Challenges when demoing / training / pitching complex systems
Over the last few days, I've been in a few vendor demos, trading
partner reviews, product pitches, and project discussions, all reviewing
complex systems or processes, and tools / software / services to help
out. Some important, common, and somewhat random issues kept popping
into my mind, all about trying to have a discussion about complex
systems / interactions ...
- Always be mindful that if something was easy, we probably
would have done it already. Be alert for things that are conceptually
clear and straightforward, but tough to actually automate - like pivot
tables / aggregate queries in SQL data bases, or the concept of "clean"
data, matched up from multiple systems.
- Be very careful when using common terms for specific meanings.
A classic case - in many organizations, there can be multiple
definitions of the word "customer" - make sure everyone knows
specifically who we are talking about! Also, when your potential
trading partner (or their implementation team) is talking about
"customer", they are probably talking about you, not the folks
you sell to (who you think of as the "customer").
- Some design insight - build for batch processing.
Trading partners typically interact via a web interface - and the tech
team likes to take lots of time to show how nice and user friendly it
is. Problem - if/when we want to do orders / transactions at scale,
we're gonna want to use EDI or XML. Ya gotta be ready with the batch
process right away ... when designing systems for your potential
customers, make sure you have a batch mode.
- Everybody wants to streamline their own business
process by pushing the work to someone else. Sooner or later
you're gonna have to get the other guy to accept responsibility for
getting the work done, or else you won't be able to claim the benefits
in your business case!
- A critical element when talking about projects between
partners and/or internal groups - must be clear on requirements, basic
business process, and scope. It's not a meaningless exercise to drive
for a decent level of documentation for this stuff - gotta be clear,
especially when time commitments and money are involved. Also, you need
to understand critical assumptions, like information / data availability,
rules clarity, resources to do work / provide information, and
time to implement.
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