BOW+ARROW

How to implement software in the real world

October 18th, 2009
by Hugh Kennedy

For the past few months, I’ve been carrying around a Word file that contains an unusually clear-eyed assessment of how software implementation really goes. It was dropped in as an otherwise anonymous comment about an Information Week blog post on the difficulties of implementing SAP. Perhaps it was by Tom Wailgum, a favorite around the office. Perhaps not. No matter.

Since I am publishing this with only the mildest of edits, you can consider it a very long re-tweet. I continue to find it entertaining and useful as the voice of the customer becomes more and more a part of the marketing equation.

“It’s fundamentally seductive to believe that you can buy a customizable best-practices driven business-in-a-box. It’s also fundamentally naive to believe it and/or lazy to buy it.

At best you get a totally vanilla-flavored company!

At worst you get the nightmares identified in the posts above.

Responsible managements must take responsibility and control of the deployment of any significant initiatives. In the case of ERP or CRM implementations it makes most sense to first get really clear about the business processes that they support and interface with.

Best practice in the process of acquiring major IT tools/solutions involves the following elements:

Becoming an Intelligent, Informed and In-Control Customer by:

DEFINE – defining (in detail) the status quo status of the business processes and systems involved; a hierarchical verified, visual model of the processes and their interrelationships for the entire enterprise under consideration. (Think MapQuest where you can drill down to the most detailed level).

SIMPLIFY & TUNE – applying process streamlining tools such as value-added analysis and LEAN to remove the many (up to 80%) non-value-added activities that typically pervade ‘mature’ processes, followed by the tools of six-sigma etc. to fine tune the desired performance in line with strategic objectives. See here for these first two steps.

FOCUS – identifying those processes that define the unique personality of your enterprise and which control the key performance indicators. These at least you will probably want/need to customize. Ensure that your other, less critical processes closely track with the standard processes typically offered by IT vendors.

STRONG INDEPENDENT CONTROL – engaging a program management ‘ace’ with a verified long history of successful programs of similar complexity to closely oversee, expedite and document the delivery of the program.

STRONG RFQ – develop very specific and detailed RFQ documents including a scope of work document using the above process definitions plus actionable T&C requirements (bonus/penalty clauses) for the IT solution(s) to support this refined enterprise

STRONG CONTRACT – negotiating and selecting the vendor from the proposals received, clearly documenting the final details and Ts&Cs

This puts the horse (optimization of an enterprise’s business system processes) back in front of the cart (automation of the business system).

When applied correctly this approach has been proven to greatly REDUCE the typically budgeted implementation time and effort and produces extremely favorable ROI.

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