There are a lot of things that can sink a technology project, but none of them are more effective than ignorance and insufficient preparation.

That's at least as true for virtualization projects as any others but—because a virtual infrastructure will underpin and become a part of every other technology project you run—basic training in virtualization is more important that high-level training in many other technologies. And virtualization skills—both high-level expert integrator and low-level VM admin—are scarce.

The disaster potential in a virtualization project is comparable to an ERP project, both for the breadth of the technology the new systems touch, and the level of knowledge [of both the business and specific technologies] IT people have to bring to the table.

And ERP is famous for its potential for disaster.

The city of Portland, Ore., for example, has had to fire one set of consultants, hire another, increase the budget almost 40 percent, and push out the completion date for a wide-ranging IT integration project, largely because the city's IT staff didn't know how to manage the technology or the consultants, and the consultants weren't up to doing the job on their own.

"Government incompetence," is the general culprit, according to Barry Brunetto, VP of IS at lumbering and building-tool manufacturer Blount which, like the City of Portland, has standardized its business applications on SAP, but far more quickly and at far lower cost.

The $500 million/year company's IT infrastructure is far smaller than Portland's, though its 13 international locations and the complications of tweaking SAP's software to deal with so many sets of national business regulations, tax rules and financial disclosure requirements make its project equally complex.

With only 25 people in IT and a cost of less than $16 million for the total project, Blount finished its migration more quickly, less expensively and with an ongoing increase in efficiency that cut 30 percent from both existing IT operations and new projects as well, Brunetto says.

The key to his success was in good planning and execution, which, in turn, depended on the quality of the IT team managing the project and the outside contractors.

"I believe in creating a team of top-notch people," Brunetto says. "I'd rather have 10 top-notch people than 30 schlocky ones, even if the salaries are that much higher for the good ones. If I were looking for a server administrator, I could get a general one off the street or get a top-notch one for 10 or 20-thousand [dollars per year] more, but the top-notch one can probably to twice as much work."