Let’s look briefly at what each principle means or implies; which will serve as introductions to subsequent posts that will cover the principles in more detail.

#1. There is always more work to be done than people to do it.

Bordering on glibness, this principle summarizes the reality of virtually all organizations and activities, not just Information Systems delivery. It implies that a group within an organization charged with delivery of end results will a have a back-log of work not yet done. The existence of such a back-log is in itself not a problem, it reflects the desire of an organization to solve new problems and proactively improve itself; the problem arises when it grows perceptively in size from management’s perspective, and the length of time a change item sits on the back-log increases such that it can be measured in numbers of months or years.

So, we must accept that there will be a backlog; fully eliminating it would mean that the delivery group (like IT) becomes redundant, or that the overall organization has stagnated. What must be done is to embrace the back-log; it is IT’s input material and should be managed as such.

Next time: Principle #2 - Projects change the business, so know the overall business first.