Build leadership, sponsorship & ownership

Any project can have a profound and dramatic impact on its users. As issues and problems arise, it is important that there are key people who are on point for delivering a successful project. From The Iona Group, an Account Consultant will have overall responsibility for the successful delivery of the project. We recommend that the Account Consultant have a counterpart from the client who understands the project, the potential problems and can play a pivotal role in resolving issues as they arise.

Plan for the work in discrete “chunks”

It is critical to plan and manage the work in sufficient detail in order that budget and scope be well-managed and potential problems surfaced quickly. Early in the effort, we recommend that the client and The Iona Group conduct a joint planning effort and develop common expectations regarding the definition of a successful project and how best to deliver those expectations for success. Typically, the success expectations would include scope, schedule and budget along with quality expectations.

Build in quality

The process for delivering a quality end-deliverable is critical to the ultimate success of the effort. As with any project, The Iona Group inspects for quality after an end-product has been developed. In fact, one of our key tenets is that we are continuously improving and refining the process to build in quality throughout the entire process. We don’t want to just catch quality problems at the end; we want processes to be in place throughout the development which build in quality from the earliest stages.