.

The good project directors who have come from outside my IS shop have made sure that users are involved, project objectives are consistent with those of the business, and key issues that stand between the project and its success are brought to the surface. They are an honored group in my personal hall of fame.

The bad ones are another story. They come in two flavors. The plain vanilla types know nothing and won't admit it. Instead, they delegate everything except attendance at review board meetings to a lackey from their organization, or worse, to an outside consultant who whispers in their ears about the supposed plots of those who would thwart or embarrass them. In general, as the project starts to stagnate, IS and user group workers silently bond together and get the project done--although late and over budget--in spite of the designated leader.

This type of incompete nt adds no value and does nothing but get in the way. But the second flavor of bad project director is considerably worse. Thesefolks think they have been appointed kings, benevolent or otherwise, and must continuously prove themselves worthy of the crown.

Unfortunately, they feel that by virtue of their appointment they have become technical gurus and planning visionaries, able to master every intricate detail of a large project. They try to do what has taken others 20 years to learn, while studiously avoiding the activities for which they were hired. As a result, they foul up the technical details and project planning, while the critical coordination necessary to ensure that a project meets its objectives goes neglected. Important nuances of business strategy are not identified, and key decisions are not resolved.

Justice?
A few years ago, when we put in a new general ledger system that would affect the workload on our business units, I made a mistake and pushed for the appointment of on e of Gornish's direct reports as project director. I thought the guy was good--he was always talking about the importance of teamwork--and since he worked directly for the CFO, it would mean smooth sailing. Instead, this turkey caused lots of problems, getting into every detail except those that would help the team. The implementation people managed, after much pain, to get the job done.

The predictable happened. This guy created enough chaos so that upper management took note of the turmoil. On the premise that if a job goes smoothly, it could not have been that hard, they were impressed with his accomplishment as project director and promoted him to head of one of our business units. And there he sits today, sharing with all who will listen the importance of controlling every detail of technology projects yourself. Such is life in a big corporation.

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