cazh1 » SAP

Gartner Symposium 2010

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:55:49 +0000

Last week, I was able to attend this annual Gartner event – something akin to SAPPHIRE, the SAP uber-users group meeting, without the vendor specific rah-rah. An interesting event – 7400 attendees, over four days. A typical conference – multiple sessions along major tracks, and I bounced between sessions dealing with these issues:

Master Data – Continuing to look for the latest information – this is still a fast growing software market, and ideas around things like “data governance” (people and process) first, “master data management” (tools – machines talking to machines) second, are getting established within many corporations.
Change Management, Agility, IT in Transition – things like mixing “fast twitch” (agile) and “controlled” (waterfall) methodologies, and balancing limited resources & requests across multiple competing initiatives.
Emerging Business Priorities – less on the technology, more towards a realization of / developing understanding on how economy and technology are changing expectations and strategies of the business – and how the business can (and / or should) leverage technology to make sure they succeed / thrive.
Vendor management / Dealing with strategic vendors – Consolidation (acquisitions) in the vendor space, plus the sense that some vendors (like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP) may feel they are locked in to our business – so how do you manage them so that you get what you need from the relationship?

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Designing for Devices

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:53:41 +0000

My last entry on design for a bit – just some thoughts on the added complexity when designing applications for multiple client devices.

Fast Changing Device Landscape

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The “last mile” of user/computer interaction has seen a number of exciting innovations over the past year or so. Phones are getting physically smaller, yet have bulked up their connectedness and capabilities – and the shrinking screen, now touch-sensitive, has blown up into the ubiquitous iPad and a host of next-gen touchscreens. Yes, I know the iPad came before the iPhone – but vendors have been attempting tablet computers for years. I think the “always-on phone” and society’s fascination with social networking and connectedness made it natural for the change in focus – the world isn’t just at your fingertips, it’s in your pocket and with you at all times.

But after texting and pictures, there were many desk-hating, operations-focused Real Business Users with ideas and needs for a number of Relevant Business Applications that are poised to benefit from a connected, free-roaming UI. Historically, the clipboard metaphor and handwriting recognition has had mixed success, but the gesture-control meme seems to be making the latest waves – even threatening the future of the mouse as the preferred non-keyboard data entry/control device. Robert Kosara’s writeup on the Magic Trackpad is an insightful summary on the current state of Supply and Demand for this important new client device.

Impact on Application Design

With new devices come new and different input and output possibilities – and limitations. Earlier this summer, Mobiletuts+ featured a discussion with two applications designers, detailing how they work within the limitations of the target devices, while taking advantage of the unique UI elements that are available. A key question to ask – Which Device are you Designing for? The answer sets your possibilities and your limitations, while designing the most effective UI for the task at hand.

At about the same time, Derek Powazek wrote up his experiences while designing for the iPad. His flash of insight was the realization that the “design language” of these devices is still evolving; when combined with the rapid pace of innovation, it can be a bit maddening when investing time and thought into aspects of presentation and interaction that may get replaced next week with the “next big thing”. Suzanne Ginsburg wrote of her experiences adding Android UI skills to her repertoire (and features to her designs); she grudgingly takes on the incremental work that multiple UIs demand, but makes the call for some standards to develop.

Is there a shortcut to multi-device development?

New technology from SAP / Sybase promises an abstraction layer that separates the presentation logic from your application. A classic approach – just focus on the application “content”, and the SAP Unwired Platform takes care of the final rendering on the device – any device, even as things change going forward. What’s not to like?

The Application Architect sees a relationship similar to CSS and HTML; the presentation details are separated from the content
The Corporate IT Developer likes the idea of writing the application once, and eliminating the need for a rewrite for each new client.

However …

The Interface Designer dislikes the idea of developing with boxing gloves on – unable to precisely control the unique aspects of any one client device’s native UI by genericizing concepts across all.
The Target Marketer knows they could be losing buzz-share with the device-centric mavens that want apps optimized for their favorite platform

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2010. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Android, Application Development, BlackBerry, client devices, computer interaction, Design, interfaces, iPad, presentation layer, SAP, Sybase, UI, user interface design

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Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (Results)

Jim MacLennan — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:11:00 +0000

As previously noted, I’ve been doing a lot of discussion and data crunching around “Master Data Management” lately – so I’ve “bootstrapped” a little market research project. It’s still a work in process – responses are trickling in – but I thought I might take some time to summarize what I am hearing to date. A document is available for download here … the super summary follows below.

