Right First Time: Buying and integrating advanced technology for project success

By Peter Sammons

Why do projects fail?

The people who plan and execute major projects are often highly skilled and highly regarded. They are not obviously incompetent. Where a project uses external suppliers or contractors as a significant support to project delivery, the risk of a fundamental failure seems to escalate. Is this a failure of project management? A failure of procurement? A failure of both? Or are there other factors at play?

This book aims to be a self-help manual. It will enable you to improve your personal and corporate performance. It will also help you ensure that the sub-system elements of a project, where there are ‘interfaces’ between systems that need to ‘talk’ to each other, will be effectively managed – with no nasty surprises.

Buying and integrating advanced technology

Right First Time – Buying and integrating advanced technology for project success does not pretend to hold the key to a ‘nirvana’ of project delivery. Rather, it gets straight to the point about buying – and integrating – advanced technology. It recognises that integrating sub-systems is fertile ground for failure and that effective procurement is increasingly important in project delivery.

The failure of one sub-system can undermine an entire project, and the integration of sub-components is all too often assumed to be a technical problem that ‘technical people’ will overcome. Few projects make integration a defined subset of the overall project plan, yet most will benefit from doing so.

A project management playbook

A management book rather than a technical book, Right First Time – Buying and integrating advanced technology for project success focuses on the difficult issue of sub-system integration in the context of third-party (supply) relationships. If you are responsible for project management and practical delivery, at senior or junior level, it provides lots of practical questions to help you work through the issues, acting as a catalyst for supplementary questions and lines of investigation, focusing on potential problem areas relevant to your own context.

Powerful learning outcomes and self-reflective questions at the end of each chapter enable you to create key action points and assess your organisation’s approach to improve project management governance and ensure you get it right first time.

Project managers, procurement managers, business change managers, commercial managers, mobilisation/transition managers, product managers and contract managers will all find value in this comprehensive guide to managing sub-system integration for project success.

“Overall, this was excellent; I enjoyed reading it. It is obvious that the author has a vast wealth of experience which they have articulated very well into a comprehensive and strong flowing manual.”

- Chris Achillea 

• Language: English
• Publisher: itgovernance
• Release date: Oct 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781787783317

Peter Sammons

Peter Sammons MCIPS is a hands-on commercial specialist with 35 years’ practical experience of project management, procurement, and technological research and development, having worked in the aviation, energy and financial services sectors. He advises on commercial issues and delivers training seminars on contract law, cost control, third-party management and supply chain intelligence. Peter’s other books include The Outsourcing R&D Toolkit, Buying Knowledge and Contract Management: Core Business Competence.

Book preview

Right First Time

Buying and integrating advanced technology for project success

Right First Time

Buying and integrating advanced technology for project success

PETER SAMMONS

Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, and the publisher and the author cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused. Any opinions expressed in this book are those of the author, not the publisher. Websites identified are for reference only, not endorsement, and any website visits are at the reader’s own risk. No responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action, as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the publisher or the author.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publisher at the following address:

IT Governance Publishing Ltd

Unit 3, Clive Court

Bartholomew’s Walk

Cambridgeshire Business Park

Ely, Cambridgeshire

CB7 4EA

United Kingdom

www.itgovernancepublishing.co.uk

© Peter Sammons 2021

The author has asserted the rights of the author under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by IT Governance Publishing.

ISBN 978-1-78778-331-7

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Sammons MCIPS is a hands-on commercial specialist with 35 years’ practical experience of project management, procurement, and technological research and development, having worked in aviation, energy and financial services sectors. He presently advises on commercial issues and delivers training seminars on contract law, cost control, third party management and supply chain intelligence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Chris Achillea and Christopher Wright for their helpful feedback during the production of this book.

I would also like to thank ITGP’s managing executive Vicki Utting and publications manager Nicola Day, and copy editor Susan Dobson for their excellent work turning the raw script into a much clearer and user-friendly final product.

Thank you to Steve Wills of Procurement Central for sharing insights on procurement strategy, stakeholder management and project governance.

