Keep It Small

The classic IT Enterprise Systems implementation includes a team of in-house personnel from the functional side as well as IT, a software vendor who provides the software product, and a “systems integrator” who is bringing the expertise to implement the chosen software.

As many of you already know — this is a model I don’t particularly care for, unless the software you’re buying is completely commoditized, like Microsoft Office. The reasons are primarily two-fold:

1. By leaving the hardest part (the actual implementation) to the partners the software company has little stake in the success of the project once the license has been sold and maintenance agreements are locked in place
2. Too often the “systems integrator” will bring an army of inexperienced engineers and use your project as the training ground to get them up to speed — while still charging you top dollars for their time.

I’ll elaborate further on #1 in a later post. Today I’d like to focus on team size and the consequence of having a larger team. First, the potential communication channels increase exponentially. If you have a team of 6 you have a potential of 15 different communication channels — sounds manageable, right? However, if your team grows five times as big (to 30 team members) the number of communication channels increases 29-fold to 435! The more potential communication channels the more communication noise and distortion, and the more time is needed to determine information needs, storage and retrieval and communication methods. In short, there is a cost to collaboration that is magnified as the team size grows.

When embarking on your next enterprise software project insist on a smaller team — focus on assigning more experienced people instead. Also insist on seeing the resume and, if possible, meeting the team members personally, before allowing them to work for your project. Lastly — insist on ALL team members having clear roles and responsibilities, so that you can verify that they are truly adding value to your team.

In short, as your team and project size grows — so does your risk of failure.