"It's really not about technology. IT can always build the most colossal Ferrari for any solution, but that's not always what's needed. Sometimes what's needed is a Volkswagen or a bicycle," says Carvallo, who spent a month interviewing hundreds of IT employees before coming up with the project plan.

When Austin Energy moved to a wireless system for repair work orders, Carvallo had to consider that workers were accustomed to paper order forms. The new plan called for laptops in every repair truck that would tell workers where to go and what to do. "Do they have the computer skills for that? Can they get trained on rebooting systems or closing an order so that it can go back into the billing system? All these variables have to be considered as you're bringing in automation," he explains.

The utility holds ongoing training for all employees, including certification on most enterprise applications, to guarantee that power users truly know how to use the products. "We do focus groups with every customer segment that we interact with on a [business-to-consumer] basis, and we train our external customers on how to use our portals," Carvallo adds.

When assembling a team to lead multiple projects in an IT transformation, "you have to overwhelm this task with resources and capabilities," says Michael Patterson, a partner at Patterson Pruden LLC, a New York-based consulting firm.

If a project requires five highly skilled team members, at least three of them should have been successful at leading megaprojects in the past, Patterson advises. "If I don't have three, I need to go recruit one" from a business unit, an outside consulting firm or a headhunter, he adds.