Deployment as the Biggest Problem

Looking at the MATGrid, it appears that the poor quality areas in deployment are directing implementation, verifying implementation, and clear user responsibility.

For those of you who might not remember, deployment is transitioning the finished product to the customer. That means making an install program, setting up an internet site, etc. Everything that means getting the answer to the people who wrote the check.

So this is a management problem, folks, clear and simple. Nobody is responsible for implementation, nobody is directing the troops, and nobody is following up to make sure it's done correctly.

I wonder if in many consulting environments that we don't get too attached with the fun part of modeling the problem, making the solution, and doing the technical details that we don't forget about the main thing: getting a solution to the customer. I've been in a lot of projects, including some very large ones, where people were more concerned with the database, or the architecture, or any one of a dozen other technical details than they were testing, deployment, user training, or transition. All of a sudden we're halfway in and somebody asks about user training and you get a room full of blank stares. It's something that as an industry we should be doing better.