INTRODUCTION

 I wrote this book for people who work at companies that have an IT department to support their business. I realize this describes just about any company in business today, so I say this because there are many companies that are in the business of selling IT as their product or service. Many might say it makes those companies different from the rest, but I don’t think so; all companies need IT to support their sales & marketing, production, administration, HR, Accounting, and so on. So whether your company is making automobiles or serving hamburgers or providing investment advice, or selling software, it needs Information Technology; and to deliver that IT, your company uses Projects, lots of Projects.

Short of being a brand-new start-up, your company is already using a lot of information technology — hardware, software, networks — to run its business. Getting that technology implemented required a lot of work, likely organized as projects. As good as that technology was as implemented, and was used effectively for some time, some of it right now is not working, or needs to be changed to reflect change in your business; that means more projects.

I am not saying anything newsworthy here. After a number of decades since wide-spread use of IT began, your company’s IT department has become familiar with what a Project is: an effort with a clear beginning and end that changes the day-to-day Operations of a company; and as Scott Adam’s IT everyman Dilbert says, “Change is good. You go first.”