Getting Past the Application Project

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Applications Delivery   CRM   Information Technology   Stakeholder Management  

A project manager must focus on the project schedule and the scope of the project--but past the finish date, the final product delivered by the project must be utilized by an organization or a person. If that product cannot be used successfully, then the project was not actually successful.

While the project may be over on time and on budget--and even with the scope verified--it will not be helpful to anyone if the application or the product cannot be used by the users or customers that it was intended for. You have to get past the project in order to be truly successful.

Looking to the End User
From the very beginning of the project, the project team must be looking to the end user while designing and developing the application. It is one thing to build a great system with fantastic technology, but if the person who is going to use it after it is built cannot make heads or tails of what is going on in the application, then it is essentially a failure.

This work may involve multiple conversations with the user or looking at the application that is currently used and diving into what is good and bad about it. The end user can help guide the development team into creating an application that is not just fantastic, but useful as well.

Recalling the Vision
Whenever you are looking at the finish line, it can be extremely helpful to go back to the original vision of the…

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.