Catch the Madness

  Portfolio Management  

In previous articles this year, I have expressed a general feeling of optimism for the remainder of 2004. Now that we are closing out Q1, it seems like March Madness has spread from a very famous collage basketball competition to the IT world. Activity seems to be way up, and I know the work backlog for myself and my team is growing daily.

As I think about this, it seems to happen every year (although less so in the slow years). I believe there is a driving factor behind this and understanding it may help with resource planning, and in overall business development…

The March Madness Effect

Okay, what is the March Madness effect? I believe it stems from the budget cycles that many of my clients (and I'm sure yours as well) use. Budgets cycles generally run by the calendar year, so that approval cycles tend to run into January and February before all is finally approved and allocated. The down stream effect of this is that in March, the green light is on for starting new initiatives and projects.  

The impact of this is a wave of activity all hitting in March that requires additional attention to pre-sales activity and also additional resources applied to existing projects as time frames are revisited and (managed) scope expands based on the newly available funds. This puts a strain on delivery organizations to make sure that …

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