cazh1: on Business, Information, and Technology

When someone asks my opinion on their writing, I'll get fairly detailed; I've noted in the past that there is a lot of power and influence in the written word, and it's fairly important to get it done well, or your project proposals just never seem to get off the ground.

This particular proposal suffered from a lack of direction; it didn't take the reader (the decision maker) through a clear progression. Admittedly, the subject matter was a bit technical and mildly complex; even though this was a proposal for internal IT eyes, the prose didn't flow, and did not help the reader understand what we are asking for, and why.

I suggested that the subject matter - highly technical services - shouldn't impact the difficulty we were having in getting the basic idea across. A good way to validate the structure and effectiveness of a written proposal might be to show it to your high school or college-age children. The document should make a cogent argument that a reasonably intelligent person should be able to understand; it doesn't matter if they understand the technical specifics!

I saw Alice in Wonderland a few weekends ago, and noted that the plot takes a lot from Jabberwocky. Now, I'm not a "Carroll scholar" by any means; I recognized it, was even able to recite most of the lines - but I blame my high school English curriculum. It was [way] back in my sophomore year - we spent a week or so deconstructing the poem, and the teacher pointed out that you don't need to understand exactly what a jabberwocky is, or what a vorpal blade looks or sounds like - you can identify these foreign-sounding words and concepts (a Jabberwocky is a noun, vorpal is an adjective, and snicker-snak is an alliterative, sounds-like description) in context. You understand the story and the drama in the poem without completely understanding the specifics in the dialog, because it is a well constructed story.

The same goes for this technical proposal. This should be an effective writing piece made to educate; a business proposal, arguing for action or caution, must make an effective argument. The document's structure has much to do with the success or failure of the proposal - technical details are for a secondary, deep-dive pass, but the basic business argument should be apparent.



As a good common sense check for your writing effectiveness - run it past someone outside your team, someone with solid business sense but not necessarily a deep grasp of the details. There are many patterns for laying out persuasive arguments; learn them, before someone takes a vorpal blade to your next project plan.

Previously ...

• Thoughts on Why Tech Folks Hate Documentation (July 8, 2006)
• Documentation Redux - a Shorthand Proposal Framework, and the PMO Surprise (July 30, 2006)
• The Law of Large Numbers - or, why Enterprise Wikis are Fundamentally Challenged (September 26, 2006)
• Search as the Killer KM App, and Good Writers will Rule the World (November 5, 2006)
• Project Management Soft Skills Defined: Emotional Intelligence (October 17, 2007)
• Innovation That Matters - Substance Over Style (January 12, 2008)

Technorati Tags: documentation, marketing, PMO, project management

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

Spurred on by Blogger's decision to stop supporting FTP for publishing blogs, I have finally started the long process to implement a WordPress blog - hosted by myself, not Wordpress.com. To be fair, I am making this longer than it necessarily needs to be, but I am continuing my efforts to maintain a comprehensive Admin guide for all of my development efforts - configuring servers, installing software, etc.

Needless to say, this adds overhead and time, but it's worth the effort. I have invested around 40 hours of effort over the past four years on the document (an indicator of how often I get back to my development projects). Still, it pays off every time, because I have a reasonably well-developed SDLC and publishing process implemented, and I need to make sure each new project follows established standards - and adds to the standards when necessary.

Enter MySQL and WordPress - since I will be hosting my own blog, I need a new and different flavor of Development, Test, and Production environments. No more dabbling - I need to tighten up security and document the installation and maintenance processes for the database.

Which is where I hit a wall, of sorts; I could not successfully change the root password on the MySQL database, kept on getting the UPDATE command denied to user ''@'localhost' for table 'user' message.

Hours of surfing, searching, starting and stopping, installing and reinstalling, to no avail. However, I had seen the AppArmor framework mentioned a few times, and had seen error and warning messages in the system logs that kept hinting at something in that direction. So I finally followed the advice noted in this thread, and disabled AppArmor during the MySQL installation process. A few notes:

• Use the Synaptic Package Manager utility to enable / disable AppArmor; I didn't want to throw the whole thing out, just needed to disable (Mark for Removal) and then Install (Mark for Installation), did not want to completely smoke it (Mark for Complete Removal).
• After disabling in Synaptic (Mark for Removal), ran the mysql_secure_installation script from the command line for the umpteenth time - but this time, the password change for root user worked.
• Rebooted the machine, and reinstalled (Mark for Installation) AppArmor in Synaptic.

A quick validation that I could use the MySQL graphical admin tools and phpMyAdmin, and I was back to getting the Dev instance of WordPress going.

Ah, but now I have to get ready for the work week, and time is ticking away ...

Previously ...

