Cascade #14 – It’s the Deliverable (that matters), not the Task.
The final deliverable is the Information System ready to be used effectively by the Business. If you can jump from ‘Start’ to this final deliverable in one “Task”, then power to you. Some people can do this; most cannot. This is again where a team of specialists is most effective on a typical project, where the work will be divided into many tasks, sub-tasks, etc. . . . Once assigned a task, a specialist must produce a deliverable/result/artifact that can be used by the next specialist to further the progress of the overall project. Unfortunately, this simple idea has been the starting point for many IS delivery methodologies, many which spend an inordinate amount of content explaining how to do a task, how to amass all the tasks in Phases, and often insisting that its way is mandatory for success.
The final deliverable is the Information System ready to be used effectively by the Business. If you can jump from ‘Start’ to this final deliverable in one “Task”, then power to you. Some people can do this; most cannot. This is again where a team of specialists is most effective on a typical project, where the work will be divided into many tasks, sub-tasks, etc. . . . Once assigned a task, a specialist must produce a deliverable/result/artifact that can be used by the next specialist to further the progress of the overall project. Unfortunately, this simple idea has been the starting point for many IS delivery methodologies, many which spend an inordinate amount of content explaining how to do a task, how to amass all the tasks in Phases, and often insisting that its way is mandatory for success.
What this can lead to is an over-emphasis on the how of IT project tasks, to the detriment of actually completing them with all due speed. Here we see the task that is 90% done for weeks, or the infamous ‘analysis paralysis’ where a project cannot seem to get past Requirements. Ends do not justify any means, but Ends must be delivered.
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