Candid CIO

The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts (Contd.)

2008-06-07T01:06:34Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview
The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts

Business Templates

These are the standard business language that is used for documentation, agreements, system generated emails, etc.

• What kinds of templates are usually used in conjunction with the business object?
• What sections of these are modified often? List out relevant sections here.

Master Data

This topic would, in some cases, include vendor master, supplier master, clients, personnel information, etc.

• Please list out sources or systems that are currently used to maintain master data. Examples will include vendor master, supplier master, clients, products, etc.

Integrations

This is a common feature of a large project. Invariably you will end up with integrating data to various other systems within the company.

• What are the integration points for the new system to talk to? The integration includes information exchange that could go in to the new system and/or out of the new system.
• What is the company standard for directory services?
• Is there a single sign-on currently implemented within the company?

Products, IP, etc

• Do you maintain a list of products, services, or solution offerings?
• Do you maintain any knowledge or IP-related information?

Legacy Data

This section covers the already-existing data for the business objects. The data can be located in legacy systems, in various spreadsheets, documents, or even hard-copy information.

• What is the volume of the legacy information for the business object?
• What is the volume of the legacy information for associated objects?
• Is the legacy data in a mix of stages in the lifecycle? Do they include objects in creation, review, approvals, executed or published, etc?
• What is the format of the legacy data? (Examples could include Excel, PDT, etc)

Search and Reporting

• Is there a currently a report that is used by your organization?
• If yes, what are the data points being reported on?
• How frequently are these reports run?
• What is the report format? (Examples could include Excel, pivot tables, etc.)

Next week on these pages : The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 3: Take aways

-------------------------
About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts

2008-05-16T16:05:06Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview

A Four-Part Cook Book

While every cook book will be different, we find that they generally share common core elements.

Below are some of the sections and questions that we have used in the past. Time and again, these tools have proven really valuable for us. In this example, the cook book is organized into the following four parts:

• Contact Information
• Interview Questions
• Conclusion
• Interviewer Notes

You can certainly create your own cook book format. In fact, we encourage you to do so!

Section One: Contact Information
This section covers the stakeholder’s information. This information allows you to code and file the stakeholder’s responses.

• Name,
• Phone
• Date of Interview
• Department
• Organization Name

Sometimes, you will have some follow-up questions for them before you meet them. This is a great means to reach out to them via email or phone before you meet them in person. If you do have questions, or clarifications, you should reach out during the Pre-Analysis stage. This helps in getting the relationship going along even before you meet.

Section Two: Interview Questions

This section serves as the core of the cook book. It is split into sub-sections, based on the domain and the industry. Not every cook book will contain all of these elements. However, here are some common areas:

Technology Wish List

This sub-secton is targeted to the Shared Services or the IT Services team within the company. Typical questions will include:

• Database
• Application Server
• Web Server
• Email Server
• Clustering?
• VMWare?
• Content server

These questions will allow you to benchmark the current state as well as the desired or ideal state.

Business Objects
These questions focus on the core business object(s) of this initiative.

• What are the functional responsibilities of your group?
• Describe the current business object creation process.
• Described how the business object is published/executed.
• Describe how the business object is maintained/managed/purged.
• What types of the business objects does your organization deal with?
• What is the volume by type of the business objects created per month?
• How often do they get modified once executed or published?
• Do you currently have a system that manages this? Please explain.
• Is there any compliance risks involved with the business objects?
• What kind of meta-data would you like to capture about the business object? Please include details and list the fields that you will be interested in capturing.

These questions should be asked for each group impacted by the project. Remember that different groups may have radically different needs and expectations for the system.

We have also seen these questions uncover unexpected differences between how parallel groups use the current system. For example, two groups—one in San Jose and one in Mumbai—perform similar roles for the company, but they have developed different processes. When you capture these differences through the pre-analysis, you (as the project lead) can manage expectations more effectively.