• Home Development Workstation - Part 3 (May 18, 2008)
• Excel 2007 is a BOB system (Bag'O'Bugs) (October 5, 2008)
• KM Overcomplicates: Heisenberg Impact on a VBA Quickie (February 8, 2009)
• Low Tech SharePoint Hack: Project Status Indicator (March 14, 2009)
• Hands-On Project: Offsite Strategy (November 22, 2009)

Technorati Tags: MySQL, WordPress, development, documentation, hands on, technology

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl MacLennan,

Often, when trying to figure out how to "make things happen", your focus switches between multiple targets. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? And How can I get the others to understand what I am doing? Real change happens along a continuum that stretches from The Big Idea to Real Results, and people / organizations that want to make real change happen need to understand the different elements along the way.

Yes, I know - earlier, I suggested that one should pick a specific area (people, process, or technology) to develop real skills in. Still true, but what about those who aspire to leadership, who want to make change happen across the organization? A single person doesn't need to be expert in each of these areas - but leaders should actively work in all of them. Aspire to be a jack of all trades, a master of none; the ability to develop a vision, communicate it with impact, build something actionable, and follow through with the implementation are bankable skills that effective, impactful leaders need.

For each of these "elements", think of about their definition - but also think of them in context with the other elements of the continuum. A leader with an impractical vision is just a dreamer; breakthrough science that is not well communicated will just sit on the shelf.

Inspiration

Defined: The ability to imagine what is possible (aka Vision). This doesn't have to be something as earth-shattering as Avatar or the next iPad - businesses are crying out for "innovation" (sorry for the buzzword) in areas as mundane as cost controls, Lean, and revenue growth. Make no small plans, but have the courage and the energy to stretch. Recognize the organization's practical limits - but don't sell them short, they might surprise themselves (and you!) 

In Context: There is a fine line between imagination and inspiration; we need something that can be implemented in our lifetime. Flights of fancy can broaden your horizons, but you must eventually deliver real business results. This is where you can enable acceptance of the 80/20 rule - a practical vision that sees when enough is enough, that knows when to trim down the requirements to get 80% of the value with only 20% of the effort.

Art

Defined: Change often involves ideas, processes, or relationships that are difficult to understand, simply because they involve remixing the As-is with Something New, to create the Could Be. Sometimes it involves visualization - understanding a new structure, a changed process flow, or a hidden trend in the numbers. Sometimes it involves vocalization - an explanation or observation that needs just the right written or spoken words to trigger understanding and acceptance.

In Context: As goods and services are commoditized, and descriptive data becomes freely available in deep detail, the value and importance of design continues to grow. Well designed and executed words, pictures, sounds, thoughts, and ideas are the competitive differentiators that businesses always look for. Great leaders may possess acute verbal and/or visual communication skills, but don't discount your abilities or overestimate the pizazz required to make change happen in your organization. Just invest time on a regular basis, thinking about the design of things you see and hear every day. What images capture you eyes and your imagination? How do some texts convey meaning without boring you to tears?

Science

Defined: Sooner or later, you will have to create something that doesn't exist - a new tool, a simplified process, an effective data visualization, a useful report. This will always involve some specific "science" - knowledge of a programming language, a drawing tool, a data query, a report writer. At one point or another, sustainable change must manifest itself as a repeatable, measurable process or event - and sooner or later, you have to be able to translate your hand-waving to something that actually works.

In Context: Inspirational ideas need to find their way to the screen or the printed page, so they can be communicated, and communicated again. The best design ideas need to manifest in the final product. And the best ideas must bridge from the tip of the pencil to something (a program? a web site? a document? a project plan?) that can be executed. The best leaders can still summon hands-on skills when needed; if you are in IT, have you built something interesting in the past few months?

Execution

Defined: The classic "rubber hits the road" - results derive from making something happen. This could be the execution of a process, but can also refer to the coordinated steps in a project plan that implements a new system, or establishing rules, structure, and predictability where previously there was random action. Science has created something, now it's time to get it implemented - and, to make sure the promised results are delivered.

In Context: Starting a new process, stopping an old process, and bringing structure where there is disorder are the typical end results of most business projects, the ways that enterprises create value. However, inertia and entropy are powerful natural forces, and blasting through resistance (this is the way we've always done it ...)  often relies on a strong idea, communicated effectively and designed efficiently.

Master of None

I think the toughest challenge for some entrepreneurs is to know when to call for assistance. There is value in knowing everything about a single area (the biggest vision! the best programmer!), but sustainable success often comes to those who know when to call in the experts. The best business results scale across multiple people, teams, locations, business units, processes ... so why shouldn't the best leaders scale across multiple resources?

Never stop learning, never stop improving your skills in all of these areas - but know when to bring in the experts to see results that surpass your expectations.

Previously ...

• News for Wombats: Taming Unreasonable Requirements (January 26, 2009)
• Location, Location, Location: Terminology Confusion in ERP Projects (April 11, 2009)
• Technical Debt and the Cost/Benefit of Knowledge Retention (July 27, 2009)
• Collaboration "in the Wild": Some Observations (November 15, 2009)
• Why Corporate IT Fails when Competing with Consumer Tech ... and How to Change the Game (January 5, 2010)
• Managing Change: Pick Something, and Do It Well (February 14, 2010)

Technorati Tags: change management, design, development, documentation, innovation

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

The great unstated truth is that most folks don't understand what they do. They didn't implement it, they inherited it. They know the how, but not the why. Plus, human nature makes us avoid admitting our own ignorance.

