Top 10 Rules for IT Integration / Consolidation Projects

I was reading Sun’s newsletter describing top ten rules for web tier consolidation projects. As you will see they are the same for any integration / consolidation project which affects several departments in a large company. Here is the list modified for general context with explanations:

Get executive-level support
A consolidation project may involve multiple applications with many owners who come from various divisions in an organization. Early executive-level support can help reduce (not eliminate) turf wars among business units. Get the buy-in early on from your big boss, even if you have full authority to execute the project by yourself.

Agree on the business goals
Consolidation many involve asking people to give up control of a server or application for which they bear responsibility. Unless they understand that there is a clear business goal (and hopefully buy it), such as reducing overhead for their department, they are unlikely to willingly go along with the consolidation plan.

Proactively address company politics and realities
Individual business units have different priorities. What maybe obvious from IT standpoint may not be so obvious from financial or risk standpoint. You need to understand the politics as well as the realities of different divisions and plan accordingly. Go slow if you must. It is better than steamrolling.

Establish service level agreements
A company needs to have a clear understanding of the service levels that can be expected in a consolidated environment before any consolidation takes place. People are in general afraid of change. And they will tend to blame the change for their problems. They need to know up front the resources and service levels that will be at their disposal after consolidation.

Standardize wherever possible
The most important aspect for consolidation is to develop a standardized set of applications and interfaces. Standardized configuration not only leads to economies of scale, but also goes a long way toward improving security.

Perform extensive planning and documentation
Planning and documenting can help make sure everything is put together correctly to mitigate security risks, and it can help an organization put everything back together if something does go seriously wrong. Remember Murphy’s law.

Allocate appropriate time, skills and resources to the effort
While it may sound like a no-brainer, many consolidation efforts get compromised or sub-optimized because customers do not allocate enough time or the correct people to the effort for proper planning, analysis, architecting, testing, implementation, or socialization with BUs, stakeholders, and constituents. Failure to do so can lead to implementation problems, operational challenges, production issues, and some level of under-utilization of assets.

Train the IT staff on managing the consolidated environment

Not much needs to said about this.

Develop new applications for the consolidated environment
If standardization is the number one lesson for Web-tier consolidation, then forward consolidation is number two. Forward consolidation dictates that it is far easier and less expensive to design new applications for the consolidated environment than it is to roll out standalone applications into the environment after they have been built. Few some applications early-on can dramatically boost the level of confidence in business units resistant to change.

Get help from an experienced vendor, if possible
How does an enterprise know its vendor is experienced?
Has the vendor been through Web tier consolidation projects? Has it developed tools for such projects before?
Do they have a process?
Do they have a methodology that turns business goal into business results?
Make sure you have proper Service level agreements with your vendor.
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Would you like to add more rules to this list? Which one of the above do you think is most important?