Check out iOpener

In the spring, I began to work with the LANSA worldwide marketing team on the release of our corporate blog iOpener - Pushing the limits of IBM i and Microsoft Technology.  Many of my managers and project leaders, who have decades of experience in implementing leading edge ecommerce and enterprise systems, have been the initial contributors. 

Already we have significant content on a diverse set of topics such as Project Management, Workflow, Content Management, Mobile Applications, Global Data Synchronization, Making a business case for Modernization, and much more.

With all the excitement surrounding iOpener, that will become my primary focus for IT-related blogging, although I may still post the occasional opinion piece here if it is not suitable for our corporate site.

If you check it out, please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions.

Stagnate or Evolve – Pick ONE

When we looked out into the misty future of IT a couple of decades ago, it seemed that the software tools were getting more sophisticated and easier to use. I remember some even speculating that with advanced modelling techniques, software might one day write itself and perhaps there would be less need for programmers.

Well, technology is smarter and more sophisticated, alright. Automation has affected every industry and faces us at every turn. But our advanced technological capabilities have also brought an explosion of complexity and data. And, of course, who could have imagined where the Internet would take us. Predictions indicate that there will be a trillion devices connected to the Internet by next year.  (how many do we each have??)

To keep up with all this, not only do we need more technicians than ever before, but we need more and better designers and project managers.

And, of course, amidst all the latest advances, enterprise systems (some of them ‘legacy’ in nature) are enormous and in some cases, stitched together over decades. Business processing relies on their stability.

With so much diversity and complexity, businesses are now more dependent on Information Technology than ever before. So, if you’re running IT, where are you taking your organization? Is your business leading the competition with eBusiness and Mobile services? Have your legacy systems been modernized to take these steps forward? Are you re-architecting to take advantage of virtualization?

Basically, you can either stagnate or evolve. It’s your choice.

If you’re not sure where your business is at, consider the signs of an IT shop suffering from stagnation. Do these symptoms fit your situation?

• Are you managing separate silos of technology? Perhaps legacy application maintenance is separate from desktop and internet applications..
• Is your team planning strategic IT initiatives or behaving more like plumbers and janitors, plugging holes and cleaning up messes?
• Are the limitations with IT holding the business back from where they want to go?
• Are you unable to adapt to new technologies and requirements in a timely fashion?
• Is the precious knowledge of how to maintain and extend your rich legacy environment locked within a small group of individuals?  (Could an out of control bus endanger the stability of your systems?)
• Is the majority of your IT budget spent on maintaining the status quo (plumbing and janitorial duties) or taking the business forward with ground breaking strategies that will ultimately pay for themselves with improved operational efficiencies or new business opportunities?

Obviously stagnation is not desirable; however, you must also take care not to proceed with initiatives that will turn your stable systems upside down, perhaps costing a fortune in the process and leaving you back where you started.

In addition, after the tumultuous years of the worldwide economic crisis, there are important considerations which relate more to survival. Risk management, compliance, and cost containment are factors which must be taken into account with any strategic plan.

So what are the signs of steady evolutionary movement?  Well think about some of the symptoms in modern man, leftover body parts that have little or no function, such as wisdom teeth or appendix, baby toes which apparently are on their way out.  But these components disappear gradually, rather than overnight.  At the same time, evidence of functional advancements are apparent.  The differences in our capabilities compared to 100 millenia ago, are dramatic.

Of course, in IT management terms, you probably need to look in months or maybe 100 day periods (as opposed to millenia) when you judge your progress.

Your plan must take Information Technology forward over a period of years.  In other words, you must consciously evolve.  You don't want random acts and natural selection to dictate the future of your business.

Predictions for 2012

Regardless of the source, predictions for 2012 indicate our life circumstances may be forever altered.

Many believe that the Mayan Calendar, Nostradamus, and others foretold that a cataclysmic global event would occur on the winter solstice of 2012.  I didn't see the Hollywood version of this momentous occasion but the trailers were frightening!

Others suggest that these prophecies actually mean that humanity will face a transformational process, leading us forward to a new form of existence.  Some say it will be glorious, others say it will mean widespread destruction.  There are even polls on the Internet asking people if they think 2012 will be the end of the world.  (From what I've seen 80% are saying NO so there is hope for us).

