Big and complex projects require many measures to keep them on track. Perhaps it is better to divide big projects into small projects. But how can you do that without reducing your ambitions?
Plans with a lot of ambition and passion are great, and they can inspire and energize tremendously. However, not seldom the dream ends up in a nightmare and the outcome is that we are back at the beginning, with a large loss of money. Big IT-related projects by the government are a well-known example. In private companies it happens as well, but usually that does not hit the press so frequently.
When things got out of hand, a frequent suggestion is to add more controls, more documentation, more procedures, etcetera etcetera. However, to add such measures endlessly is a dead-end street: sooner or later any project is bound to get stuck.
Therefore it is attractive to explore a “divide and win” approach as alternative, by dividing the project in parts and by de-coupling those parts.
