9.5 Proposed method

Based on the previous findings the method and the IT software solution may be determined in the following way:

  1. Elaboration of principles based on the literature and your (organization’s) experiences.
  2. Elaboration of processes and tools, based on the literature and your (organization’s) experiences.
  3. Selecting an appropriate software application and elaboration of the needed hardware resources.

If possible, it is advised to iteratively and continuously revise and improve the principles, processes and tools during the project (e.g. by applying a PDCA cycle over the project for this kind of improvement).

Furthermore, one more principle is proposed to be considered beside the others discussed earlier: the Pareto principle.

Pareto principle

  • Originated to economist Vilfredo Pareto who observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population in 1906. (“law of the vital few”) Pareto also observed similar situation in other countries.
    • In general: 80% of effects (outputs, results, …) come from 20% of causes (inputs, resources, …)
  • The core concept is the “vital few”, the ratio of 80-20 may slightly change e.g. to 80-30, or 90-20 (two numbers measure different things)
    • In general: 80% of effects (outputs, results, …) come from 20% of causes (inputs, resources, …)
  • Still then others also perceived this rule in very different contexts as well. Considering project management the most interesting things are:
    • 80% of results come from 20% of efforts
    • 80% of errors come from 20% of sources
  • More or less the principle can be applied recursively, i.e. to the subsets!
    • 64% of results come from 4% of efforts
    • and so on… 51% of results come from 1% of efforts
  • The Pareto rule is true in the other direction too, i.e. 20% of results come from 80% of effort
    • It is very beneficial knowing what we have to do in our projects to achieve results
    • This way enforcing that Pareto rule helping us instead of holding in
  • Achieving 100% results is impossible
    • Think about 99.999% availability: one more nine at this level could cost as much effort and resources as needed to achieve the 99.999%