1. Project Planning is a waste of time!!!
Maurice Perks
IBM Fellow
IBM Academy
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

2. Unless ………….. IBM Global Services 20/11/2018
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

3. Warning………………… This presentation may make you sit up and argue
If it doesn’t it has failed
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

4. The focus of this presentation
The world of Enterprise Computing
The role of Technical Leaders
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

5. Let’s characterise the IT project world that we live in ………….
Many large projects fail
What’s a large project?
More than 1 person for more than 1 day
What’s failure?
Delivery of agreed business function, on time and to agreed budget doesn’t happen
The larger the project the more chance of failure
Lots of supporting evidence
Some say that it is getting worse
Lots of books written on the subject
But it’s not just Project Size it’s also a factor called..
New Stuff
All too often we ignore the real effects of New Stuff
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

6. What’s at the heart of the problem?
We have a optimistic belief that Project Plans are correct
The Plan, like the customer, is always right
Here’s the plan and we have a lot of detail to back up this plan
We’ll deliver you a new system using exciting new technology
83 people will do this
It will take 6 months
It will cost X k dollars
8 months later
We don’t have a new system
134 people are still trying
We have spent 1.5X k dollars
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

7. Call a Review!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What’s the Solution?
Detail is the focus!!!
Stand back is the focus!!!
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

8. Poor Execution of the Plan!!!
What’s the Answer?
Poor Execution of the Plan!!!
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

9. Sorry the Plan is wrong The Answer is Rarely What’s the problem???
We really didn’t understand the difficulty and complexity of some of the tasks
What’s the problem???
Well at least one of them.
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

10. Our IT world is one of rapid technology change
We often don’t realise the effects of this technology change on IT projects in particular on the planning process.
Don’t blame the planners the blame lies with us, the technical community
We, The Technical Leaders, don’t point-out to project planners that New Technology and the Skills are Unknown Subject Areas
Basing plans on current knowledge is often very optimistic
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

11. What should we look for and call out?
Any New Types of Components and/or Techniques and Practices
Examples from the past:
Workstations replacing Green Screens then
Webservers replacing C/S Servers then
Mobiles replacing Workstations
C replacing Cobol then
Java replacing C
IP addressing replacing fixed addressing
Unix replacing proprietary operating systems
Linux replacing Unix
OO replacing Structured Programming
System management
Grid Computing replacing whatever it replaces
Any new component being inserted into an E2E flow that has to interface with old/existing components
Etc.. Etc..
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

12. What’s The Problem?
Simply: we don’t always have the right knowledge and experience about the new stuff:
How the new stuff works
Performance
Recovery
Interface characteristics
How to ‘program’ the new stuff
Design of programming
Key interfaces
Best Practices
How we might manage the new stuff
As a component
Within an E2E system
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

13. What should we, The Technical Leaders do?
We must influence the Project Planning process to make sure that the original Plan takes into account that certain phases and tasks within a project will take longer than we might normally expect.
Because
We lack basic knowledge, there is a learning curve
There are no standard metrics, by definition
There are no Best Practices, by definition
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

14. What are some Rules of Thumb for New Components and Practices
New Components or Connectivity
Performance Metrics often don’t exist for Version 1 of components
Triple the Performance Engineering effort and add special skills
Recovery Characteristics won’t be well-understood
Double the normal recovery design and testing effort
If there isn’t a Red Book (how to install) on the new component and you know that you need one
Double everything!!!!
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

15. What are some Rules of Thumb for New Components and Practices
New Programming environments
Basic Programming Skills will be in short supply and will be raw
Double any estimates, finding or training takes time
Testing tools won’t exist
Triple any testing/proving estimates, mistakes will be made
Good Design Skills and Best Practices won’t exist
Triple any design estimates because you are probably going to have to redesign twice!
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

16. What are some Rules of Thumb for New Components in ‘Old’ Systems
Normally they don’t fit!!!!!!! Why should they?
The answer is always Adapters of one sort or another
Perks’ Law on Adapter Sizing
Whatever you think the effort is to produce an adapter from scratch it will be 10 times too small
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

17. So what must we not do?
We must not sit back and watch, observe, and make learned judgements after the event because this leads to
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

18. Poor execution of the plan
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

19. It leads to people saying…….. Project Planning is a waste of time!!!
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

20. Unless …………..
we, The Technical Leaders, stand-up at the Planning Stage and explain the effects of the ‘New Stuff’
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

21. So what’s the next ‘New Stuff’ for enterprises?
It’s probably….
The real integration of systems and their applications
That is producing the real Integrated Enterprise System
This is going to be HARD
We must say that is going to be HARD and therefore will take time, if we don’t
Planning these Projects really will be a waste of time
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

22. Warning………………… This presentation should have made you sit up and argue
If it didn’t it has failed
Don’t be afraid to stand-up it won’t hurt ….
20/11/2018
IBM Global Services
© Copyright 2002 by International Business Machines Corporation. All Rights Reserved.