Users

• How many users are currently involved in the process, and what types of users?
• Where are they located? (Provide a list of areas for them to select from).
• How many of these users are involved in creation of the business object?
• How many of these users are involved in maintenance or management of the business objects?
• What level of access would these users require in the system? Examples could be read, write, can access only basic information, can download information, etc.
• Do you need to share the information with someone outside of your organization? List out other organizations or functional groups.

Security

• How many user groups will you want in the system? Examples could be Managers, Approvers, Reviewers, Read only users, Administrators.
• Will some users be wearing multiple hats in the system?
• Will there be segmented users? (users who will only be able to see sections)

Workflow

• Describe the current workflow process. Typical examples could be creation, lead up to publish (review, approve), publish/execute, Maintenance, management, etc.
• List out the roles that you will see the users performing in the new system.

Next week on these pages : The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts (Contd.)

-------------------------
About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

Private Avaya needs to make some public noise

2008-01-22T15:01:32Z

Upon hearing recently that networking company Avaya Communication is becoming a private company, the thought did occur that perhaps there would finally be an infusion of aggressive competitiveness in what has become a dull, dull company.
Public ownership, among other things, can do that to an organization. Big old companies operate too cautiously, move too slowly towards change, and all too readily accept a decline in status without putting up much of a fight. It’s why, in my opinion, the network communications equipment industry in general has become a wasteland outside of Cisco Systems. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Cisco keeps fighting and has parlayed disaster in the networking equipment business at the turn of the century into \unparalleled dominance. Seems most of the competition - if you want to call them that - weren’t nearly as determined. Most continue to stumble and fumble (think Nortel, 3Com and Enterasys) or they are content to lay low and scurry for the few scraps of business that Cisco doesn’t own or care about. It’s a lousy situation for buyers. Goodness knows enterprise customers could use a viable second choice, at the very least to believably suggest to Cisco that they can do business elsewhere.
Will that choice be Avaya - at least in the VoIP/unified communications space? I was excited to hear that Avaya was now in private hands. It suggested to me that the company has an opportunity to be dynamic - to operate in a much more nimble and energetic way. Avaya, like most other network equipment makers, seems almost invisible. Perhaps without the constraint of shareholders, Avaya can move more quickly and make a lot more noise. Its first challenge should be to aggressively and loudly promote its brand, its technology and redefine its value proposition.
I recently spoke with Canada country manager Mario Belanger, to ask whether such an approach is immenent as a result of new private ownership. I was somewhat disappointed to hear that there’s no announced new market strategy, at least not yet. Belanger admits the company is pretty much the same today as it was prior to the private acquisition. That’s fair.Change does take time, so let’s give Avaya a chance to turn the ship and set a course.
The hope is that Avaya takes on a determination to become an assertive and viable market alternative. The space between the top network equipment maker in Canada and number two is wide and getting wider. Avaya has an opportunity to make a significant move up. But like any good number two player, they need to try harder.

Bill Gates: A hell of a nice guy but no IT visionary

2008-01-22T15:01:23Z

By Dan McLean

As he fades into the sunset of IT retirement Bill Gates definitely deserves to be remembered as a man of great philanthropy, rather than the IT visionary that many seem to give him credit for.

As an IT journalist for 15 years, I can’t recall one occasion where I thought Bill Gates said anything truly inspiring about IT. Definitely nothing that most of us who followed the industry didn’t already know. Certainly nothing that was exceedingly insightful – something I would have expected to hear from IT’s most famous founding father. The fact is that Bill was mostly pretty dull and seemingly uninspired when discussing IT. He certainly wasn’t dynamic and hardly the overtly passionate tech nerd that he’d often been portrayed as being. Yet Bill is an IT superstar, albeit duller than a butter knife. Over the years, Bill could pack them in like nobody’s business at keynotes, conventions and many other events happening around the globe. During most of his tech diatribes, however, Bill never really had much to say.

