Issue TOC Print full article Print this page Download as PDF E-Mail this URL Flame the author     In this article Introduction The Building Blocks Onward and Upward Environmental Concerns Web Services Glossary From the Ground Up Related Sites Best Practices

Some of the lessons life time learned are universal:

• Get your operations and development groups talking regularly. It'll save you time and money.

• Invest in a solid test environment. Before rolling technology solutions into production, you must put them through their paces.

• Train the users. The only way to prevent a tsunami of support calls is to prepare the tech consumers.

• Crawl before you run. When launching an enterprisewide solution, start small. Pick a group willing to iron out the kinks with you.

• Get everyone from end users to the CEO to buy into IT initiatives by putting technology in terms they understand.

• Don't take on every project; it's OK to say "no" as long as the affected lines of business understand why. If possible, present workarounds and offer a time line for re-evaluating the need.