Eating the IT Elephant: Moving from Greenfield Development to Brownfield

Chapter 2. The Confusion of Tongues

	“The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”
	--George Bernard Shaw

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Introducing Brownfield 25

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Key Communication Problems 25

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Overcoming Communication Complexity 34

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Endnotes 35

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In Chapter 1, “Eating Elephants Is Difficult,” we introduced IT environmental complexity as the major roadblock for the successful delivery of big IT projects. Not only are the projects themselves complex, but the environments into which they deliver their new systems are, too.

Why is complexity such an inhibitor for success? It’s not the actual complexity that ...