Most Bill Gates speeches sounded like Microsoft product commercials. Bill’s public discussions were typically pretty generalized – jibber about connected devices, connected people, connected ideas, a connected world, the power of the Internet, IT and innovation, empowerment. Blah, blah, blah! There was never anything too specific or revealing and mostly an espoused viewpoint that Microsoft was leading the way towards these vague notions. A good-sounding commercial but little else.

But Bill Gates is one hell of a human being and that’s where he’ll leave his most indelible mark.

The thing that most impresses me about Bill is his philanthropy and generosity. It’s the good social work that Bill and Melissa Gates do that’s truly inspirational. They’ve donated tens of billions of dollars throughout the years. Through his Foundation, Bill and Melinda provide enormous monetary grants for education, AIDS research and prevention, as well as programs that support global health and learning, and much more. His generosity is enlightening and has inspired others of such means to do likewise. Bill’s legacy as he moves into “retirement” will perhaps be as a civil-rights spokesperson and the greatest humanitarian in history. Something he’ll undoubtedly be focused on doing for the remainder of his years.

That’s something to be remembered for.

Can Microsoft speak reliably in the unified communications space?

2008-01-22T15:01:07Z

Would you buy a unified communications solution from Microsoft Corp.?
If the product is anything like the operating system software the company sells, then most definitely not. Unified communications (UC) isn’t something to invest in without some rock-solid guarantees of performance and reliability. There’s no, “we’ll work out the kinks as we go,” with this sort of application. It’s not Windows. It has to work - all the time. There’s nothing more important to a business than its ability to communicate.
I’m definitely watching to see how Microsoft fares in this market, with its recently announced Office Communications Server 2007 that provides VoIP, video, instant messaging, conference and presence under a unified communications banner. On one hand, Microsoft’s entry gives a strong shot of legitimacy to a still emerging IT concept. Dare I say that UC becomes an almost mainstream application?
But Microsoft has its work cut out to become a leader in this space. Most of the big network equipment makers, like Cisco, Nortel and Avaya, have had UC products available for at least five years or more. These are mature and proven offerings. Microsoft brings to the market some pretty basic UC capabilities by comparison, which in truth can’t really compete with the functionality of the others on the market. But Microsoft also brings mass market penetration and a focus on consumers and smaller business, which has the potential to drive UC boldly into places where none have gone before.
And, if you believe customers like CNIB, Office Communications Server 2007 is a breeze to install and manage. They rave about it and that alone makes it compelling and worth further investigation.
But there are a number of key questions: Can Microsoft build an UC solution that’s reliable enough? How functionally rich can Office Communications Server 2007 become? Can it ever achieve enterprise scale? Can Microsoft gain credibility in this key application space?
Would you buy a UC solution from them?

The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview

2008-01-11T00:01:30Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

When you kick start a project, you’ll begin with the discover phase—sometimes also known as the requirements phase. This initial step frequently involves an exhaustive stakeholder analysis. In our experience, this first phase often determines whether the project will be a success or a nightmare. If a project launches without a proper stakeholder analysis, the system’s requirements will not align with the actual needs of the business users.

Asking Relevant Questions

The stakeholder analysis can be a tricky phase of the project. If you ask relevant questions, you will get the answers you need. More importantly, you will over the stakeholders, and identify the relevant requirements.

However, if you don’t ask relevant questions, you will come across as someone who doesn’t understand the stakeholders and their needs. People will perceive you as unsure of yourself. You may even come across as inexperienced.

During the stakeholder analysis, you have the potential to “discover” requirements which will really be in--tune with the actual needs of the business users. How do you get great responses from stakeholders? If you’re a naturally-gifted interviewer, you could use this skill to elicit great responses. Similarly, if you’ve got decades of experience, you could draw upon your experience with similar stakeholder groups; you might even anticipate people’s needs before they express them. Certainly, natural talent or experience would make your life easier as the project leader.

However, we’ve learned that the best way to craft relevant questions is through intensive and thoughtful prep-work. There are smart ways to prepare relevant questions for your project’s stakeholders. We call this tool the pre-analysis cook book.

