How do insurers implement a software project successfully? We ask Ralf van der Eerden, COO at FRISS. He knows everything about project management and believes in “Common Sense Project Management.” That means insurers accept risks and scope changes.
Ralf, what is “common sense project management” exactly?
For me Common Sense Project Management is the fact that you accept risks, you accept scope change…
and you accept this while focusing on the business result for your customer doing the whole project.
Ok, you say accepting risks. Shouldn’t you mitigate risks?
If you focus too much on defining risks before you have even started, you will probably run into other risks that you have not focused on.
And by not knowing that this will happen you are looking at it in the wrong way.
Then what about change of scope?
It is not a scope change if it delivers the end result.
You should not focus on the scope, you should focus on the end result.
You should not focus on the scope, you should focus on the end result.
What is the most common challenge you face?
I would say data. And I think that all our customers and all my colleagues will say exactly the same.
Insurers have a lot of data. And we need data to do our work.
Everything sounds really good, but how does it differ from regular project management?
Compare a project to a highway. The big difference with a “normal” project is, if you have to start a highway, you have to start somewhere and you have to end somewhere.
It’s a straight line and you cannot change while you are doing this.
We have to change while we are doing this.
Because we know we have to have a business result. It has to be perfect and we will not stop until we get that result.
The final question: when are you satisfied with a project?
I’m only satisfied if at the end of the project our customer leaves us, or we leave them with a big smile on their face.