Survey Methodology

Please note: I am obviously not a professional market research firm, so this is is an understandably limited sample. Still, I am hearing some interesting things that may put your own Master Data work in a bit more context.

I’ve put together a little survey (download from here) which is intended to take about 15 minutes to complete – that should give you an indication into the amount of rigor and depth I am looking for.
Please fill it out and email the result to BMRMDM@cazh1.com

I’ve received input from ten companies so far – large and small, with all sorts of ERP systems. If you care to add some information, I’ll thank you in advance, and add it (sufficiently anonymized) to the summary results document (download from here).

Here are some of the findings / observations from the summary …

Master Data Domains

The types of Master Data called out included the usual suspects – Customers, Vendors, Finished Goods, Employees. Others mentioned include Metadata, Packaging / Tooling (components), and Indirect customers (like Payors in managed care, or Buying Groups in B2B). The primary systems in scope included SAP, Oracle, JDEdwards, and QAD, joined by an eclectic mix of legacy systems and point solutions. Secondary systems called out included Siebel, JDA/Manugistics, and ADP (payroll) – plus more legacy / home grown / departmental apps.

Master Data initiatives varied, based on where the “current pain” is – R&D / engineering, CRM / Customers / Contracts / Pricing, and Finished Goods / Logistics were named by different companies as their particular focus areas. Other important considerations were things like geography (North America vs. ROW), and business structure (Enterprise vs. business unit vs. local plant).

A significant determinant of how folks thought about this problem was how their ERP is implemented – in a fully integrated “enterprise” (Finance, Order Management, Supply Chain, etc.) – and/or how the instances are divided (all enterprise, by location (geography) or by business unit).

Note, however, that relatively few respondents are concerned with synchronizing data across multiple instances – a popular callout / feature of some MDM solutions. they will speak of “integration”, but a focus of the conversations were all around quality and process, not synchronization.

An interesting frustration from some of the respondees; the ERP system(s) do not capture all of the required attributes for an item, so these additional details are kept in a separate, siloed system. Easy examples would be specific attributes (like shipping material specifications), but there were multiple instances where [so-called] Master Data is calculated with complex formulas / rationale, so an Excel component is required (typically in the area of pricing / quoting details).

Note: I believe we should consider computation of pricing as a (potentially) complex process that occurs in it’s own transactional / analytical system (aka “the magic gonkulator”). The output is master data – but the calculations don’t belong in an MD system.

Size & Scope of Master Data

Predictably, there was a great variation in the responses – 100s to 1000s of customer, vendors, finished goods. However, the interesting trend was the notation that 10s of people (relatively large numbers, based on size of the company), were “responsible” (i.e. “did some of the data entry”). Could this be why there is interest in MDM and an MDM organization? Apparently, Master Data is often managed like a wiki – everybody is an editor.

Note This is not always “out of control” – companies that have reasonably sized groups are the same ones that speak of metrics and controls. However, few report the existence of a centralized data governance organization (see below).

Most organizations have no metrics in place; a few can speak to “data police”, folks that actively monitor the data looking for issues. Best examples cited included “Health Check measures” (does data fit set of established guidelines / tolerances); vendor audits, and [results of] scrubbing (ex. Name And Address data against external sources).

When asked about the business benefits of a Master Data Management effort, most companies left this blank or said “none”. I generally got the sense that hard benefits are difficult to quantify; notable exceptions seem to come from past pain. Some organizations spoke to inventory reductions and transportation savings – both derived from more accurate supply chain data, which is facilitated by clean, consistent, complete Master Data.

Master Data in the Organization

Many companies keep control / accountability at the functional area. However, companies with “enterprise ERP” implementations (full integration of Finance, Order Management, Supply Chain) typically call out ownership at the Enterprise level. It’s not about the size of the company or the recency of their implementation – it’s the degree of integration within the primary ERP.