In this section, we’ll discuss how to write a cook book for a project, and we’ll share some sample questions.

Creating Your Cook Book

Your cook book will be developed for each project, and it will contain a nicely-drafted list of relevant questions that cove all the areas the project is designed to cover. The questions will be specific to the domain or industry of the project.

After you draft the cook book, you will send it to your stakeholders and ask them to fill it out and return it to you. You’ll want to receive their responses before you do the actual stakeholder analysis. This way, you will have some time to go over the responses and formulate your analysis questions.

In the scope of this blog, you will see some questions which are specific to certain projects. Don’t assume these questions must be asked for every project. Instead, we’re giving examples of what you could do with the cook book.

When you create your cook book, you must apply it to your specific subject area and domain. Remember, the cook book will contain many questions. You should not expect any one person to answer all of the questions. So, when you send the cook book to your stakeholders, be sure to identify which questions each person should answer.

Next week on these pages : The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts

-------------------------
About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

Green is the new ethics

2007-11-27T17:11:47Z

Had an interesting and enjoyable conversation with Professor Norman Ball recently for the final instalment of a series we're doing in conjunction with the University of Waterloo. Although the talk veered down many paths, the official discussion was around ethics and governance, and one point Professor Ball made that really jumped out at me was a short and simple one:

"Green is the new ethics."

It's hard to disagree. With messages from the likes of David Suzuki finally penetrating the moral conciousness of a large number of North Americans, "saving the planet" and "going green" are convenient mantras for the corporate world to hang its battered ethical hat on. Especially in the hardware market, whose products eat up huge amounts of energy, a green message allows companies to at least look like they care about something other than the bottom line.

Whether there is an earnest interest in the environmental movement amongst this group is cause for skepticism. But at least they are saying, and in many cases doing, some positive things around the environment. Let's just hope that while they're talking about planting trees and saving fish, corporate strategists are not forgetting about more traditional ethical matters around finances and good governance.

Project management's dirty little secret

2007-11-19T17:11:32Z

In speaking with Michael Sheppard, a PhD student at the University of Waterloo and a veteran IT project manager, I heard a refreshing bit of insight into the minefield that is the art of project management. Sheppard pointed out, quite matter-of-factly, that a big part of a team's responsiblity lies not just in ensuring the successful completion of the project, but also in managing expectations and putting an appropriate spin on things when they break down.

Speaking of his own experiences, Sheppard commented, "It may sound a bit manipulative, but in a sense, we often have made failures into succeses by readjusting expectations and good corporate communications."

That means mentioning the deployment of 500 new laptops on time even though the new software deployment is a month behind schedule. It means sending the right message to ensure mass panic does not set in amongst decision makers. It means keeping partnerships as healthy as they can be. And it is a dirty little secret about project management that most managers have faced and which they must be prepared to handle in most situations.

BI consolodation continues

2007-11-15T17:11:13Z

With the announcement of IBM's forthcoming purchase of Ottawa business intelligence vendor Cognos Inc., the consolodation of the BI market continues its unabated march. According to a survey from The 451 Group on the topic, some respondents see a simple case of supply and demand as being a key factor in the slimming down effect we've been witnessing of late.

Wrote one: "There is simply too much technology (supply) chasing too few buyers (demand) with need for the technology. Niche technologies offer opportunities for tuck-in deals for suppliers of truly whole product solutions with established distribution and market access."

For more on the report, see this article from Thomas Wailgum in CIO Magazine.

The report, "Strategic acquirers to ramp up M&A activity in the coming year", is available to 451 Group clients at the company's site.

Sell Business to Business Users – Part 3: The Exception

2007-11-14T17:11:26Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
Sell Business to Business Users – Part 1: The Need
Sell Business to Business Users – Part 2: The Design & Execution

When All Else Fails

There are times when, despite your best efforts, you can’t get buy-in. People miss meetings; they show little interest in the solution; they find excuses to evade their commitments. If this happens, there are probably underlying tensions within the company and its groups.

