One of the critical success concepts in many domains is "mission assurance." A mission focused to planning is the starting point of this paradigm. This changes the planning process from making lists and checking them twice to defining the mission success criteria and planning the work for their fulfillment.
For an IT program, there are lessons to be learned from another high risk / low risk tolerance environment - space flight:
- Collocate the appropriate personnel to enhance work efficiency
- Increase the inter-dependencies to reduce overall cost and promote team interaction
- Develop and maintain a model-driven design and test tools and facilities to reduce development time and cost
- Improve access to key technical personnel to identify and resolve issue early
- Increase emphasis on mentoring
- Document proven system design and operations principles to guide the project
This approach is the basis the Integrated Product Team (IPT) organizational structures found in aerospace and large construction projects. Transferring this paradigm to IT projects is just starting. There is much to be learned from these other domains.
