Change is Easy. Habits are Hard.

21 April, 2014
Change Management
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At technology conferences, vendor seminars, and user group, I enjoy the networking conversations - professionals looking to leverage each others' background, experience, and relationships, ostensibly to forward their own careers, but openly trying to solve a problem with a win-win for both sides of the connection. Inevitably, however, the conversations refine and regress down to a common theme - the classic oversimplification "change is hard". Much of the time, I'd wager that change in your organization is comparatively easy -…

Is SharePoint WSS dangerous to SharePoint contractors?

5 February, 2009
Vendor Management
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Firing Up Internal Opportunity It was true last year, but even more so now; SharePoint is very important for corporate IT, both strategically (medium- and long-term) and tactically (short-term). Sure, it's a terrific way to iterate on collaboration, internal portals, document management, etc. - "enabling innovation" in every buzzword-compliant sense. But there is solid benefit for even short-sighted, plodding, tactical IT - and it's all about staff retention. SharePoint WSS represents a nice opportunity for folks in IT to get…

Field Notes: Lean Times for IT Services

29 November, 2008
Vendor Management
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I know it's lean times in IT, and product / services vendors are all beating the bushes. Some interesting patterns have emerged over the last few months ... My Boss Is In Town: This is far and away the #1 meme / structure of incoming cold calls; I get a (very) brief synopsis of services/value add, the caller and pushes for some face time with "their manager". Did some newsletter or web site suggest this novel approach last summer? I…

Strategies for Fee Structures in Consulting Engagements

Yet another vendor seminar last month, and the idiosyncrasy of the day was an abnormal amount of focus on the fee structure (they were presenting their expertise on a certain platform, and talk of fees was a tad disconcerting). The vendor is, of course, railing against the fixed fee - puts all the risk on them, artificially constrains the project, etc. They didn't mention how the fixed fee enables an upside on their part - if the Vendor (contractor/consultant/them) pads…

Of course we can pay for that … if it makes business sense

Had a good conversation with a vendor last week. They were looking to increase their business with us, no surprise there, but the rep was actually a bit cynical (in a nice way), and (probably wisely) asked directly what the chances were that we could actually get Project X off the ground? I've seen these great ideas start, but then some manager complains that they have no budget for this kind of thing. In retrospect, it is almost a rude…

Sally is a really busy person – more vendor yap (anti-buzzwords)

20 March, 2005
Vendor Management
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Had a week full of vendor meetings and presentations this week, captured some random thoughts: Bad Buzzwords 1 - I definitely tune folks out when they use the word "cool" to describe some piece of technology - how 1990's. The weird one came this week from a older gent, representing a fairly large company that has mixed hardware and professional services areas. A true moment of cognitive dissonance to hear that one. Bad Buzzwords 2 - Another one - probably…

Driving cost savings with packaged software vendors

23 February, 2005
Vendor Management
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Well, we're not exactly seeing agressive price drops, but we are looking for ways to either cut or control growth of software costs. Some specifics: Understand how the software is licensed. Concurrent Users? Actively monitor the number of users during peak times. Make sure you are paying maintenance only on the number of users that really attach - not the number of named users. Processor count or power? Watch out for server upgrades - you may get stuck with an…