Organizational specifics were tougher to get at – depending on how the company managed their master data. Generally speaking, companies that manage Master Data at a functional level (Customer Service, Purchasing, Finance) have organizational clarity. However, folks that say they manage at the Enterprise level had the wispier definitions for Title and Accountability

Of note: centralized MDM teams rarely manage the bigger projects (implementations, acquisitions, or special projects with large MD components) – but they will (out of necessity) participate. None of the respondents look to these organizations / people for project management skills. However, there were some good callouts for the communication / change management skills required for the role, especially where the group has to review implications of adds / updates [of Master Data items] with multiple groups that will/may be impacted.

Scope of Responsibilities

An interesting, consistent set of answers in this area; “Yes, we take ownership and accountability – but no, we can’t measure it”. To be fair, not all companies had that clarity of ownership, but the lack of sharp, clear quality metrics is noticeable. Content, Quality, and Governance are consistent in all of these companies … consistently not-well defined, not well measured.

Positives & Challenges

Funny how best practices in one company are challenges in another. There are two recurring themes throughout the responses; Quality and Complexity. The latter is interesting; this was the first point in the survey where the difficulties of Finished Goods Master Data were raised. Many companies call it out as a large challenge; all of them cite the complexity, the multiple facets (manufacturing, packaging, warehousing, transportation, pricing, costing) and the cross-functional nature

Full Results

The summary results document is available for download from here; I will add a version date on the page and keep it up to date as additional surveys come in.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Let me know …

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Send mail to webmaster at cazh1 dot com
© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: corporate information systems, data, data governance, data management, ERP, Execution, JDA Manugistics, legacy systems, market research, market research project, Master Data, QAD, SAP, skunk works, Supply Chain

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Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (What, Who, How)

Jim MacLennan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:08:00 +0000

I’ve been asked a lot of questions about “Master Data Management” over the past few weeks – what does it mean, who does it, and what are some tools and metrics that organizations are using to reign in this important aspect of ERP and analytics systems. I started reaching out to the folks in my professional network with some results, but I thought I might be able to leverage LinkedIn and Twitter to get input from far and wide. This “bootstrapped” market research might not deliver the depth and reach of the bigger technology research firms, but it will be interesting to see what can be gathered.

Bootstrap Market Research: Ground Rules

I’ve put together a little survey (download from here) which is intended to take about 15 minutes to complete – that should give you an indication into the amount of rigor and depth I am looking for.
Please fill it out and email the result to BMRMDM@cazh1.com
I’m trying to get input from a number of companies – large and small, with all sorts of ERP systems. So in return for your input, I’ll be happy to email you an aggregated, anonymized summary of what folks are telling me. Please note that none of your specific answers will be tied to your company name in any way.

Some Definitions

What do I mean by master data? Compare and contrast to transactions …

Transactional Data – describes “events”
- Production orders, material movements, and confirmations
- Customer orders, shipments, and invoices
- Payments, credits, rebates, and returns
- Journal entries
Master Data – describes “facts”
- Finished goods, raw materials, and work-in-process
- Manufacturing routings, warehouse picking strategies
- Customers, vendors, employees
- Organizations and hierarchies
- Chart of accounts
- (also referred to as Reference Data, Configuration Data)

The Question of Ownership

I’ve asked this question before – who owns Master Data? – but there may be some different understanding over what “ownership” refers to. Is the “owner” responsible for …

Master Data Quality?
- Data Structure, including requirements and interdependencies
- Process & Procedure for getting Master Data into the system
- Access & Training for getting Master Data out of the system
- Audits & Quality Checks to make sure corporate requirements and standards are met
- Metrics & Visibility for critical Master Data processes, especially when adding new products
Master Data Content? (for example …)
- Structure of the chart of accounts
- Bin configuration and capacity
- Modeling manufacturing processes in a routing
- Product families, sales org hierarchies
- Credit ratings
- Material substitution

Benchmarking Survey Questions

The survey asks some high level questions in these areas:

Master Data Definitions
Size & Scope of Master Data
Organization Structures
Scope of Responsibilities
Positives
Challenges

There is also space at the end to bounce back some questions – let me know what else is on your mind!

AtDhVaAnNkCsE

Thanks (in advance) for your input – and watch this space for the results!

