back to article Are your project timescales shrinking?

When did the two-year project lifecycle die? In my head, I put it at just over a decade ago, when I was involved in an accounting systems replacement exercise. Everything was so clearly mapped out – from requirements capture, to design, selection, integration, testing in a variety of flavours, and all kinds of user education …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Two year timescales?

    I wish! 6 months, baby. Either if you're lucky. And on a shoestring budget or you're dead. Everything is a race to refine problems in existing systems and proactively counter potential ones before the next "silly season." December ends and you have until the end of May to get the major bugs patched.

    Then you have until September to have your upgrades tested and in place because September -> December IT'S ON, BABY.

    Two year timescales. HAH. All IT in the company. Phone systems, networks, mobiles, printers, desktops, security, OS & application upgrades, bespoke programming, websites, SAAS, e-stores, payroll systems, PCI compliance, HR systems, virtualisation, storage requirements that triple each season…

    …do it all for under $100,000 a year, with two sysadmins a bench tech. At any given time a quarter of EVEYRTHING is being replaced (four year cycle!) All the while it’s never quite enough, there’s no money for licensing anything (and thus you must do it all manually) and the hardware must be reused until it finally and completely dies.

    500TB of storage, 12 racks of servers and phone systems, 100 desktops and a dozen notebooks, mobiles and remote users across 6 time zones and 3500 km.

    Two year timescales.

    HAH!

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