Cloud computing challenges project management
Cloud computing is a major driving force in the ‘democratisation’ of IT, where organisations are able to—and do—provision cloud based IT systems without necessarily needing to engage with their IT departments, who can be seen as slow to react, governance driven and risk averse.
The primary objective of this article is to explore and present a number of important considerations for enterprise PMOs, IT project managers and end user organisations alike in their implementation of enterprise cloud systems.
Key aspects for consideration
Reversal of the traditional business case, that is: ‘buy before you try’
- Cloud offers, potentially, enterprise ready applications in hours or days, and when combined with easy to manage configuration options, there is likely to be less tolerance by impatient business stakeholders to suffer ‘paralysis by analysis’ associated with the requirements gathering and analysis phases.
- ‘Better 90% on time’ is often the catchcry of business stakeholders who are becoming increasingly impatient with the complexity and lead times on IT projects.
Easier implementation of cloud-driven innovation projects, with specific reference to the pilot project to production scale-up phases. Cloud systems can be very useful in supporting innovation initiatives because:
- No upfront capital is required;
- Walk-away costs are minimised; and
- The opportunity for immediate and rapid scale-up to production exists without the need provide working capital.
There are new project and organisational governance issues: ‘The viral cloud’
- Due to the ease of provisioning, access, configuration and use, there is increased risk of local divisions in an organisation from implementing cloud technologies by using local, discretionary budgets.
- Organisations need to have effective cloud computing policies to mitigate the effects of ungoverned enterprise applications.
A change in project risk mitigation strategies: ‘It’s quick, easy, secure and low cost’
- Not all the risks inherent in the emerging cloud technologies are well understood by organisations, whether they be commercial, legal, security, governance or availability related.
- Some of these risks cover change management and rollback provisioning, which are at the heart of good project and IT governance, and depend on the technical capabilities of specific vendors.
Problems associated with managing cloud project boundary conditions: ‘There’s a plug-in for that!’
- With the increasing availability of development APIs, as well as vendor ‘applications markets’, there are a large array of satellite applications written by third parties, the quality of which may be variable. The Salesforce App Exchange, Android Market and the Apple iStore are examples of such ecosystems.
- Some of these applications can be implemented by end users, and extend the boundary of projects in an uncontrolled manner.
Challenges in approach to the implementation of enterprise cloud projects using methodologies such as PRINCE2
- The comprehensive use of rigorous, large scale project methodologies such as Prince2™ are often not appropriate for all but the largest of enterprise IT projects, although key elements are universally applicable to all projects.
- The interpretation and adaptation of the various large scale project methodologies to volatile ‘implement first and modify as you go’ environments needs some careful consideration.
The value, risk, and opportunities for using cloud technologies by the PMO and project managers for project governance and reporting purposes.
- One of the compelling value propositions in cloud computing is universal access, and the opportunity of lowering the barrier to entry for applications by using handheld applications using iPhone and Android devices, for example.
- This could have very positive implications for geographically distributed projects, where information sharing and timely updates of project activities and status’ are important to mobile project stakeholders.
