When I walk into a customer’s office and they tell me that IT is the business’ consultant – BUT they don’t implement the data warehouse (or any other project) in a fashion that makes sense to the business user, I wonder if it's the methodology that's holding back the progress. Methodology is supposed to be a set of principles or methods used to regulate a given discipline.

So, I ask you – why do we overuse methodologies to the point of damaging the success of a project? Usually when I'm faced with a methodology that doesn’t seem to help, I address it asking the following questions:

1. What documents are outstanding? Of those outstanding deliverables, which ones are redundant with other documents?

2. Then I suggest we waive some documents or combine multiple documents to get the deliverable completed. Is the deliverable even valuable for the project? It could just be more paperwork. Check for validity!

3. Who approves the deliverables? Is the company set up to NOT have time to approve (or disapprove) deliverables for a project? How much time does it take to gain approvals? Does the approval process meet the needs of the project?

4. If not, how do we consolidate these practices?

5. Who is ultimately responsible for the deliverables? Sometimes roles change and the methodology falls through a crack.

If you ask these questions about the methodology, it just may help these projects stay on track a bit better. Please remember methodology is meant to help keep our principles and NOT hinder our projects!