As a new year approaches, new projects and initiatives within organizations of all types and sizes begin to surface. In order to ensure on-time completion and delivery of projects, it is crucial for organizations to always be looking ahead. As many IT teams are already feeling the squeeze of a heavy workload, managing expectations of business sponsors can be difficult.

Recently, Ironside Group spent time working with a life sciences organization in Massachusetts on an upgrade to Cognos 10. Although the initiative is slated to begin in early 2012, Ironside Group made it a point to begin the process in October to ensure on-time delivery for this time sensitive project. Since Ironside Group had no previous relationship with the client, Ironside made it a point to better understand their business by meeting with key business units within the organization who rely on Cognos daily. With IT’s help, Ironside quickly understood the importance of Cognos within the organization and started to generate an upgrade project plan. Read more