barryjogorman

Working as a consultant in Ireland I have had the privilege of working in lots of different innovative businesses.  Many of these businesses make great use of a wide range of information technologies – both on premises and cloud based, packaged and custom built.  More often than not management has an understanding of the importance of IT to the business (and to the future of the business) but faces challenges in how to support and exploit these opportunities.

There is a growing awareness of the opportunities offered through managed services, data centres, cloud computing.  In general these and related solutions offer the opportunity for management to focus on strategic objectives and value-add, while outsourcing some of the plumbing.  There are also real possibilities in terms of replacing or upgrading systems with minimal capital outlay.

However I see many examples of applications support and development headaches – with respect to legacy systems. (People seem to confuse ‘legacy’ with something from the dark ages – it often references software implemented in the last few years). In many cases the legacy applications have been heavily customised (by an inhouse team or the third party vendor).  As a result the company is left with a major exposure to/ dependence on a relatively small group of people e.g. one or two apps support people in-house or a small apps development team within a small third party vendor.

This seems to be a recurring pattern – a key apps support person leaves and operations are significantly impacted (time spent finding a replacement, getting the replacement up to speed, rescheduling planned development work, etc).  The size of operation does not merit retention of additional support personnel – so it is difficult to avoid the hiatus arising on departure of a key staff member.  If the apps support is supplied by a third party – then they most likely also struggle to maintain any depth in the support team.

So what is the impact of all of this?  Well, the very information systems which are meant to be adding value become a liability, a risk to the business, a delay on business initiatives, an impediment to change and innovation.

I am often asked to provide a fix – how does the company sort out this issue?

Traditionally we would have checked to see whether development has been executed in a controlled manner – user specifications, testing, training, documentation, etc.  In a smaller environment inevitably short cuts will have been taken.  Also, depending ion the development environment, they may have migrated to an iterative methodology, based on prototyping.

The longer term answer will often include a migration away from current systems, accompanied by gaining an understanding of the true cost of customisatiom.  The analyst and programming build is often only the small part of the cost of customisation – the real cost (which has to be balanced against the benefits) often arises from the dependence created on key inhouse personnel and/or third party vendor personnel.  And from  my experience most of this customisation could and should have been avoided.

So what can the company do in the interim – when they have lost the key people (either inhouse of at the third party vendor)?  Obviously look to add a replacement person(s) to the team – with appropriate skills/experience in the relevant tools, platforms and/or business environment.  But as soon as possible the company needs to start putting in place a strategy to migrate from the current serious business exposure to an operationally and, potentially, strategically advantageous situation.  Any such situation in which the day to day ops of the company are contingent on the continued availability of one or two people needs to be addressed.  And generally this will require elimination of much of the heavy customisation to migration to alternative business processes and supporting applications.

For those who have not yet hit the problem – think carefully before you customise, before you engage with vendors who do not have a roadmap and a broad platform.  Build sustainable business processes and sustainable applications.

Image by Will Lion via Flickr

Read Alex Pang’s piece on contemplative computing – courtesy of this article from ReadWriteWeb.  Fits in with much of the discussion taking place across lots of enterprises – is IM, social networking, blogging contributing very much to the business?  Surely IM (now often including video) is just another distraction to people who should be getting on with ‘the task at hand’.

As an individual consultant and researcher I am constantly required to manage the distractions – notwithstanding that were there no distractions there would be no interaction and no work.  The debate reminds me of something about 10 years ago – we should not let the team have internet access because they will waster their time surfing.  We seem to have moved on from this because, thankfully, in many cases the web has become a way fo doing work, communicating, researching, whatever.

I don’t think the answer has changed.  You have to work out what you are trying to do and figure out how to use the available resources.  If you expect to gain from online interaction then you need to recognise that it is a two way street – you will need to be active (or at least be responsive) in order to gain.  When you need to work in a quiet, non distracted mode, you need to make yourself unavailable.

Business has changed.  It’s not just the desk based personnel who are being bombarded by distractions.  Smartphones mean that anyone can be online at any time.  Education in the workplace has not caught up – people need training, awareness and guidance on tools which they can use to assist them in managing the online world rather than being managed by the online world.

