Here is a humorous take on on a top 10 Implementation Best Practices, we’ve all been there and we hope you see the humor and best practices as a result:

1. Encourage nearby people in the field of “Sales” to set project deadlines for the implementation. We find their ability to process complex project dependencies to be at its highest on the golf course, perhaps even the 19^th hole.
2. Ensure that project documentation is either non-existent or so abundant that no one could possibly read it all. Either one of these scenarios allows project team members to think freely and creatively. Having an adequate level of documentation causes creativity and brilliance to be stymied. Inevitably, each individual’s efforts will come together in a magical fashion. Count on it!
3. When looking at the System Development Life Cycle steps (Analysis, Design, Construction, Testing, Deployment…but everyone knows that), skip Analysis and Design. They cost money and paperwork is boring. It also causes a natural peer review culture to develop and we all know that we should never critique each other’s work.
4. Do not start using the solution until every single possible risk, concern and issue has been mitigated to its worst case scenario end. Just because a significant earthquake hasn’t hit the Mid-Eastern United States in the past 50 years doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen next week. Spend A LOT of time and money worrying about this and planning for it.
5. Do not solicit feedback from your eventual end users or “customers”. It’s usually hard for them to speak in the exact same semantics/terminology that technical people are familiar with so it’s often more expedient to just imagine and assume their requirements.
6. Ensure that the project has zero intermediate checkpoints and zero deliverables. Checkpoints and deliverables seem to have the same negative impact as documentation – see #2.
7. Methodology Smethodology!
8. When customers request something new, especially when it is an unusual, one-off request, always, ALWAYS say YES!
9. When visualizing how you will manage the scope of your implementation, imagine a youth league soccer match. Many of the players are focused on the ball, which keeps squirting away from the pack but they keep after it and all try to kick it at the same time; Sullivan is picking weeds; Aidan is running away from Sally since she wants to hold his hand. But everybody keeps playing… even when the ball goes out of bounds or when the time expires. Everybody has fun and everybody wins!

Ok, I concluded before I reached 10.  Lining up with the objectives of the business is the fatal flaw of IT that we are at a tipping point to change this year with the service provider explosion and cloud computing as catalysts.  Keep one eye open as you look over your shoulder to those who know how to measure business services.

Kevin