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Send mail to webmaster at cazh1 dot com
© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: analytics, corporate information systems, data, data governance, data management, ERP, Execution, JDA Manugistics, legacy systems, market research, market research project, Master Data, QAD, SAP, skunk works, Supply Chain

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Collaboration “in the Wild”: Some Observations

Jim MacLennan — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:11:00 +0000

An Enterprise 2.0 dream scenario: implementing a complex project across multiple sites, in two different time zones, with a large team (well over 100). The team was reasonably savvy with collaboration tools; core team members were quite comfortable with Instant Messaging, and we have been relying on SharePoint for many months. A centralized, coordinated document repository; a single source, very public bugs/issues list – the foundation was in place for some time, so our “go-live weekend” experience was pleasantly predictable.

During this critical time, we had to coordinate with the multitude, and we did that with a highly structured “hour-by-hour plan”, regularly scheduled “all-hands” conference calls, and web-based meeting places so all could review Completed, In Process, and Coming Soon tasks. After a successful weekend, we received plenty of positive feedback, and some interesting suggestions for improvements:

Conference calls were regularly scheduled, and featured tight agendas – which tended to limit individuals’ ability to connect with the right person (until afterward). Since each location had a “war room” where the team gathered for the status calls, some suggested we leave the conference call open 24×7. I wasn’t a big fan of this one, primarily because I’m the guy paying the long-distance bill …
Few on the team are actively using Twitter, but one of the project leads noted that IM was quite popular, and imagined a Tweetdeck-like ability to see instant messages and responses that have gone out previously; “threaded conversations” that could be visible to all, helping collaborative problem-solving and knowledge transfer. I congratulated him on inventing Google Wave …
Like most decent-sized companies, we have a highly structured Process for approving code changes into production – and like most decent-sized projects, we noted a few instances where promotions to resolve problems were delayed (while they worked their way through the Process). Might there be some streamlining opportunities here, since we are working on a high profile project with lots of oversight?

Of course, #3 was a non-starter, but the first two generated some good discussion, Yes, it’s conceivable that we could augment our SharePoint site with a few new extensions or plug-ins to address the first two – but I’m actively working against any changes to our collaboration environments for a very simple reason – we’re not finished with the big project. Phase 2 of 2 is coming in just a few weeks.

Am I being close-minded? Not really, I’m a huge driver of collaboration tools in the company. But, I’m also a realist – and I know two significant factors that argue against change at the time:

Prioritizing “Improvements”: We are implementing ERP and other highly intrusive / foundational systems, and there’s a lot of change that comes along with that. I understand that an organization can only take so much change at once – so why not focus on the stuff that’s bringing real (ie. quantifiable, bottom-line, significant) business value.

New Collaboration Tools need Lead Time & Practice: Eight months ago, sharing files by e-mail and ad-hoc, unstructured meetings were the norm. To be fair, we were working smaller projects with teams of 10-20, and usually in no more than two locations. Over the past few months, as we were teeing up for Big Go-Live #1, we’ve been introducing the newer tools in small bits. For Go-Live Weekend, the team was already familiar with going to SharePoint for status updates, or recording a new Issue in the SharePoint list. The mechanics were old hat, and folks didn’t need to think about it – which was nice, since we need them thinking about their Tasks. If we introduce new collaboration tools with little lead time before the Big Go-Live #2, Tasks will be interrupted with people struggling to remember how to communicate.

In the right setting, collaboration tools can clearly add value – even for the most conservative jaded technology users. However, you can’t introduce something so new and expect people to “get it” in the short term. Better approach is to introduce the new tools early in the process, when there is no pressure. This lets the team build familiarity, understanding, and skills by the time you need to rely on these tools for critical communication.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: agile, Collaboration, collaboration environments, collaboration tools, collaborative problem, Communication, different time zones, ERP, hands on experience, IM, instant message, issue tracking, meetings, MS SharePoint, PMO, Project Management, SAP, Wave

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A Company is like a Sphere

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:49:00 +0000

Where do these great analogy ideas come from? Full credit – I got this one from a speaker at the SAP Research Center in Palo Alto, last spring.

A company is like a sphere.

As it grows, volume increases much faster than surface area, and the larger a company gets, more people get embedded and hidden from the end customer than are on the fringe, in customer-facing roles.

As a general rule, this is a bad thing. Well, maybe a less-than-optimal thing – what percentage of your corporate attention span is customer-focused?

Our Challenge is to poke some pockets into the surface, and get more surface area exposed to the outside air.

