INTRODUCTION

You might think that you could manage the implementation of e-business like a standard project. Companies who have failed in their e-business efforts have cited this as one of the top three reasons for the failure. E-business is different for the following reasons:

• E-business is an ongoing program and not a one-time project. This has been mentioned throughout the book and it applies to project management here.

• In e-business much of the money is spent earlier in the project. However, most of the effort and risk occur at the end of the work. Why is this? Because system integration, customer/supplier/employee acceptance, quality assurance, and other critical activities happen toward the end.

• E-business success depends on parallel, nonsequential thinking. If you implement sequentially, you may never finish. That's why there is no sequencing in the chapter headings of this book.

• E-business implementation is a collaborative approach. Standard project management is hierarchical.

• In traditional project management you focus on the mathematical critical path. In e-business it is not the tasks on the longest path that give you trouble, it is the tasks that have issues and risk.

These are just some of the factors why e-business is different from traditional project management.

PURPOSE AND SCOPE