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Computerworld - When CIO Jim Hughes challenged his 1,200-member IT team at National City Corp. in the summer of 2000 to cut the average project time by 50%, they wondered whether he was crazy or just kidding.

"My jaw dropped to my knees," recalls Tony Hai, senior vice president and director of project services at the Cleveland-based financial services company. "I thought, '10%, OK. Lunatics go for 20%. How can you even think about 50%?' Once I got over the shock, I went back and said, 'You're just kidding, aren't you?' "

But Hughes was dead serious. He was spearheading a cultural revolution in National City's IT organization, and as part of that, he was determined to shake up the way project management was handled. Asking for an incremental improvement would only cause people to cut corners, he reasoned. "But asking for 50% forced us to re-examine everything we'd done previously and focus on reinventing all the steps," Hughes explains.

Reinvention was overdue at National City. "It was a highly siloed, highly specialized, checklist-oriented, CYA culture," Hai says. "We were drowning in bureaucracy and process."

People were overspecialized, and processes were entrenched, Hai says. "If I were to ask why this is taking so long to develop, the bottom line would be, 'We've always done it this way,' " he says.

Seven Steps To Speed 1 Culture first Process changes don’t happen in a vacuum. Provide a vision and focus on the human element. 2 Mitigated risks Encourage risk-taking, but only after discussing benefits and minimizing negatives. 3 Code reuse Don’t reinvent the wheel with every project. Reward people for sharing knowledge. 4 Modular projects Plan projects in quickly implementable chunks. 5 Revenue-driven implementation Build and implement revenue-producing modules first. 6 Cross-project communication Encourage people to talk with one another and explore possibilities for collaboration. 7 Management help Get top managers to pitch in and remove barriers to increase speed.

Hughes and Hai asked IT staffers to brainstorm for the rest of the year, and the ideas began to fly. The project revolution began in January 2001, and by year's end, the staff had cut average project duration from 216 days to 120—a 45% reduction.

This success has been cheered by business people at National City who have seen project benefits delivered sooner rather than later. "Projects delivered ahead of schedule result in business benefits being realized ahead of plan," says Vice Chairman William McDonald. Here's how National City did it.

Taking Risks

The most far-reaching cultural change National City had to encourage was risk-taking. "Normally, a project manager thinks of doing everything in the safest possible way," says Marty Palicka, vice president of project services. "Now we say, 'If a project plan has no risk associated with it, why don't you think about improving the project or the life cycle or the ROI by taking a risk or two?' "