Will this help a company go farther? It seems to work for golf balls …
Will this make the company more human? Perhaps, in a self-fulfilling / reverse fractal kind of way …
Will rough edges generate incremental profit? Some counterintuitive friction …

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: analogies, customer, golf, imagination, Inspiration, interesting stuff, Palo Alto, Research Center, SAP

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Real Business Users and SharePoint

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Introducing buzzword-compliant technology like a wiki, or integrated collaboration spaces like SharePoint, will typically go well with a motivated audience like your internal IT department. But if you really want to understand how this stuff works, try it with “real people” – line employees in sales and marketing, operations, and finance.

Sure, you’ve heard complaints from these folks (they have better PCs at home, the SAP/Oracle UI is brutal compared to Amazon and AT&T U-Verse, and why can’t they just connect their new iPhone to the corporate mail server?). Be warned; demanding users are not necessarily technically savvy when it comes to groupware.

Case in point; we are working a rather large project (many months in length, over 200 people throughout the business) using SharePoint as our collaboration space – and learning an awful lot about what we thought we understood about ease-of-use and intuitive user interfaces. Our collaboration space is a basic SharePoint project site, featuring the usual suspects – a Shared Document library, an Issues list, and an Announcements section. Simple right? Well, maybe not …

Documents Check In, but they Don’t Check Out

Just kidding, the actual check-in / check-out mechanism works fine. It’s just very interesting that this basic concept of version control is lost on most end-users.

But let’s start with the document library itself – it looks like a really nice version of File Explorer, but becomes very frustrating to folks when they try basic tasks like drag-and-drop. Yes, we found the simple solution – there is an option to open the folder in Windows Explorer, but since this menu option is buried right above the file list, it’s hard to find – certainly not “intuitively obvious”.

Version control was a difficult thing to explain – thank goodness for the tight integration with Office 2007. We found it easier to show folks how to edit documents with a simple double-click – that works just like their shared folders on the old file server! You can explain the concepts of version control quite easily, but the whole check-in / check-out, keep-a-copy-on-your-local-drive thing just gets too complicated. We did have to deal with the one-time task of checking in a new document after you upload it, but after that, they just open the files directly, and that’s it.

There is one feature of Shared Document libraries that I really like – the ability to add custom attributes to documents that can appear as columns in the view. Makes it easier to sort / select / search on documents, and people “get it” relatively quickly. Just go easy on the version control.

… Here’s a SharePoint Tissue

I think the most powerful and elegant feature of SharePoint is the flexibility you have with basic list management – even with WSS. Truly, this stuff should cover over half of the “fancy” automation tasks that folks are are asking for. However, I’m still surprised / dismayed by the fact that SharePoint doesn’t include a standard graphical indicator – you know, the classic “stoplight” (green is good, yellow warning, red means um, er…). I’ve written about this one before – why can’t I have a simple datatype (vs. putting together a sneaky little script to make it work).

I also have a significant warning / insight about trying to do too much with your Lists. Do you realize that most end-users in a typical SMB have older CRTs? I’ll bet you still have a large number of 15″ CRTs with slightly foggy tubes, on their last legs (but too expensive to change out for all but the executive staff) (ok, and IT too, sorry). In addition – well, let’s just say that I’m not the only one whose eyesight is beginning to fail them; I can’t tell you how often I’ve tried to talk folks into moving their screen resolution higher than 800×600 – but it just doesn’t work.

What’s my point? Before you put too many columns in your Lists, or too many gadgets on your Site, check with the average user to make sure that it looks okay on their Screen. Heck, before you even begin your design, use SMS or a simple script to poll the user community and find out what kind of screen resolutions have been set. Catering to the lowest common denominator is not a cop-out, especially when the point of a collaboration site is to get people to actually participate!

Push vs. Pull Messaging

(Another opinion:) I think most powerful aspect of collaboration sites is the aggregation of all knowledge about a project into a single, searchable repository. When people send project updates or resolve issues / hold discussions over e-mail, all that knowledge is buried and quickly lost inside people’s inboxes. In SharePoint, a typical Announcements web part (yes, I know it’s just another kind of List) is quite practical as a messaging medium, because folks can sign up for e-mail alerts.

Don’t underestimate the attraction of the e-mail. People are used to getting information delivered to them in their inboxes – it’s expected! All I’m saying with my Announcements list is that you have to subscribe to the information and pull it towards yourself (versus expecting me, the project manager, to remember to push it to you – and everybody else that might be interested).

