Even with a good process to pick the right projects to execute, there will be a strong if unrecognized tendency to initiate too many projects at once, or initiate more projects before any already underway have been completed. This goes back to the average senior manager’s split view that most IT spending is a waste, except for their own projects. Given several senior managers in an organization expressing these views, a natural reaction is to have at least one project underway for each manager; if most of the IT efforts are applied to projects for only a few managers, the rest will complain or start looking for other options.

However, trying to run too many projects at once ends up pleasing no one, as no project makes any noticeable enough progress to be seen as a success, so the result is that no one is happy with IT’s performance.

So, projects have to be run such that at least one is completing within each reporting period; this would be quarterly in most companies. In large IT shops with dozens of projects, it may be a percentage you aim for, 10% to 20% of projects completed per period. Given the common situation of limited IT resources, allocating these resources to a set of projects has to be guided by a focus on completion, not competing priorities.

Next time: Principle #6 - Specialize – each member of a team assigned to a project should do what they do best for the length of that project

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