Last, but certainly not least Joyce, my wife. For her encouragement, supplying me with copious quantities of tea over the past two years, and not fretting too much as the grass in our garden grew long!

CONTENTS

Introduction

What this book is about

What this book is not about

Going bad – Project problems

Chapter 1: Being aware

Non-technical questions

Understand the project/target operating model (TOM)

Resources

Planning

Risk management

Scope of the project/scope creep

Communication

Classic errors

1. Goal and vision

2. Leadership and governance

3. Stakeholder engagement

4. Team issues

5. Requirements issues

6. Estimation process

7. Planning

8. Risk management

9. Architecture and design

10. Configuration and information management

11. Quality

12. Project tracking and management

13. Decision-making problems

Where does your technology border lie?

Action points

Chapter 2: Make or buy?

The make or buy conundrum

Make or buy – Commercial questions

Make or buy – Integration questions

Action points

Chapter 3: Integrate

Defining what we mean

Characterising sub-system materiality

Integration lifecycle

Action points

Chapter 4: Stakeholders

Defining a stakeholder

Stakeholder mapping

Friend or foe?

Stakeholders and the sourcing phase

Stakeholders and the public sector

Action points

Chapter 5: Project Tiger

An imaginary project

Who do we need?

Key actor tasks

1. TOM

2. Governance

3. Legal and procurement

Action points

Chapter 6: Risk characterisation

Living with risk

Understanding project materiality

Completion of the BCMR form

BCMR – Seven headings for review

1. Contract value

2. Market concentration risk

3. Business risk of counterparty change

4. Legal risk

5. Reputation risk

6. Summary comment

7. Assessment notes

Materiality

The beauty of the BCMR

Physical risk

Action points

Chapter 7: Market test

Project definition and project strategy

Contract strategy

Action points

Chapter 8: Buy phase and integration

Setting the scene

Market making

Sourcing

Clarifying intentions

Action points

Chapter 9: Project communications

Setting the scene

Keeping track of communications

Tenders and communications

Action points

Chapter 10: Client-side tasks

Project sourcing

Recapitulate

Specify

Manage the procurement process

Understand supply market dynamics

Negotiate

Action points

Chapter 11: Business as usual

TOM

Maintenance – As a business opportunity

Training – As a business opportunity

Action points

Chapter 12: Contracting

What has to be administered?

Contract design – Back to basics

NEC4 contract system

Conclusion

Action points

Chapter 13: Systems integration

Systems integration lifecycle

Systems integration tasks

1. Requirements gathering

2. Sub-system analysis

3. System architecture mapping

4. Systems integration design

5. System implementation

6. System operation and maintenance

The make or buy decision on systems integration

Action points

Chapter 14: Integration data

Knowing who is responsible for what

ID in the contract

ID&I – Template clause

Action points

Chapter 15: Contract management

Setting the scene

Project/contract communications – Handle with care

Action points

Chapter 16: Delivering the project – Right first time

Project delivery phase

Proof of the pudding

Performance testing

Action points

Chapter 17: Regulatory permissions

Is the regulator a stakeholder?

Licence to operate?

Action points

Chapter 18: Handover and certification

Contract ‘closure’

Detail! Detail! Detail!

Certification

Action points

Appendix 1: Technical specifications – Notes

Appendix 2: Stakeholder list

Appendix 3: Basic contract materiality review (BCMR)

Appendix 4: Contract pricing strategies

Appendix 5: Project communications and the ‘project memo’ system

Appendix 6: Generic procurement process – Potential integration issues

Appendix 7: System integration – Concepts

Appendix 8: ISO standards and certifications

Appendix 9: Glossary

Further reading

INTRODUCTION

What this book is about

How can it be, in this third decade of the twenty-first century, that so many major projects seem to fail? Clients are disappointed, supplier reputations tarnished, deadlines missed, costs escalate and arguments ensue. It should not be this way.

The people who plan and execute major projects are often highly skilled and highly regarded. They are not obviously incompetent. Where a project uses external suppliers or contractors as a significant support to project delivery, then the risk of a fundamental failure seems to escalate. Is this a failure of project management nous? Is this a failure of procurement nous? Is it both or are there other factors at play?

