Eighteen years ago, Carter was working on his MBA when he was asked to direct the development of a large-scale billing system at a telecommunications company. The difficulty of the project was compounded by the need to keep pace with business requirements that changed while the system was being developed. There was also the challenge of adapting the legacy code, with all of the surprises it contained.

"There were huge pressures on us, with a lot of fault being placed on the IT team for dates being missed," he says. "I saw the other side of the equation, where we were trying to build something that was constantly changing."

Bolstering his team's confidence was key to meeting those challenges. "I spent a huge amount of time celebrating our successes," Carter says.

Lessons learned:

-- Acknowledge that "big bang" system development isn't a wise business strategy. It's better to break up your deliverables into increments.