Make Distinctions Between IT Projects

Michael Rogers of Oakley Networks offers new insight into project management in a letter to Computerworld:

This is somewhat akin to the task of designing and building an office building. For a building, the site excavation and construction phases are well understood and yield to tight project management and control techniques. But the phases before the engineering are analogous to the custom IT project -- when the architect has to understand the requirements and present alternative designs, when the various political forces have to be satisfied, when the hydrology, soil and environmental impacts need to be studied and mitigated. All of these pre-engineering activities rarely run to a schedule.