Ask any technologist what comes first in building quality systems and the answer will be technical skills, process and (maybe) business relationship. After interviewing several CIOs and Business Applications Executives, they will tell you the same thing. They were successful because they used the latest technical skills while following a process to deliver the system.
Delving deeper into the specifics of these successful projects, I uncovered a similar pattern. Yes, the individual’s technical skills and the process they followed were important. However, some of the projects didn’t follow a defined process but were still successful. Some of the projects didn’t use the latest and greatest technology and were still successful. What these projects had in common with those that did was the relationship the technologists had with the business (user) community. (more…)