Related articles

• Social Media Distractions Are Costing Businesses Major Money (blogoholic.in)

Image via Wikipedia

Have been thinking for some time about the best ways to establish effective social networking within the enterprise.  I like the phrase I see used some places – social working.

My starting point is that  most companies that are in any way successful are already reasonably proficient at social working ie working in teams, brainstorming, sharing ideas, collaborating.  So this is not about introducing a new concept – it’s about looking to see whether we can use some of the technologies to assist in more effective collaboration, team work, etc.

Seems to me one of the challenges in commencing an initiative through a pilot is that to some extent the value of the solution is dependent on widespread penetration and adoption.  However it is also important to see which suite of products work most effectively, determine potential benefits of any preconfiguration or integration, determine any training requirements.

I am curious to see the potential benefits of a facebook or twitter type application within the enterprise.  And to understand the limitations of an enterprise walled-in solution as against a web wide solution such as twitter.  But the idea of some form of continuous stream such as a twitter type app seems attractive as a way to provide somewhere for sharing all sorts of information – notwithstanding the inevitable ‘noise’ arising from general posts.

Another challenge to many organisations is the varying level of comfort across people in using such applications.  As the social network becomes the primary communication channel there are risks associated with potentially losing some of the non participants.  Alternatively some of the potential gains are lost if we are obliged to duplicate things outside the social networking platform.

Related articles

• Email Usage Down and Social Networking up in 2010 (fastforwardblog.com)

We all talk about succession planning – at CEO level, at functional head level, in key skills areas.  And then I look at Apple.

Don’t get me wrong – there are things about Steve Jobs that drive me mad.  In some respects while he is a pioneer he also holds back the industry through insisting on living in his world – your music in iTunes, etc.

But…he is a genius.  And he is unforgiving in his drive for excellence and his commitment to design.

And I guess that’s the question that Steve Jobs poses – how does succession planning work when you need to plan to have someone succeed a genius?

Here’s hoping that he cheats his illness again and makes another comeback. The world is a hell of a lot more interesting because of this guy.

Related articles

• Apple doesn’t want to reveal CEO succession plans (news.cnet.com)

Great piece from Tom Peters highlighting the strengths of Mickey Drexler, CEO of J. Crew.  Peters  picks out so many things that appeal to him in Drexler’s approach – clearly a man who walks the walk and talks the talk.  But what I am drawn to in particular is his respect for younger or more junior people in the organisation:

• Listens attentively regardless of age/seniority
• Obvious in his transparent respect for young employees

As we begin to embrace social networking and the associated collaborative approach a key step for enterprise management  is to embrace the new generation – sometimes referred to as the F generation (in reference to facebook).  These are the people who know and understand these solutions.  Bring them on board  – put them at the centre of the required change.  Have them mentor senior, more experienced managers – mentoring is a tow way process.

This seems to have become a hot topic in Ireland – prompted by the move to electronic billing by mobile phone companies.  We have a number of objectors: the regulator because people had a right to a paper bill, some consumers who want a paper bill and, it seems, An Post who stand to lose out on lots of revenue.  Finally there is the debate about the sharing of the benefits – will all the benefits be retained by the corporations or will they be shared (in part or in whole) with the customers?

Useful catch up on the subject in yesterday’s Irish Times.

Surely this is a ‘non-brainer’ at a basic level?  We must use technology to make things more efficient.  But as in all such projects we must manage the change.   There are benefits in this for the corporations (in terms of cost savings) and there are benefits for customers who are open to receiving electronic bills (or accessing their account information on a portal).  Without doubt there are a group of people who will struggle to deal with an electronic document e.g. those with no internet access or familiarity.  This is a group which is diminishing in relative size – but nonetheless must be accommodated – and it would seem to me should not be disadvantaged over their current position.  This should be the core focus of the change agenda.

Online travel booking seems to have gained widespread acceptance – and it has resulted in major changes for those who previously facilitated the booking process.  Mr O’Leary of Ryanair pushed through the agenda but the Aer Lingus experience is the same.  And we have seen losts of benefits in online travel e.g. the various sites offering best deals across a range of providers – be it flights, cars, hotels, insurance, etc.

