Different approaches to IT projects

Create a document that specifically outlines the roles and responsibilities of both users and IT. This will prevent a lot of problems down the line. Often users and IT are like oil and water, they never completely mix, so what you need to do is leverage the expertise from the individual areas, and combine them in such a way that each contributes to the Project. Has this beendone elsewhere in your orgainzation, or is this the first time it is being done? How long Have you been managing projects? If this is uncharted waters for you, you might want to consider bringing in a consultant to help you put it together. If so, do not use one of the giant consulting firms, as they always use a cookie cutter approach, regardless of the individual needs of the client. Hope this helps.

I agree with Answer 1 but document is still a document. I suggest bring your Corp folks to the biz world for one full day, get them to do the biz stuff themselves. Then make a technical presentation to your biz folks (a design review or architecture session would be nice), throw them all the jargons and then end the presentation with 'no worry, leaves all these stuff to us'.

Very often, merging two team of people is not a technical challenge but an art. Try dinner and wine stuff but only after a few round of in house sessions.

Rememeber that you need to award responsibilities and rewards based on past contribution and not on stature. Easier said than done though.

Hire experts in the field and dont be satisfied with a near fit.

State your expectations and mesurement criteria in a "Key performance Indicators document". This makes the eperformance appraisal easier. Have the person sign it.

Dont have too many leaders or managers.