Six Ways To Avoid Project Failure

1. Get with federal customer project managers, and be clear about the goals: Hold a meeting. Go over every objective--in the short and the long term. Establish deadlines and methods to verify successful completion of tasks. And, after that meeting, send a memo (e-mail is fine) documenting exactly what the federal customer needs and what your company will do and when.

2. Don't confuse the IT trees for the forest: You're being hired to provide a solution, not razzle-dazzle a fed agency bureaucrat with the latest and greatest tech toys. Before IT deployment, ask yourself, 'How is this going to solve this agency's problems?' Did you determine the technology first, and the problem second? If so, reverse the order.

3. Hey, this is Washington, after all. Keep the customer in the loop: It's not always a particular action on the part of the integrator that gets an agency customer steamed. It's the fact that a particular action came as a surprise to the agency customer. Keep the customer posted on what's ahead, and feathers are less likely to get ruffled when, say, part of the agency network is going to shut down for a couple hours to implement testing.

4. Hey, this is Washington, after all, Part II. Don't be shy about your project successes: If all is humming along splendidly, then keep the customer posted with weekly updates of continued, successful progress. Keep a log of these exchanges for, hopefully, future business with that customer, as well as other government customers who are interested in your track record.

5. Get a manpower inventory: How much human power is your company going to need to provide, and how much support can you expect from the customer? Oftentimes, both sides assume that the other side will supply more than it actually has budgeted for. That situation can get sticky once the project is moving forward, and it's too late to shift plans.

6. Get your best players in play: Do you have a team member on board who's responsible for project management? Risk assessment? Do you have a contract manager? An exec who's well familiar with the sometimes mind-numbing federal-invoicing process? If not, like a baseball manager, get working on your lineup card. --D.M.