Be especially careful when relying on executives to provide a top-down message for change without an underlying consensus from the user community. For example, the COO can send out an e-mail to all of the stakeholders that dictates the company’s vision and direction for the project. Such a message will dutifully be addressed by all of the communities within the company; however, you’re likely to see begrudging resistance.

Your project may be caught in a deeper undercurrent. For example, the stated goal and vision for the company may be different from the goals people perceive. An executive might say, “this project will save us 20% of our time spent on this process.” If people in the user community question the company’s growth prospects, they may wonder if this new project will put their jobs at risk.

If during the project you start to see tension or dissension among the stakeholders and user community, it’s good to take a step-back. Look at the world through their eyes:

• Does the group perceive the project’s relevance (to themselves and the company)?
• Does the group sense a value misalignment (between the company’s stated and perceived objectives)?
• Does the group feel that they will have sufficient organizational support (during and after launch) to be successful?
• Does the group believe the changes are too difficult?

Remember, when you’re introducing new systems, you’re not just dealing with hardware, software, and middleware. You’re impacting people.

Next week on these pages: Pre-Analysis Cook Book

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About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

Sell Business to Business Users – Part 2: The Design - Execution

2007-11-08T02:11:43Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
Sell Business to Business Users – Part 1: The Need

Let’s look at a few ways that you can sell the system to the users:

Planning

* Identify Your Champions
Identify the heads of departments, key stakeholders or users who will champion the project. You should work upfront to get their buy in, take care and address their concerns. It is always helpful if the directive to use the system comes from the department heads.

* Identify Your Evangelists
Your evangelists will be the people who conceived the project, people who attributed to the concept getting critical mass, and people who are very directly benefitted by implementing the new system. As with the champions, you should get your evangelists on board upfront, and involve them in your design process. These people will eventually evangelize the system, talk about it with passion and enthusiasm and sway the other users to adopt and use the new system.

Design

Empower the users to get involved during the design process. If it is logically not possible to get the entire user base, which could very well go into a large number based on the complexity and size of the project, you could pick out certain key users and get them involved. The users that you pick should be influencers, people who are looked up to in their respective domains, Subject Matter Experts. In our experience, we have always seen, users are committed to what they helped build.

Development

* User Board Sessions
Conduct regular user board sessions, sometimes called project user board sessions (PUB). Regular sessions will help in resolving any issues on interactions, business processes, accessories, security, and other entities which could go into the system. PUB sessions are also useful sessions to get buy in from the users in designing and implementing the new processes.

* Previews
Continually show the pre-reviews of the system as it is being developed. This way, the users don’t get surprised on go live. They will not feel, Oh, I thought the system will function this way. Pre-Reviews will go a long way in the users getting familiarized with the system upfront, instead of a costly familiarization and certain resistance to get familiarized with something new in the end.

* Create Training Programs
Many projects treat training as an afterthought. However, you want to plan your user training programs early in the development phase. On launch day, you might have a perfect system. But if they users don’t understand it, they will resist change. Just like a system, it takes time to develop effective training programs that build user confidence and create behavior change.

Pre-Launch

* Demonstrate Value
Show how the new system will benefit users. Demonstrate the value-adds through quantitative numbers—not just guesstimates or strong convictions. Ideally, these numbers should be reviewed and endorsed by the evangelists within the user community. For example, you could demonstrate that the amount of time to do a certain primary function will now take 40% less time. Clearly articulate the current environment, and the future environment. Then show your statistics.

* Explain the Timeline
As the launch date occurs, stay in contact with the community. Communicate how and when the launch will occur. Give them time to understand the changes they will be asked to make.

