Observations in enterprise IT projects indicate that participant profiles often fall short of required standards. These include newcomers unfamiliar with enterprise IT complexities, individuals stretched across multiple roles, and underqualified self-promoters.

The following principles ensure the integrity and effectiveness of enterprise IT project teams, ensuring participants are fully equipped to contribute meaningfully.

New to Enterprise IT Projects

Participants lacking enterprise IT experience often find the complexity overwhelming. Enterprise projects demand an understanding of frameworks, industry standards, and best practices. Prior knowledge and preparation are vital to navigating these complexities.

To set clear expectations:

• Relevant professional qualifications: Participants must have appropriate qualifications in their discipline and a basic understanding of the project lifecycle and processes.
• Extensive IT project experience: Years of experience in smaller-scale IT projects are necessary to develop the expertise needed for enterprise-level work. This helps participants adapt to the heightened complexity and scale of enterprise initiatives.
• Competency in roles and responsibilities: Participants should not expect to learn on the job. They must come prepared and fully understand their role and responsibilities to contribute effectively.

These measures help ensure participants can meet the high demands of enterprise IT projects.

Multiple Hat Wearer

In enterprise IT projects, we often encounter individuals like Jack, who take on various roles, including project manager, business analyst, process analyst, developer, and tester. While Jack's broad experience across disciplines may seem beneficial, he lacks formal qualifications. While valuable in some environments, this generalist approach is not ideal for the specialised demands of enterprise IT projects. Enterprise initiatives require a depth of knowledge and expertise in specific roles, which a wide but shallow skill set cannot substitute.

Although individuals who wear multiple hats can be appealing from a cost perspective, their involvement often leads to issues when the project requires in-depth knowledge of specific disciplines. Overlapping responsibilities create confusion and insufficient expertise, which results in poor-quality deliverables.

To support effective project execution:

• Specialised roles: Assign dedicated specialists to critical roles to ensure the necessary depth of expertise.
• Clear role definitions: Define roles and responsibilities to ensure accountability.
• Workload management: Monitor workloads to avoid overburdening individuals with multiple responsibilities and maintain the quality and focus needed for each task.

Ultimately, success in enterprise IT projects depends on having the right people in the right roles with the necessary expertise to meet project demands.

Underqualified Self-Promoters

Enterprise IT projects attract participants from various backgrounds, some lacking the qualifications for effective project delivery. Those with IT degrees tend to meet the rigorous demands of these projects, while others, especially from non-IT fields, may find it difficult to uphold the scientific standards required. However, the appeal of professional-level remuneration leads many underqualified individuals to overstate their abilities and experience.

Self-promotion is typical, where participants misrepresent their skills to secure roles beyond their competency. The following are examples of how this can occur:

• Cross-discipline elevation: Individuals may present themselves as capable project managers despite limited experience, having only managed small teams or specific tasks rather than entire projects.
• In-discipline elevation: Some project managers prematurely elevate themselves to program managers without understanding that overseeing multiple projects requires broader strategic thinking.
• Role inflation within disciplines: Senior business analysts might claim leadership positions, assuming they can oversee business analysis activities when their experience is limited to requirements gathering.

To avoid the risks posed by self-promotion, organisations should:

• Clearly define roles and expectations, ensuring participants understand the scope of their responsibilities.
• Verify qualifications and experience claimed on CVs, conducting thorough checks before assigning key roles.
• Regular performance assessments to ensure participants are delivering according to the expectations set by their claimed expertise.

These measures help prevent project delivery disruptions caused by underqualified self-promoters and maintain the integrity of enterprise IT project teams.

Regularly assessing the competencies of all participants is essential for maintaining a high-performing team. If an individual's capabilities do not align with the demands of their role, making the difficult decision to part ways allows the team to bring in a suitable replacement who can effectively contribute. Each role has a unique impact on project delivery, and having just one unqualified participant can create a significant gap.

When underqualified individuals remain on the team, other members are forced to compensate for their shortcomings. This leads to frustration and can result in potential burnout among the team, hindering overall progress.

Background

LuxeStay Hotels has contracted WiseCrack Consulting to implement a new booking and reservations system using a commercial off-the-shelf solution. The large and complex project requires significant expertise to transition to the new system smoothly.

Participants

The proposed project team includes:

• Tom: A new graduate entering the workforce with a degree in Information Technology. This is Tom’s first role in an enterprise IT project. 
•  Jerry is another new graduate with a background in Business Administration. Like Tom, Jerry is Another new graduate with a background in Business Administration. Like Tom, Jerry is also new to the workforce and lacks practical project experience. 
• Sarah: An experienced project manager from WiseCrack Consulting has convinced the client that onboarding two new graduates is a strategic decision. 
•  Alison: A seasoned Senior Business Analyst and independent contractor responsible for overseeing the analysis and implementation of the new system. She has extensive experience in enterprise IT projects.

Scenario

To reduce costs while staffing the project, Sarah persuades the client that deploying both Tom and Jerry is advantageous, arguing that the cost of employing two fresh graduates is comparable to hiring one seasoned professional.

As the project progresses, the implications of this decision become apparent:

• Tom and Jerry’s inexperience: Both graduates struggle to grasp the complexities of delivering an enterprise IT project. Their lack of practical experience results in a combined productivity output of only 40%, significantly below the expectations for a competent professional.
• Impact on Alison: Alison, Tom and Jerry’s direct report, finds herself spending excessive time coaching them. Rather than focusing on her analytical responsibilities and ensuring that project requirements are met, she is often pulled into answering questions and correcting errors. This shift in focus diminishes her productivity, as she must compensate for the gaps in knowledge and expertise that Tom and Jerry bring to the project.
• Win-Win for WiseCrack: WiseCrack Consulting benefits from turning the project into a training ground for Tom and Jerry and charging out underqualified participants at professional consultant rates. 
• Client’s loss: Ultimately, the client bears the cost of this decision when the project suffers delays, requiring more funding at reduced quality of outputs. 
• While WiseCrack Consulting may appear to benefit, this practice eventually causes reputational damage due to consistently poor project outcomes.

This scenario illustrates that while deploying less experienced staff might seem like a cost-effective solution, the actual impact on productivity and project quality can lead to long-term losses.