Over the last number of months I have availed of the new service from Irish start-up  GetItKeepIt which enables me to receive and a range of electronic bills from various suppliers.  For me this application addresses the specific point made by CAI Chairman James Doorley ‘people were “more likely to check their bills if they get them in the post”’.  I am now more inclined to review bills when gathered in one portal.

Ultimately we will complete a period of transformation – and the electronic bill will be the only option.  And this will be the de facto situation across the board.  And this will be a good thing.  We do not want to continue to have people doing things which have no value add – cutting down trees to create unnecessary paper, printing bills and putting them in envelopes, criss-crossing the country to deliver paper bills which can be sent electronically (or, more correctly, accessed electronically).  As for the benefits – they will be absorbed into the operating budgets of the service providers.

Just read ‘Glimmer – how design can transform your business, your life, and maybe even the world’ – by Warren Berger.

Main focus of the book  seems to be Bruce Mau and his approach to Design – of his philosophy re Design and its place in the world.

The ‘Glimmer Principles’ are:

Ask Stupid Questions, Jump Fences, make hope visible, Go deep, Work the metaphor, Design what you do. Face consequences. Embrace constraints, Design for emergence and BEGIN ANYWHERE.

The book and the examples are built around these principles.

There are basic entry level introductions to a number of frameworks and concepts e.g. Doblin Inc.’s five phases of a consumer experience: attraction, entry, engagement, exit, extension (pp 134-137).

As someone who has been involved in BPR for many years now I could certainly relate to the principles referenced.  Asking Stupid Questions and Going Deep are critical to any effort.  I think current focus on lean processes in start ups also echoes many of the ket principles, in particular Make Hope Visible and Face Consequences – in the context of maximising learning/ experimentation with the potential users of the solution.

In summary, I found the book more to be an interesting introduction to Mau and a number of other Designers rather than a ‘how to’ type book.  In this sense I found the title a little misleading and the book a little disappointing.  On the positive side the book is a call to action for everyone to put on their Designer Hat – that design is not something limited to a small few creative types.

Twice today I was asked by people who are infrequent or non users of social networking solutions (and blogs) – how do you avoid leaving the non users out?  Or, when you are looking at a restaurant recommendation ot a wine recommendation – how valuable is the recommendation, given it is only based on information supplied by social network users, who may or may not be the best judge of the specific appeal of a restaurant or a bottle of wine for me?

If there are large groups of people who do not participate in social networking what is the impact for me, as a social networker and for them as non users?  Is a new elite being formed?  Even if people arecurrently  joining networks such as facebook in their millions, what about all of those users who cease to use the application some time after their initial registration?

Perhaps it’s a little (more than a little) like people choosing not to use a phone or not to use a mobile phone.  They are being left out, but may feel that overall quality of life is improved (or at least maintained) by not participating in a technology enabled, driven, environment.  And that environment is worse off for their non participation.

I tend to believe that social networking (when enabled by technologies/ standards such as SIOC) will prove to be a medium of communication and/or collaboration that people, for the most part, will need to join.  As the networks begin to work together and integrate the case fo participation will become greater.

It’s not all positive on the social networking side – lots of poor quality communication/ idea sharing/ workload sharing.   But grow it will – and opting out will gradually become less of an option for our citizens.

Great piece by Jim McGee comparing oral v. analytic communications & interactions.

Remindeded me of a client situation – very effective and profitable business, not inclined to commit too much to paper, emphasis on the interpsersonal side.  As a result tended to stay away from formal meetings – lack of structured meetings, agendas, minutes.  But great at doing deals.

I was part of the reasons for introduction of meetings and a general rebalancing between oral and analytic.  I wanted to see more evidence of the analysis – for new deals, new business ventures, new initiatives.  Some of that has been great – in the context of a growing and more complex business.  For a time though some of this proved stifling.

I guess it’s the usual question of balance.  Many of us want the additional structure and analysis (it’s part of our training and our own approach to work).  But we also need the fire, the enthusiasm, the spontaneity – that can only be expressed and felt orally.

Short talk by famous US coach, John Wooden. 

Wooden outlines his own philosophy around teaching and coaching.  Makes it all seem simple and straightforward – and tells it as a good storyteller.  In these days of personal coaches, goal setting, emotional intelligence, Seven Habits…this guy makes a lot of sense.

Brought to my attention by www.twitter.com/missmcj