* Allow Time for Practice
People need time to practice new skills before performing them in a live environment. This may be classroom training, e-learning, or webinar. Ideally, people learn best when they have time to practice and receive feedback on their performance.
Launch

* Job Aids
When introducing a new system, it’s important to provide easily-accessible job aids. Research shows that job aids are highly correlated with users successfully adopting the system long-term. When people leave training, they’ll have to use the new system on their own. They will get stuck. If users can find easy-to-use job aids, they will be able to solve their problems themselves and move forward. Otherwise, they will be frustrated and need external help (perhaps from a super-user or help-desk).

Next week on these pages, we cover:
Sell Business to Business Users - Part 3: The Exception

-------------------------
About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

Sell Business to Business Users – Part 1: The Need

2007-11-05T04:11:42Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

Frequently, CIO’s and primary project sponsors ask a tough question. How do we sell the business (the system) to the business users? These businesspeople have been habituated to the current ecosystem. They are accustomed to doing their tasks in a certain ways. A new system disrupts those patterns. Most likely, people will be resistant to learning new things and modifying their existing behaviors.

We can establish good processes and procedures. We can even implement the best systems, but they are all no good if people don’t embrace the system. Systems must serve the users’ needs.

Launching a major system creates organizational change. Networks must be reconfigured. Applications must successfully pass data. However, new systems often require individual behavior change within people throughout the organization. Some project managers focus solely on systems. They treat people as an afterthought, and then they wonder why people actively resist their grand solution.

A successful project requires buy-in from all of the users—well before you reach the stage of User Acceptance Testing. Early in the project, you must consider how the project will impact people’s daily lives:

• What value does the system add?
• How will user’s roles, responsibilities, and tasks change?
• Who are your champions?
• Who are your evangelists?

Users are not abstract conceptions. They are real people who have their own day-to-day challenges. It’s important to speak with them, learn their world, and become accepted as someone who cares about their community. Wise project managers consider the human aspect of change and quickly establish change management and communication plans as part of the overall project.

Next week on these pages, we cover:
1. Sell Business to Business Users - Part 2: The Design and Execution (where we focus on the nuts and bolts of selling business to business users)

-------------------------
About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

Why are large projects different?

2007-10-26T03:10:08Z

Arun Nithyanandam -

Many people wonder why large projects are so different from smaller projects. In fact, we’ve heard people say, “okay, so the budgets for large projects are bigger, but wouldn’t you handle them the same way. Isn’t project management the same regardless of scope?” The relationship between a project’s size and its complexity isn’t a linear relationship. Bigger projects aren’t just bigger; they have more variables that can impact the project.

Let’s say that you have ten small projects which together equal the size and scope of one large project—both in the number of people involved and total budget. The large project will inherently be more complex because it involves a larger network of people, ideas, and resources. It’s fundamentally a network issue.

Small projects focus on issues that can be handled by a limited team of internal and external resources. It’s often very easy to define the projects’ starting and ending points. When it’s time for a meeting, it’s relatively easy to bring everyone together and focus them on the same vision.

Large projects become more complex because there are more people, more issues, and more resources that interact together—and each becomes a project node. The more nodes, The more effort it takes to manage the project to a successful delivery.

Let’s look at some of the major characteristics within large projects and why they needed to be handled differently. We can organize this list into three categories: ideas, people, and things.

Ideas

1. Functional gaps and unknowns
Large projects often begin with a vague idea and achieve critical mass within the organization.
Maybe an executive said, “wouldn’t it be great if . . .” or the community has expressed frustration that “there has to be a better way.” In many cases, a large project begins as a foray into the unknown—both in terms of existing legacy solutions and what the future should look like.

2. Challenges with change in scope
The project starts with a vague idea that starts organizational change and sometimes upheaval. It’s rare for the initial idea to become the delivered solution. As the idea grows into a project, new people will come aboard, new risks will be identified, and new functionality needed. During the planning phase, the project will resemble a fluid river rather than a marble monument. You’ll often hear “that was what we thought yesterday.”

3. Scope creep
Once an idea acquires enough critical mass to become a formal project, it’ll attract other ideas like a lint brush. It’ll be impossible to have a planning meeting without someone suggesting an incremental improvement. Additionally, when the project has located a source of funding, people may attempt to attach their non-related pet-project ideas to the large project.

