Who’s the Internet project Boss?

Have you ever wondered who’s really in charge of an Internet project? Or who “should” be?

I’m really tired of the constant “struggle” where IT Dep’s have opinions like; they should be in charge of Internet projects and that if not for them the Internet wouldn’t even exist. But hang on; it doesn’t make anything better if was the Communication dep. either. Claiming “content is King”. Providers, crews, individuals that keep claiming this kind of arguements are doing nothing but being trapped in “the monkey trap.”

“There is no Internet project!” (to rephrase a line from The Matrix movie) Internet is a channel as any. (E.g. TV, publications, radio, Cell phones) There is most surely a desired outcome for a company in need for an Internet involvement. IT / communication/ PR or what is – companies tend to forget that for the customer it’s not a project -with a start, and an ending. For the customer Internet is a long lasting process using that channel for their purposes (Business, involvement, information tasks and so forth). All kinds of businesses have all of a sudden become their own publishers. – Thanx to Gutenberg, and a brand new world of technology!

Gartner recently stated (ITxpo in Barcelona) that the CIO’s have yet a paradigm shift ahead of them. I’d say that it’s not only the CIO’s that have this challenge – We all do, and the responsibility for making the right decitions of how to go about it is in the hands of top management both on the customer and provider side of the table.

I don’t really care who is to be the “Boss” in an Internet project! An Internet project is always a team effort. The one in charge should be the one that’s best to manage, and motivate, and make everyone in the team able to do better than they thought possible themselves. The manager that empower everybody in the team, make all involved focused on the task at hand – and make sure that all agrees on the idea; the best result comes from what is happening in the group dynamics, not the singular effort from each and one alone. This person could be from IT Dep, Comm. Dep or from the Consultant/strategy Dep. or what ever. The best motivator, best inspirator, with management skills and a broad set of knowledge of all competence needed for the task is my favorite candidate for the job.