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Litigation Support
Litigation involving the development or implementation of computer systems often involves questions about the project management processes that were used. Questions involve the quality of the processes, whether or not they were followed, whether or not process limitations or failures caused or contributed to the system failure, and to what extent did each of the parties contribute to the limitations or failures? I have participated in assessing with counsel the project management processes that were used in several failed projects. Some processes were good but were badly implemented, critical steps were skipped, standard controls were not in place, documentation was inadequate, management failed to communicate significant issues, etc. My experience in the development of processes and project management provide the means to assess projects and processes and assist counsel in preparation of their case. Examples of Related Experience:Assisted in several legal cases where vendors did not implement enterprise integration systems as described during the sales cycle and defined in the contract. In one case, failures were the result of applying vertical industry systems to related but different parts of the same industry. In another case, serious scalability issues were discovered late in the implementation. In both cases, better definition of requirements and mapping of business requirements to system capabilities would have shown the scope of the project to be much larger than contracted for. In the first case, the cost of restructuring the system to fit the client's requirements would have cost more than a new system. In the second case, failure to manage program changes made it impossible to fix the scaling issue. Findings in both cases supported successful mediation. A major consulting company had failed to design and implement an HR related system. Reviewed the project management processes they had promised to use and their actual performance. Findings and conclusions were a major element in a mediation that led to a settlement that was considered very favorable by the client. A provider of Internet related services was sued by stockholders claiming failure to adequately disclose major changes in its technology strategy. Demonstrated that changes were evolutionary, concurrent with the development of the Internet, and disclosed consistent with common practices for the industry. MBA Harvard Graduate School of Business
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