Real-world learning: this concept didn’t take long to grab hold in our project. It makes sense, people understand it relatively quickly.

On The Good Side

Don’t get me wrong, there is lots of good that’s going on. Now that the larger project is getting used to this new collaboration space …

… our issue tracking list gets better every time someone touches it – and now we have consistent consolidated issue lists for all aspects of the project
… we are advancing our state-of-the-art for shared authorship; there is a lot more visibility to who is working on what, and we’re getting more participation than a normal project
… the combination of all these different pieces – shared documents, issues, announcements, and other things – are massively facilitating communication, and it is noticed by the folks on the team

Yes – these collaboration tools will definitely will bring huge value and streamline communications to your project. Just don’t think it’s easy or obvious.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Change Management, check in, collaboration environments, collaboration tools, Content Management Systems, dashboard, document management system, enterprise search, groupware, GYR, knowledge transfer, managing change, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, MS SharePoint, SAP, shared folders, status flags, status indicators, traffic light, version control, WSS

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Over / Under Communication for Project Managers

Jim MacLennan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:16:00 +0000

It is often said that you can’t over-communicate, but I’m willing to bet most folks – and especially your project sponsors – underestimate the cost and effort of this critical component of project management. Consider this fair warning – and a good checklist for folks wanting to get into IT, project, or functional management.

Media

To achieve any decent amount of success, you have to be a good communicator with both face-to-face and written / published media.

And by “good” I mean both “comfortable” and “effective”. You should feel good in your own skin, confident that you can carry a conversation at all levels of an organization. And you also have to be an effective communicator – able to get your point across with the right amount of detail, not too much or too little. Another effectiveness challenge is the ability to balance between personalized, one-on-one written & oral communication, and insightful, understandable mass communication.

Translations

You may not realize how many different “languages” you speak – and effective managers must be reasonably fluent …

Languages – Finance, Operations, Sales & Marketing; business groups have just as many confusing specialty words as the techies in IT
Dialects – Do you speak Oracle or SAPanese? Experienced in small companies or large corporations? Public vs. private? Entrepreneurial or slow growth? High volume low profit FERTs, or low volume, high margin custom products? The concepts are all the same, but sometimes the specific words are different.
Slang – Slightly different than dialects – all companies, organizations have local shorthand term so that over the years in their particular organization to mean very specific, nuanced things.
Sound Bites – A form of speech where a complicated topic is reduced to a single word or phrase. For example; ATP. Are we talking about master data, settings on time fences, the process of checking for availability, or the policies around A, B, C and D companies? Sound bites can sneak into conversations and you could be discoursing for 15 minutes before you realize you’re talking about two vastly different things.
Strata – Management v. line, Middle v. executive management. Depending on what level of the organization you’re talking to, you will need to change the level of detail that you go into. Typically, higher up in the company means a lower level of detail that they want to wade through.

Change Management

Volumes have been written on this topic, but most people have trouble coming up with a concise definition of what this means. To oversimplify – but drive right to point: change management is typically about delivering “bad news”.

However, “bad” can mean different things. It can be “disappointment”: the date will slip, we’re over budget, or we can’t fit this feature request into the schedule. However, adjusting expectations as early as possible is one of the basic skills of a good project manager. You need to be willing to deliver bad news like this as early as possible.

The other significant area of “bad” – walking into an organization, a group of people, or a individual’s cube, and letting them know that the way they have been doing things for years is about to change. Sure, it’s easy to say that “change is hard” and “change is inevitable”, but you yourself probably don’t like change in your established rituals. Empathy is the key here.

Lessons Learned

As with many other things, the more project communication you do, the better you get. Some of the more common lessons learned:

Defensive project teams will often negotiate for delay by asking for / waiting for More Communication, and complaining about Not Enough Communication
In any project plan, you will underestimate the time required for communication, the number of times you’ll have to repeat the message, and the ability of the team to consume your communication in various forms of delivery media
You will definitely underestimate the time required for follow-up and follow-through to make sure it’s Done
You will overestimate the amount and quality of existing documentation, and the ability of the project team to bridge the gap to the required level of documentation

Here’s the killer -

If you try explaining to management about the problems / challenges of communication, they won’t listen and/or won’t understand (yes, that is a tight loop)

Machines will never replace us – but this is one case where sometimes, you might wish they could.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: Change Management, Communication, Dennis McDonald, Project Management, SAP, SAPanese, slang, sound bite, terminology

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Who owns Master Data in your company?

