“Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” In the same manner, Projects and System Implementations occur in phases that are subject to available staff resources, the seasonal workload, and budgetary constraints. Any of these issues can affect the event timeline to completion. The more granular the tasks and milestones, the lesser the impact of any one issue. It is expected that some delay will be introduced because of the number of people involved or because of unforeseen circumstances.
The Never Ending Development Event Horizon refers to what I call the Breeder Reactor Effect: As Staff start to use the System, new efficiencies in processes will occur. The System will introduce a new set of resources for the Staff to use in completely new processes. This will lead to the Evolutionary effect on the Business Process culminating in the realization of “I could never do that before” coupled with “I wonder if we can to this, too?”
As Staff start to discover and utilize the new capabilities, Staff will come up with brand new ways to continue to expand and extend the System. Each of these will create a new Project Event. Hence, the System is never truly finished as there will be constant improvements and enhancements.
For example, until the Smartphone was invented, it was not common to be able to send email unless you were at a computer physically attached to the Internet. So the ability to send email using the cellular data network was the planned feature of the Smartphone ecosystem. (Think Blackberry.) Then someone noticed that the Smartphone had a built in GPS (Global Positioning System) and developed a mapping and “directions” application. A completely new use that was never possible before the introduction of the GPS capability in the phone. One need only look at the Google Android and Apple IOS iPhone Smartphone operating systems to see that hundreds of thousands of new uses and applications have been developed proving my point of the “Never Ending Development Event Horizon.”
Projects and System Implementations take on an organic nature and continue to grow and evolve over time. If properly managed, they are constantly refined and enhanced so they never truly end their development life-cycle.
Leave a Reply