It’s a common challenge faced by many IT teams in all kinds of sectors: in order to deliver Project A, we need to upgrade System B and we can’t do that until System C is upgraded. The ultimate objective was to unlock the ability to upgrade a global law firm’s enterprise Document Management System and in order to do so, the client needed to upgrade two additional products to ensure tech eco-system compatibility and protect business-as-usual activities for end users.

It’s a common challenge faced by many IT teams in all kinds of sectors: in order to deliver Project A, we need to upgrade System B and we can’t do that until System C is upgraded. The ultimate objective was to unlock the ability to upgrade a global law firm’s enterprise Document Management System and in order to do so, the client needed to upgrade two additional products to ensure tech eco-system compatibility and protect business-as-usual activities for end users.

Harmeston provided project management expertise to help the client deliver the 3 application system upgrades and new implementations, coordinating across competing resources and carefully balancing timelines to successfully meet contractual obligations and protect technical integrity.

Time

Historic postponement of upgrade projects had led to end-of-life situations for the applications in question and external constraints such as supplier acquisitions were enforcing product upgrades or migrations by certain deadlines.

Resources

Limited resources across the project portfolio and balancing SME time against business-as-usual activities.

Scope

The client needed to understand the architecture and technical design decisions which would ensure the scope of the projects was adequate but not excessive to requirements.

Understanding the architecture, strategy and ultimate direction of travel was key. Ensuring the criticality of the projects was understood and agreed with the sponsors. Gaining commitment to scope and delivery timelines and ensuring resources were made available to the project whilst balancing the business as usual and other portfolio activities.

Ultimately introducing consistent and structured project management into the client ensured momentum was maintained throughout the project deliveries. Harmeston coordinated activities across large project teams and brought everyone along for the journey, celebrating success and learning lessons as we went.

We removed technical debt and shored up the client’s eco-system with supported versions of applications, giving the client breathing room to focus on their strategic portfolio activities.