Outsourcing applications development and maintenance (AD/M) continues to be prevalent among small enterprises. Cost savings and improved application support and delivery are strong business and technology motivations that characterize this trend. IT departments tend to manage and govern outsourcing initiatives, while business and IT work together to define and sponsor them.

IT projects are a normal aspect of small and mid-sized enterprise (SME) life. To increase the chances for ongoing IT project success, review core IT project and project management basics.

Cost/Benefit Analysis is an important part of any project viability assessment. Use this tool to gain insight into the pros and cons of the IT projects under consideration.

When enterprises contract development projects, project success improves when they actively manage the contractor. Use this checklist at the beginning of a project and weekly during the project to identify which key controls are missing and need correction.

Many enterprises contract with outside development teams to create new applications, to modify internally developed code, or to enhance packaged software. The risk of unsatisfactory performance in these projects is high. Understand the pitfalls of managing software development contracts and take appropriate action to reduce these risks.

Determining if or when to retire an application is a difficult proposition. Retirement decisions have a ripple effect on an enterprise’s corporate and technology infrastructure. Use this tool to put the right applications out to pasture.

Many small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) find themselves struggling to deal with aging applications, application redundancy, scalability and flexibility constraints, and unnecessary complexity as the enterprise continues to grow. Use a tri-phased approach to application evaluation and retirement to put the right applications out to pasture.

Recent Info-Tech research on the enterprise application planning process shows that, in business process modeling, small enterprises which carefully govern consultant involvement, and leave the real process work to the business, achieve greater project success. Use this note to learn how consultants can educate and facilitate a business-led process modeling effort for enterprise applications.

Regardless of company size, Business Intelligence (BI) can help a company gain the advantage in a competitive market. Creating a BI Center of Excellence (BICOE) will help achieve this. Leaders must understand when a BICOE is required and the strategies for implementation to avoid expensive organizational mistakes.

Issue management is a practical necessity for IT projects. Determining the best approach to handling issues is an essential element of issue management. Use the ITA Premium SE “Issue Management Process Set-up Guide” to help guarantee issues don’t cause a project derailment.

Business users are the key element for any enterprise application project. Without business user adoption the project is a failure regardless of budget or timeline performance. All IT managers, regardless of the size of the enterprise, must understand the fundamentals of business-user training and follow a formal training process.

It would be a rare project that didn’t have unforeseen issues. Issue avoidance is a laudable goal, but issue management is a practical necessity. Unmanaged issues add unnecessary costs, delays, and risks to project delivery and erode business confidence in IT’s project capability. Define an issue management approach for every project to avoid nasty surprises.

Situational leadership is an effective model for managing and developing people. This model helps managers to be flexible and adjust their leadership style according to the individual and the situation. It not only helps managers increase the productivity and job satisfaction of their staff, but it also helps employees improve their performance and accelerate career development.