Jim MacLennan — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:14:00 +0000

I’ve had to respond to this question, inside and outside of the company, in a number of different conversations over the past few days. It’s interesting, because this is one of those conversations where semantics mean a lot – what people say is just as important as what people don’t say. I only mean that people assume their listeners have precisely the same understanding of the concepts – which is often a mistake.

Case in point – who owns the Master Data? It seems obvious to many IT folks, having dealt with ERP and data warehousing in the past, that the business owns the Master Data – it’s their business, right? Then why so often does the business look to IT to take the lead on cleansing / populating / defining / loading Master Data?

Business owns the Master Data

… they make the decisions on specifics. What should the next item number be? How should we structure the routings? Who defines the standards for bin / storage location / building / plant / campus identifiers? What is the desired format for capturing customer street addresses consistently? How will we set up the chart of accounts?

The business knows that who and the why of Master Data.

On the other hand, and in most companies …

IT pwns the Master Data

Yes that is the correct spelling. For those who don’t know, it’s a hacker term; when I pwn the system, I have a root, I have a system admin access. I understand the technical underpinnings and details – I know how everything fits together. I know how to do anything I want with the system.

In Master Data terms – IT understands the data architecture and the interdependencies. They know all the transactions required to enter data into the system, and what security roles are in place to limit access to those transactions. IT also has tools and knowledge on how to extract data from the database and batch import data en masse.

IT knows the what, when, and how of Master Data.

What does that mean?

When an organization needs to get its Master Data in shape, it’s going to be a team effort between business and IT. The business must take the lead, making and clarifying decisions and driving the details. But IT absolutely needs to be right by their side, helping with the mechanics.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Art, chart of accounts, data architecture, data management, data warehousing, database, ERP, Execution, Master Data, ownership, pwn, SAP, Science, Supply Chain

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Notes from SAPPHIRE 09

Jim MacLennan — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:45:00 +0000

Yesterday at work was “catch-up day” from a week at SAPPHIRE 2009, the annual user conference for SAP. As with the JDA/Manugistics conference earlier this year, there were concerns that attendance was going to be low, because so many companies are limiting travel expense. At the conference, I did hear that attendance was only was 60% lower than last year.

Conferences like this are great opportunities for IT to do a ton of learning – about the specific technology, of course, but also about the state of mobile computing and collaboration, tools that we are apparently trying to get the rest of the business world to adopt. Experiential learning, real-world experience – always better to talk about something that you know works / doesn’t work in a practical setting. (No, I don’t suggest you replace Quicken with SAP at home, although that might be a growth area for BbD).

Twitter at a Conference

I wrote up my trip report / internal blog entry yesterday (Friday), but I was twittering a lot during some of the sessions, so it was an easy write up – I just cut-and-paste from my personal timeline. Using the Blackberry during the conference was a pretty good experience; I could take fairly detailed notes on what was being said – plus, I can throw out passing Tweets on the way. Near-real time knowledge sharing – very nice for folks in the Tweeterverse, watching the information go by.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to engage in a Tweet-versation with these client devices; the screen is too small, and you only see what you are typing. I did, however, latch on to the #sapphire09 hash tag to come up with a workable monitoring process. I found that search.twitter.com presents a decent RSS feed, one that the Blackberry browser consumes quite nicely. I don’t know if this is a “native” RSS reader in the blackberry, but it worked amazingly well – I made a passing mention of one of the sessions I attended, and someone asked for more detail – so I ended up tweeting almost every slide.

Apotheker

The Tuesday morning address by Leo Apotheker started with some doom and gloom about the economy, but that was just a lead-in to SAP’s new branding message of promoting “clarity” for the enterprise; making pertinent business information easy to access, easy to see. Some of my tweets from the speech … I clearly (sic) have a different editorial style …

