The only thing you can guarantee with projects is there will be changes, asserts Dave Schmitz, who has seen his share of both in his role at Deloitte Consulting. With projects come changes, and with changes comes the possibility the project will wander off in a direction that's to no one's liking.

For Schmitz, a director focusing on insurance operations technology, and others dealing with managing projects, the success of a project depends on how you control those changes. When the scope of a project changes, you have scope creep, and that affects the bottom line, warns Maurice Edwards, program manager for United Health Group. “When you have a project budget of $100 million and the scope changes, it could cost your company a couple of million dollars easily,” he says. “Being able to keep on track of your target means [scope creep] won't have as big an effect on your bottom line.”

A business project involving technology is not exact science, explains Piyush Singh, senior vice president and CIO of Great American Insurance Group, who adds putting together an IT project can't be compared to constructing a building, for instance. “You are trying to build something that doesn't come with a set of blueprints,” he says of IT projects. “You are building something that is a little nebulous in nature. As people start to get a feel for the project, they learn a little bit more.”