Enterprise IT project success depends on a deliberate hierarchy of influence: people first, then process, with technology in a supporting role. Each element contributes to delivery in the following way:

People: Competent teams deliver project outcomes. Delivery requires specialists with expertise in disciplines such as project management, solution architecture, or business analysis. Role uncertainty—where responsibilities overlap or remain undefined—creates delivery risk. Mismatched skills, such as assigning systems analysts to business analysis roles, result in technical design activity rather than business requirement definition. Effective teams match capabilities to delivery needs to support cohesive execution.

Process: Structured processes direct team efforts. A coherent strategy, quantified objectives, defined scope, realistic timelines, and a delivery model that suits the project context provide the necessary framework. In the absence of these, project work fragments and teams adopt inconsistent approaches, leading to duplicated activity or missed deadlines. Execution breaks down when inexperienced participants define approaches that do not reflect established practices.

Technology: Tools support delivery when used by capable teams within structured processes. Platforms such as project-tracking software or requirements management tools can reduce administrative effort, but tool capability remains secondary to professional competence. Technology cannot compensate for weak planning or substitute for the ability to produce clear requirements. Prioritising technology above people or process does not improve delivery outcomes..

This hierarchy establishes a clear order of importance: build a capable team, establish a structured process, and then select tools to support both. Reversing this order—by leading with technology or process—compromises quality, value, and timely completion.

Background

Bank of Moolah initiates an enterprise-wide project to implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to improve customer interactions and strengthen service delivery. The project seeks to consolidate fragmented service channels and provide consistent support for a diverse customer base. However, early delivery phases reveal issues, including project delays and cost overruns.

Challenges

Three core challenges emerge:

• People: The team consists of staff from smaller IT and business projects and lacks enterprise delivery experience. Recruitment does not secure candidates with the necessary technical leadership, and key positions, such as the solution architect, remain vacant. Existing staff perform tasks beyond their skill sets.
• Process: No consistent delivery framework supports the work. Objective statements such as “improve service” are not measurable. Scope is undefined, deliverables are not identified, and timelines lack task dependencies. The approach does not align with recognised delivery standards.
• Technology: A $1.2 million requirements platform, RequirementsHub, has recently been procured and mandated for project use. However, the team receives no formal training, and adoption is inconsistent.

Corrective Actions

The bank applies the ‘people first, then process, supported by technology’ principle to realign delivery:

People: Targeted recruitment resolves capability gaps. A solution architect and three integration specialists join within two months, bringing the team into alignment with the project’s technical demands.

Process: A revised delivery strategy confirms scope and introduces measurable objectives, such as a 40% reduction in customer response times. Four planning workshops identify deliverables. The schedule adjusts to 15 months, with mapped dependencies. A hybrid approach, combining waterfall and agile methods, provides structure.

Technology: Team members with expertise in RequirementsHub operations but limited experience in structured requirements definition are replaced by three business analysts with requirements engineering capability. New joiners receive four hours of targeted tool training and ongoing support.

Outcomes

The realigned delivery enables the CRM implementation to complete on schedule. Notable improvements include:

• customer response times reduce by 40%, from 10 to 6 minutes
• transaction errors fall by 25%, from 8,000 to 6,000 per month
• system availability reaches 99.8%, enabling uninterrupted service. 

The CRM project improves the bank’s delivery capability and receives positive internal feedback for enhancing both service interaction and IT project discipline.

Project Evaluation Metrics

Project benchmarks, derived from historical data and delivery experience, establish reference points to assess the impact of prioritising people, process, and technology. These metrics provide a consistent framework to evaluate delivery performance and identify improvement opportunities. The PMO typically oversees this evaluation, managing data collection, metric analysis, and reporting across people, process, and technology dimensions.

People

The assessment of project team capabilities, interactions, and engagement evaluates their contribution to delivery outcomes, using metrics for skill preparedness, collaboration, and resource stability.

• Skill alignment: Measures how well team skills match project requirements. Indicators include the percentage of tasks completed without additional training. High results indicate well-aligned capabilities; low results suggest skill gaps.
• Team collaboration: Assesses coordination across disciplines. Metrics include the frequency of cross-functional meetings and the percentage of shared tasks delivered on schedule. Strong scores reflect effective collaboration; low scores may indicate communication issues.
• Resource continuity: Tracks team stability throughout the project. Metrics include turnover rates and the impact of personnel changes on delivery milestones. Stable teams support better knowledge retention and reduce transition costs. 

Process

The evaluation of delivery structures, decision-making clarity, and planning reliability gauges their support for progress, with indicators assessing the suitability of the chosen project approach and execution methods.

• Delivery model fit: Assesses how well the selected delivery model supports project requirements. Indicators include the percentage of deliverables completed within scope and schedule, along with team feedback on model suitability. High results confirm appropriate model selection; low results may signal misalignment.
• Role clarity: Measures how well team members understand their responsibilities. Metrics include the percentage of team members who can accurately describe their roles and accountabilities. Clear role definitions support timely task completion; unclear responsibilities increase risks and delays.
• Schedule feasibility: Evaluates the realism and stability of the project timeline. Metrics include the number of schedule revisions and the extent of delivery slippage. A stable schedule reflects robust planning; frequent revisions may indicate unrealistic estimates or planning deficiencies. 

Technology

The review of enabling tools supporting project task execution focuses on their usability and reliability, with metrics determining their effectiveness in meeting delivery needs.

• Usability: Measures how accessible and intuitive project tools are for users. Indicators include user satisfaction ratings, frequency of support requests, and time required for onboarding. Tools with poor usability may reduce productivity or increase reliance on support teams.
• Reliability: Tracks the stability of enabling systems during project execution. Metrics include hours lost due to tool configuration issues, infrastructure failures, or inadequate user support. Minimal downtime supports delivery momentum; frequent disruptions increase rework and delays. 

The next section examines how execution issues emerge in complex environments and identifies actions to improve delivery.