When Hardware and Software Become One: Project Partnerships and Infrastructure

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  CRM   Quality   Requirements Management   Stakeholder Management   Testing/Test Management  

To accommodate the needs of a customer means more than being adaptable, it also means being quick, thorough, methodical and having a host of other skills. That requires us to be both forceful yet supportive when collaborating on an initiative.

In particular, when working on the complex tasks associated with configuring for combined hardware and software product deliverables--and the sharing that takes place between the technologies--it is important to have the right mix of teams in place in order to make project execution a less painful reality.

This is what makes it vital to have a well-tuned and motivated program-tracking and product-control staff, one that stays active on project status and provides project oversight. The program tracking and product control personnel need to be charged with following schedule performance issues, actual versus planned, as well as the associated financial issues (actual expenses in contrast to planned budget).

Distribution of the final project result is then coordinated by virtue of any additional work needed by configuration efforts, but chief responsibility for delivery needs to reside with the program tracking and product control groups. Maintaining quality control and standards is an intrinsic aspect of their role.

Engaging these monitoring and reporting groups makes for a better project experience and helps create the bridge …

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