4. Conflicting needs
Even when everyone is working on the same project, they may not be working towards the same ends. The people who represent end-users will have different concerns than the folks from finance, while someone from the IT team calculates the server loads. Generally, there’s no one group that’s “right” while everyone else is wrong. Often, the role of the project manager is to advise project champions on how to balance differing needs.

People

5. Organizational Dynamics
Large projects are prestigious. Many people will be attracted because involvement will enhance their career. Similarly, large projects also command a substantial part of the organization’s resources—time, money, and people. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

6. People change during the implementation of the project.
Some people may leave the company; others get promoted into new roles; and even more transfer into different departments/projects. Each replacement means that someone new needs to be brought up to speed on the project goals, efforts-to-date, and current issues. The more people you have in a project, the more frequent someone goes on vacation, gets sick, or takes a leave of absence.

7. The Human Element
No matter what date you choose for a meeting, it’s rare to bring absolutely every key person and stakeholder into a meeting. People get called into unscheduled meetings by their boss. They also go on vacation, get sick, and take leaves of absence. When these unpredicted absences occur, it can have a cascading impact on decisions, actions, and timelines.

Things

8. Project may have multiple participating vendors
In addition to multiple groups within the company, large projects often require the support of multiple vendors. These vendors each provide key elements to the project, but their efforts must be coordinated together into an integrated whole—even when they aren’t used to working together as a team.

Next week on these pages: Sell Business to Business Users

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About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named "Managing Multi-million dollar projects" to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun's articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

The intrapreneurial spirit

2007-10-25T14:10:43Z

One of the biggest concerns currently affecting CIOs and IT managers is staff retention. This is particularly noticeable when it concerns younger employees coming into the market with loads of ability and little patience for the traditional frustrations associated with climbing the corporate ladder.

Some IT leaders are beginning to realize that by letting members of this new generation be inventive, creative and imaginative in their roles ("intrapreneurial"), the possibility exists to solve two problems with one philosophy: employees are content and loyal because they have the leeway to express themselves in their work, and employers reap the rewards of their often forward-thinking projects.

The danger, of course, is that with more employee freedom comes an increased risk of wasted resources on those efforts that don't lead to anything. The role of the CIO/IT leader is to seek the right amount of balance in this new paradigm for thier indivdual organizations. It will mostlikely take a fair bit of trial and error before that balance can be reached, but in the end, it should prove to be a boon to innovation and growth.

Canadian wireless technology triumphs

2007-10-24T13:10:06Z

By Joaquim P. Menezes -

Notwithstanding all the dire predictions about the "end of the honeymoon phase in the Canadian mobile wireless sector," and the longwinded laments about the many problems afflicting this sector – wireless tech companies in Canada have quite a bit to be proud about.

This was very apparent earlier this week when the results of the first ever Deloitte's Wireless Fast 50 rankings were announced.

The rankings of fastest-growing wireless companies –based on fiscal year revenue growth over five years (2002-2006) – demonstrated Canada's growing strength in the wireless arena.

A total of 13 Canadian companies made this inaugural top 50 ranking, while three Ontario-based companies broke through the top 10. BTI Systems Inc. ranked fourth alongside Tira Wireless Inc. (16,610 per cent growth), and MyThum Interactive Inc. ranked sixth (13,900 per cent growth).

Deloitte Wireless Fast 50 award winners were announced yesterday as part of the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment 2007 conference in San Francisco.

The Fast 50 rankings measure a company's growth, revenue-wise.

Equally important in my view, though, is a company's legacy in terms of the technology, talent, new business models, and infrastructure.

And here too Canadian companies have quite a bit to be proud of.

Today, with 'BlackBerry' a household word in North America, at least, it's worth recalling the contribution of companies like Research in Motion, which ranked #34 on the Deloitte Wireless Fast 50 list.