This book aims to be a self-help manual – even a ‘playbook’ in sporting terms. It will enable the engaged and interested reader to improve their personal and corporate performance. It will help them to ensure, not that projects run faultlessly (‘right first time, every time’), but that the sub-system elements of a project, where there are ‘interfaces’ between systems that need to ‘talk’ to each other, will be effectively managed – with no nasty surprises.

Nothing in this book is ‘rocket science’. It is far more about gearing up to anticipate problems and issues, and then proactively managing them. Some lessons are timeless, and to that extent are well known, but often they are ignored in practice. What we seek to do here is to zero in on that sub-element of project management, integration, where problems are highly likely to occur, and to provide tools to ensure that it is thought through, properly planned and thoroughly executed.

What this book is not about

This book is not about project management per se. There are plenty of good books, blogs, videos and online training material to help optimise project management skills, not to mention the international gold-standard of The Project Management Institute (PMI) and its associated study courses and qualifications.

This book focuses on the major issue of sub-system integration in the context of third-party (supply) relationships. It is a management book rather than a technical book. If you are looking to enhance your technical integration competencies, then this might not be the book for you, but all managers and integration specialists should find it a useful resource. Whether at senior or junior level, if you are responsible for practical project delivery this book provides many specific questions to help you work through key issues. They will be a catalyst for supplementary in-house questions and local lines of investigation, focusing on potential problem areas relevant to your own business context

Going bad – Project problems

Where we refer to a ‘project’, we adopt the definition used by the PMI as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. Projects are temporary and close down on completion of the work they were chartered to deliver. The only nuance we add for the purpose of this book is that a ‘project’ generally consists of both in-house and external (third party) inputs that need to be planned and integrated. External inputs are generally delivered via a supplier (or contractor) base, adding the requirement for careful interface and integration planning, backed by a contract of supply.

It is clear that an uncomfortably large number of ‘projects’ fail to deliver what their ‘architects’ wanted, or are late or over budget. Sometimes it is a combination of all these things.

Technology projects struggle as much as other types of project. Where there is significant involvement of third-party ‘suppliers’ (in the loosest sense of that word), there is an added level of complexity with the associated propensity towards arguments and finger-pointing, bad publicity, undermined commercial relationships and even legal disputes.

This book does not pretend to hold the key to a mysterious ‘nirvana’ of project delivery. Rather, it aims to get straight to the point in terms of the difficult area of buying – and integrating – advanced technology. Any fool can buy things, but are those bought ‘things’ the right things, bought on the right terms, delivered in accordance with your requirements and also delivered in such a way that sub-systems will interface and ‘mesh’ in accordance with the original intention? These, surely, are the more pressing questions.

This book is not a technical treatise on systems engineering, although it touches on this subject in a broad sense. Readers involved in systems engineering will be aware of the excellent and progressively developing work of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and its professional standards. Useful, free material is available on the INCOSE website.¹ We would add to that the good work being done by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) on interface management, where useful new definitions are being developed to describe differing elements of this emerging discipline. The CII’s document, RT-302 ‘Interface Management’,² provides some valuable standardised terminology that we expect will be adopted more widely as systems engineering develops into the new era of ‘the fourth industrial revolution’.

This is not a technology book, nor is the author a technology adviser. The issues of buying third-party technology (and indeed any third-party ‘supplies’, including professional services) are common across varying industries, as well as the public sector. How often do we hear of technology projects that fail in some spectacular way? Too often! It is obvious in almost every case that the professionals who delivered the project were individually bright, hard-working and diligent, yet the project failed in some significant way.

This book alerts readers to the areas where problems typically occur and to where failure is most likely. A unique selling point is its recognition that ‘integration’ of sub-systems is a fertile ground for failure and commercial dispute as sub-systems can be mutually inter-dependent. The failure of one sub-system can neutralise an entire system (or supra-system, as we call it in this book). The integration of sub-components is too often assumed to be a technical problem that ‘technical people’ will overcome. Few projects make integration a defined subset of the overall project plan, yet most will benefit from