Types of Projects
Execution Projects
These types of projects are typical ones with a clear objective, known scope, known risks. You can plan them rather easier, and execute the steps by simply monitoring tasks, dependencies, risks & issues. Generally, they are isolated, or they have minimum dependencies to external factors that are easy to manage. Like walk in the park 😊
Example: Implementation of SAP Payroll in an end market. Template is standard, rules are known, you pretty much know how to deliver and how long it would take. Limited number of users, easy to manage change.
Change Projects
As the name suggests, this type of projects introduces major changes to the organization. You can argue that all projects eventually changes things. That’s true but the difference here is that if change is major, if there are multiple stakeholders, multiple processes impacted, multiple resources impacted, data impacted, complex training required then you should treat your project as a Change Project.
Example: Single site ERP implementation, where there’s a big change in an IT tool pretty much all organization uses but more importantly, it changes the way organisation works, processes are standardised, data is standardised. ERP projects bear minimum should be defined as Change Projects.
Novel Projects
These are the projects where there are many uncertainties. You do not know exactly how to get there. There’s a defined objective, given timeline however it has not been done before. Therefore, you do not know what to face with in the journey of project execution.
Example: I would give, Standardisation of Global Processes of an Enterprise with an ERP system in the core as an example. This might be controversial a bit however, if you think, companies operate in 100’s markets, each market has different set of processes, that are sometimes as a result of local and legal requirements, and you want to bring all the differences under one system with standardised processes and data. You can’t simply treat this as a big change project, but you need to acknowledge the fact that there will be lots of problems down the path and many time it won’t be possible to see them in advance. You will need to have iterative design/build then learn and improve approach!