If we assume our planet does survive and we continue to plod along in our basic human form, there are other predictions, still of the "doom and gloom" variety but focused more on our world economic and geopolitical state.  Some of the material talks about the oil crisis that will hit in 2012, another financial meltdown, the "Great Depression 2", and numerous other discouraging events.  Consider the recent article by DailyFinance.com:  "Big Banks Face Financial Doomsday in 2012".  In this short article, financial writer Pallavi Gogoi outlines the challenges which will lead to further disaster for the large US banks, coincidentally summing this up with the statement: "All these factors are casting a huge cloud on the banking sector".

Why is this statement coincidental?  Because the next set of predictions in this post are about Cloud Computing.  The word 'cloud' is the analysts' IT buzzword of the year, most recently appearing in the "Gartner Top End User Predictions for 2010".

Here are Gartner's first two "End User" predictions:

• By 2012, 20% of businesses will own no IT assets.
• By 2012, India-centric IT service companies will represent 20% of the leading cloud aggregators in the market (through cloud service offerings).

With a worldwide cataclysmic event, probably more than 20% of the IT assets will be toast anyway.  However, that aside, if we continue to move towards this model, it has to have a dramatic shift in the way businesses operate.  How will this affect the IT workforce?  What are the risks with businesses moving so far towards the outsourcing model that they have neither inhouse servers nor IT staff managing systems that are growing ever more complex?

Cost savings in an increasingly challenging economy are driving organizations towards these solutions. If this is a direction you are considering, the "cloud" should be used for standardized, commodity application areas, not necessarily for the complex, stategic systems that may separate a business from it's competitors.  Evaluate the assets you have in your long time IT staffers and find ways to mine them for more than just maintenance activities.

Evolution rather than revolution is always a safer bet. We must move forward but the options are numerous.

After all, where we land in 2012 is still within our control. (isn't it?)

Project Health Checks

Risk Management is important with any project but unless formal checkpoints are planned at the outset , these reviews can fall off the radar.

Traditionally, a large project would have a Steering Committee of executives and business sponsors who meet on a monthly or at least regular basis to get a formal project report on the status, including risks, issues, significant changes, and overages.  A Steering Committee helps to mitigate risk by enforcing a degree of reporting and executive attention at regular intervals.

However, I find less customers are forming Steering Committees in recent years.  Also, for small to medium-sized projects, it has always been less common.  So without this enforced review during the project, the requirement to cover issues and risks falls into the team's weekly status meetings.  The problem with this is that you may not have the required attention from the business or executives in these meetings.  Also, there is a significant amount of day to day work and task management to cover off in a status meeting.  Warnings of impending risks to the project may not have the same impact (or call to action) in a status meeting as they do in a Steering Committee Meeting.

In the current economic climate, there is more empasis than ever on delivering projects on time and on budget so, in order to address this challenge, we're in the process of making some changes to our project methodology.

We're instituting a new milestone for all of our solution delivery projects - the mid-project Health Check.  At least one project Health Check will be scheduled on the project plan and documented in the Project Charter.  Key decision makers from all organizations/departments that have a stake in the project should be involved in the review.

Project report card templates will be custom tailored to the unique customer situation, assessing criteria such as Project Communications, Change Management, Timeliness of deliverables by all parties, and so on.  Ratings will identify whether the item moves to a watch list or whether immediate steps must happen before the project can proceed.

Even simple tasks like software installation or sign off of key requirements can impact time and costs, if they drag on too long.  It's important that any issues be identified early so that corrective action can be taken right away.

As my "Anonymous commmenter" has bombarded me with McConnell quotations today, here's another gem that relates to this post.

"There are no secrets on a successful software project. Both good and bad news must be able to move up and down the project hierarchy without restriction."   - Steve C McConnell, Software Project Survival Guide

Managing IT project priorities in a pressurized, unstable business climate..

As I was writing this latest post, I received a copy of: “The Rise of the Project Workforce, Managing People and Projects in a Flat World” by Rudolf Melik, interspersed with some insightful references and quotations in what looks like a great tool for maneuvering through modern-day projects.

He references futurist Jim Carroll who works with organizations to help them adapt to a business climate that is under a constant state of transformation or, in his words, an: “ …. ever more rapidly changing economy, collapsing product life cycles, fiercer market competition, the rapid emergence of new competitors, challenging new workforce attitudes, not to mention the necessity of gaining access to ever more specialized skill sets…”

“We live in a time in which things are happening so fast that predictions go from fantasy to reality in a matter of months.”

I agree.  It’s important to recognize how fast our world is shifting. Collaborative capabilities and dynamic workforces are key factors. The constant morphing won’t stop so whatever decisions you make at the beginning of your fiscal year about project priorities will likely undergo changes as the year unfolds. Flexibility and adaptability are characteristics you need to embrace as an organization.

