How Do You Handle Shrinking Project Cycles?

While the advent of virtualisation has delivered a slam dunk by making it faster and cheaper to deploy new services, it has also created a new challenge for IT leaders: handling faster deployment cycles.

Russian dolls picture from Shutterstock

Ross Hammond, director for telecom business at Emerson Network Power ANZ, notes that “Project cycles are getting shorter, and user expectations are changing as a result”.

Today, we can spin up a virtual machine and deploy a new server in just minutes. In many cases, business workers can even do it themselves as self-service.

As an IT manager, I find it challenging to balance the opportunities that the most recent innovations in technology give us with better mobility, greater flexibility and faster response to business needs. With greater power come high expectations.

How are you managing the ever increasing expectations of your business? Do you use the same tactic Mr Scott used on Star Trek and under-promise and over-deliver? Or do you have some other approach? Tell us in the comments.