{"id":134190,"date":"2018-06-29T03:25:01","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T08:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=134190"},"modified":"2018-06-28T17:30:16","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T22:30:16","slug":"data-adventures-quick-wins-project-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2018\/06\/data-adventures-quick-wins-project-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Data adventures: Quick wins and project success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Project Management and Information Management professional, Liselle Ramcharan-Briscoe, continues the data adventure by sharing with us how best to prepare when executing projects, and to better position ourselves and our team for their successful completion.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although this is changing, one of the greatest challenges that you face as a data management professional (or as the person responsible for making sense of the data for your company) is convincing your company about the importance of data. As a result, putting the necessary infrastructure in place for data to be effectively and efficiently captured, and used, can be difficult. Many do not understand that when done right, quality data can actually directly improve the company\u2019s bottom line. This is where it is important for you to show \u201cquick wins\u201d.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a journey<\/h3>\n

When it comes to data, the reality is that companies, with a focus on building their business (rightly so \u2013the core business pays for everything else) often do not place attention to how data is captured, stored and used in the business as a continuous chain, thus appreciating the interdependencies. There are some assumptions naturally made. For example, that the customer service representative who is capturing their customers\u2019 email addresses will always pay close attention to entering the email addresses correctly in the company\u2019s customer management system during that telephone call. Or from another perspective, that the customer, who is actually the contact person for a key client, will always stay with that company or in that position during the lifetime of their relationship with their client.<\/p>\n

Why highlight something as simple as an email address? When you need to send an important update to your entire customer base, and you rely on email addresses, having the right email address becomes critical to your success. Often, the customer service representative does not see that correctly collecting customer details, in this case, an email address, affects the company\u2019s ability to build a business relationship with that customer.<\/p>\n

When you consider data, and how it is captured, it is a journey to map it out for your company. This becomes more involved as your company grows, and no attention has been paid to managing data. Hence, when you do stop and take the time to explore your data, it can look as if you are trying to summit a mountain like Mt. Everest \u2013 complicated and riddled with numerous challenges \u2013 and as such, it makes it seem like it is impossible to complete.<\/p>\n

How is it managed?<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s consider what that journey ends up looking like when you want to get an end result for your company. The larger your company, the more likely that conquering your mountain morphs from being a simple project to a complex program that is comprised of many projects that have interdependencies. This unfortunately means that you can be looking at 5 years before your company sees all of the benefits. But it does not have to be so: that is why \u201cquick wins\u201d are so important.<\/p>\n

In my last article, the concept of a \u201cgreen field\u201d project was raised. Although the challenges faced in your journey to improve the management of data in all organisations remain the same, the individual activities and initiatives required for your company to implement the project can be quite unique. For these kinds of \u201cgreen field\u201d projects, it is important to have \u201cquick wins\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The importance of “quick wins\u201d<\/h3>\n

In identifying the requirements for your data project or program, there may be some \u201clow hanging fruit\u201d that you can harvest. Having conceptualised your project or program, based on properly captured and well-considered requirements (at least as best as is collectively understood at that point), you can develop a proper plan that outlines how to move forward. In developing your plan, you may discover that there are some activities that you can quickly implement, even though the project itself may take 5 years to be completely implemented.<\/p>\n

If we develop our email address example, you might decide that you can quickly implement a campaign that encourages the customer service representative to validate the email address that they have on file when a customer calls in. You might consider implementing a simple update to the application used to capture the email address that validates the format of the email address being entered by the customer service representative. These activities may take a couple of months to develop and execute, but you may see immediate results by the reduced number of rejected emails, for example. There are metrics that you can identify and use to measure success.<\/p>\n

You have a \u201cquick win\u201d so momentum is not lost. The company, in the case of the improved email addresses, sees an immediate result that has a positive impact on business productivity. The \u201cquick win\u201d also promotes the company\u2019s understanding of what your innovative data project is trying to achieve, and so you have an opportunity to increase the excitement for, and the desire to, support the project. This can even result in your requirements for the project\/program becoming more robust.<\/p>\n

Business pains and quick wins<\/h3>\n

With \u201cquick wins\u201d, a couple of the key criteria you should be looking at in identifying them are:<\/p>\n