Greg Ricker, CIO, Atlantic Casualty Insurance Co.

In my experience, there are three areas that ensure successful system implementations. First is to focus on the business. Many technology people lose sight of the business objective they are trying to accomplish and let the technology drive decisions. Technology is the enabler, and when viewed that way, discussions stay focused on what they should be, and that is the business objective. The second area is planning. Many people want to skimp on the planning portion and jump right into building the solution. You have to spend the time planning all phases: project scope, system design, development, testing, implementation, and support. Each requires a dedicated plan. Finally, it's all about communication. As IT professionals, we can build great solutions, but if we can't communicate with our customers and partners, we have failed. I've seen many great solutions fail to meet objectives for the simple reason of poor and inadequate communications.