Apoetheker starting with the doom and gloom #sapphire09 7:38 AM May 12th
My inner cynic is subsiding – I actually like the appeal for “clarity” #sapphire09 7:42 AM May 12th
Are “clear enterprises” like “glass houses”? (Sorry, cynic is back) #sapphire09 7:44 AM May 12th
Is he about to say sap could have prevented the economic collapse? #sapphire09 7:56 AM May 12th
Ah, just the story of how goldman sachs did ok because they actively manage risk #sapphire09 7:57 AM May 12th
We need a simple example of how a manufacturer manages risk #sapphire09 7:58 AM May 12th
SUGEN KPI Framework for enterprise support – nice focus on transparency #sapphire09 7:59 AM May 12th
Props – a pretty effective live demo of a blackberry enabled work process #sapphire09 8:03 AM May 12th
The carbon footprint app looks interesting – this is a recurring theme for recent presentations for me #sapphire09 8:17 AM May 12th
I think its a harsh. retroactive self criticism when this “speedy query” demo admits that a simple query would take ‘weeks’ #sapphire09 8:27 AM May 12th
SRO crowd at presentation for information “dashboards” – yet another recurring topic, still unmet need #sapphire09 1:11 PM May 12th
Sap guy was apparently unable to say “eat our own dogfood”, too closely related to microsoft hhh #sapphire09 1:19 PM May 12th

The most interesting areas of Leo’s conversation had to do with the metrics being created by SUGEN (not), a collection of all the national user groups (like ASUG). SAP continues to get lots of pushback from the customer base about their increased support fees, and these metrics are going to allow us all to see how SAP is performing.

Plattner

The Wednesday morning address by Hasso Plattner, one of the founders of SAP and a pretty interesting guy, started out like a technical lecture at engineering school about in-memory databases and columnar data. By the end, it had transitioned to a Business Objects demo and a tool “easy enough that a CEO can use it”. Here are some tweets from that speech …

Hasso on speed [sic] – spotlighting the reams of data and the need for decent access tools #sapphire09 7:44 AM May 13th
Hasso is very professorial – if it weren’t for the subject matter, methinks more would pass on the talk #sapphire09 7:53 AM May 13th
Ok, reading other #sapphire09 tweets now – is a shoe dropping right now? Re sap and hardware … #sapphire09 7:57 AM May 13th
Someone should register spaghettibeforecooking.com #sapphire09 7:59 AM May 13th
Maybe hasso’s point is that clarity / speed yap from yesterday is not smoke and mirrors – solid tech supporting this sales stuff #sapphire09 8:16 AM May 13th
Insert only – like the old one-write accounting systems – ledgers in pen. Make a mistake, back it out. Complete auditability #sapphire09 8:19 AM May 13th
Is insert only / read only db stuff analogous to RISC chips? Who needs elegance when you think Real Fast. #sapphire09 8:20 AM May 13th
Head-snapping shift from professor to jester #sapphire09 8:23 AM May 13th
Hasso rips on EIE processing (everything in excel) #sapphire09 8:24 AM May 13th
Oh, I think he just said he is talking about t-rex #sapphire09 8:29 AM May 13th
Hasso is definitly tech at heart, rips into classic demo style of demo on mini data set #sapphire09 8:30 AM May 13th
hasso’s enthusiasm is honest, like the literate engineer given a moment of exec management’s attention #sapphire09 8:34 AM May 13th
Awesome animated pipeline #sapphire09 8:41 AM May 13th
Boy he started slow but has he hit stride in last 10 min #sapphire09 8:43 AM May 13th
Table scans not considered harmful #sapphire09 8:48 AM May 13th

This was pretty interesting technology – high-speed, insert only databases. Not sure what that means for the long term of our existing databases, data warehouses, and hardware. But hey, it’s only capital – right?

Elsewhere On the Web

General interest / watchfulness towards the SAP strategy, as the company faces questions like technology platforms, support fees, and a new CEO …
Fortune magazine’s totally non-technical take on Leo Apotheker …
Vinnie Merchandani’s summary of show hilights, plus insights on SAP’s long-term strategy
SAP and Social Networking – I didn’t catch these presentations / conversations, but many are writing / tweeting about it …
Definite focus during the week on Business Objects … it actually looks pretty good …
Some summary comments from ZDNet …

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2009. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: analytics, ASUG, BlackBerry, Blog, business value, client devices, collaboration tools, conference, ERP, Execution, Hasso Plattner, having fun, JDA, KPI, Lean Manufacturing, Leo Apotheker, Manugistics, meetings, RSS, SAP, SAPPHIRE, Science, SUGEN, trade show, trip report, Twitter, Vinnie Merchandani

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