Still, old-fashioned project management techniques and formal setting of priorities remains important (or you could find yourself in a mess of too many projects with too many tentacles such that you never make progress) but it doesn’t stop there.

In terms of setting priorities and making decisions on your committed projects, there are some good common-sense recipes for how to go about this, involving steps like:

• Categorizing projects (for example, is the project strategic or tactical? what are the primary drivers? is it about revenue-generating, cost-savings, operational improvements, mandatory/compliance-oriented, keeping up with the competition, etc.?)
• Assessing the impact on the business if you don't do the project 
• Estimating costs, resource requirements, and timelines – how can you ever make a decision without having some idea of the size of the project?
• Gaining feedback and direction from business and technology leaders in the company
• Using all of this information, rank the projects in terms of importance.

My perspective is that above all else, you must involve the appropriate managers across the organization in establishing your priorities. Don’t leave these decisions solely to Information Technology.  IT can implement and influence but shouldn’t be responsible for setting the business priorities.

When you do make decisions to move forward with projects, here are a few more pragmatic suggestions to ensure success:

• Establish reasonable budgets and remember, you get what you pay for. If your project has gone out for tender, the cheapest bid is not always the best solution. Look for thoroughness, understanding, consistency, adaptability, fit…
• Gain sign-off and buy-in from all involved parties within the organization
• Document change management procedures
• Align your workforce, ensure they have the time and commitment to deliver where they are needed. I’ve seen too many projects fall apart when key staff are over-worked and double-booked..
• Get a good Project Manager!

There are numerous volumes (including the one referenced above) with more precise and involved instructions that a good manager can use.  However, in my experience, if you step back and apply common sense and collaborate well within your organization, you’ll be halfway there.

9 women, 1 month - can it be done?

Following on the theme of setting practical priorities for successful project implementations...

I wanted to share this comic but unfortunately I don't know the original source.  (If you know who should be credited, please comment).

Setting priorities, getting the right resources involved at the right time, having a plan that everyone has signed off on - these common sense ingredients can save bucket loads of time, money, and aggravation.

Are you on the ledge?

Everything is immediate now. Sometimes I think my brain is going to jam up and die.  Can I possibly multi-task more, electronically 'touch' more people, keep more balls in the air?  If you get a text message and don't answer it for an hour, there must be something wrong. Even the news is more complicated to follow.  You have to watch and listen to the main news while reading other headlines along the bottom and view your weather forecast at the same time.  Many people have email, messaging, Facebook or MySpace, Linkedin, multiple phone numbers, SMS messaging, blogs, and even Twitter now.  How can you get anything done with all of these inputs into your space?  Is there time to actually speak with anyone face to face anymore?  I wonder if our brains are even programmed to handle all this stimulae.

But technology advances make our lives so much easier and better, don't they? 

For most mid level managers that I deal with, this is nothing compared to the enormous demands that are being placed on them.

There are so many options for how a business can improve their operations through information technology and the pressure is on to keep up with demands that are often unrealistic.  For example, imagine an IT Manager who has just met with his boss to review the list of what he is expected to accomplish with his meager resources this coming fiscal year.  It might look something like this:

• Investigate options for migration of legacy billing system to Windows
• Automation of picking activities using wireless devices in warehouse
• Replace old eCommerce site and extend for B2C, integrated with social media
• Implement Workflow in the Customer Service Center to improve operational efficiencies and customer responsiveness
• Select and Implement Document Management software company-wide
• Be more responsive for help desk support with legacy systems
• Executive dashboard/EIS capabilities over existing financial systems
• Extend EDI to the internet and add 5 new trading partners
• Automated integration to Amazon using web services

No problem, right?
:)

Of course, it's all a question of time and money in the end but even a superhuman IT Manager can only manage so much.  I think Steven Covey first taught us that with his magical 7's.  And the day to day grind in many IT shops to manage operational systems, regardless of new projects, can be overwhelming.

I'd love to get some feedback.  How have you handled these challenges? 

In the next post, I want to explore how we set priorities and how we say no when the demands are just not reasonable.   As I said in my first blog, it's better to deliver 2 really effective, successful projects with ROI to the business this year than start 10 with no results.  We all need to learn how to reset expectations and avoid getting into situations where we feel failure is inevitable.

Here's a parting comic from geekandpoke that seems appropriate: