General Guidelines

• Understand the business benefits before you move forward.
  
  
• Encourage users to think of the project as theirs. Make sure they understand what you're doing and how it will benefit them.
  
  
• If you can't get the money for it, don't start.
  
  
• If you're having a hard time getting money, try an internal marketing campaign. Mock up some screens, show them off and explain what the new application or system will do. Let end users and executives play with it, if possible.
  
  
• Divide your efforts into several smaller deliverables, which can be turned around in three to four months. Produce early successes and keep the interest and motivation high.
  
  
• Prototype, prototype, prototype. That is, construct in an iterative fashion. Build it, let end users see it, tweak it and let them see it again.
  
  
• Think speed. Delivering 80 percent of what the end user needs in three months is more valuable taking a year to deliver all of it. In that time, the technologies or business circumstances may change and make your system obsolete.