As a result, resistance to change means resisting anything that upsets the As-Is. Unfortunately, the As-Is has a stealthy way of changing in little bits over time; that, and the fact that the folks who originated this particular process have probably moved on, taking their understanding with them. And so starts the slow, steady spiral to complete irrelevance, and slavish adherence to non-value adding work.

Empathy Helps Overcome Entropy

To make change happen in these environments, it helps to have - and demonstrate - empathy for how people feel and think, to lower the resistance and open the minds.

Show your self-knowledge, and humility, by freely admitting when your understanding falls short. As a team member - speak up! in public! when you don't understand the underlying process. As a manager - encourage folks to raise their hands and ask for help. And please - make it easy for me to seek help off-line, after the meeting ends, so I don't have to demonstrate my ignorance in public.

Realize, however, that there is a significant requirement to Get Things Done; we don't have time to stop and deconstruct everything. There is a significant business value in having a repeatable, lean process, and all of this 'search for understanding' is wasting daylight. Balance the importance of understanding with the need to get stuff done, by designing, documenting, and implementing lean processes with incremental improvements, that can drive results on day one, but can also mature and improve over time.

Set the expectation that Understanding the Job is just as important as Getting It Done - but don't forget that we are getting paid by our Results, not our Understanding.

Previously ...

• Do you want it good or fast? Prioritizing Time-to-Value over Requirements (February 10, 2008)
• More On Executives (are Smarter than You Think; the 5 Biggest Misconceptions) (June 12, 2008)
• A Plea for Empathetic Communication (November 16, 2008)
• Failing Faster (June 14, 2009)
• Frustrating Paradox: Simple and Difficult (September 1, 2009)
• Collaboration "in the Wild": Some Observations (November 15, 2009)
• Why Corporate IT Fails when Competing with Consumer Tech ... and How to Change the Game (January 5, 2010)

Technorati Tags: change management, collaboration, people management

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

This is the first in an series of posts on Managing Change ... look for more over the course of the next few weeks ...

A common way of expressing the wholistic nature of a project is to talk about "People, Process, and Technology". I'm not sure who came up with this little gem, or in what context, but I've been hearing it a lot lately. No particular reason, I think, just that it seems to be gaining a bit of status as a second-tier buzzword or something.

I've noticed, however, that people seem very comfortable talking about People, Process, and Technology in the As-Is or To-Be states - but precious little time is spent about the difficulties in getting Change to happen in any of these areas. Project teams and project leaders need to be effective at making Change happen with People, Process, and Technology; maintaining the status quo is comfortable, and envisioning the "nirvana" Future State is easy, but the real challenge comes in making the transition from A to B.

Project teams need people that have Change skills:

• People Change - Soft skills and Emotional Intelligence are typically required, but effective team leaders need to be able to command a room of strong personalites and competing agendas. Some meeting facilitators are direct, and can shout folks down and/or eloquently shift the group's understanding. Others work indirectly, creating understanding and acceptance in non-threatening, semi-private conversations.
• Process Change - It's easy to say "automate a mess, and you get an automated mess", but the challenges of process redesign are known to many folks. A certain amount of patience and insight is required to ferret out muda (waste) in the process, to understand and identify the critical elements / tasks, and to aggressively involve the eventual process owners, cementing their commitment for implementation by making them part of the design.
• Technology Change - Typically the easiest (and preferred) work area for IT folks, but for those who want to make a difference in IT, it takes the ability to understand and implement new technologies quickly, in a sustainable and supportable fashion. Points are taken off for quickly implementing a fragile system.

WIIFM?

Looking for ways to create concrete objectives for yourself or your teams? The significant Value Add that projects and project teams bring to organizations covers all three areas - People Change, Process Change, and Technology Change. Improvement and effectiveness doesn't come from raw skills in People, Process, or Technology, but a demonstrated ability to make Change happen in any and all of these three areas.

The opportunity, of course, is to pick one or two of these areas, and build your skills in making Change happen. If you aren't good in front of a group of people, and are more comfortable working directly with the technology, work on your Change skills by understanding new developments and methods, and figuring out how to use that stuff to make projects and processes happen faster, with higher quality and more predictable outcomes. Looking for a stretch? Get into Process design and development; it's not always about the bits and bytes, but systems thinking is a big plus, and Process skills are often a great way to bridge from Technology to People skills.

Do you express your value to your team, and your value to the company, in terms of People, Process, and Technology skills? If you want to be successful in IT, work on demonstrating your value by making change happen in those areas. At the very least - be able to articulate how you have succeeded / can be effective at making Change happen.

Previously ...

• Optimizing the Wrong Part of Knowledge Management (March 16, 2008)
• Facilitating Innovation: Establishing an Environment of Possibilities (August 22, 2008)
• Best Practices for Requirements Gathering Sessions (December 7, 2008)
• KM Overcomplicates: Heisenberg Impact on a VBA Quickie (February 8, 2009)
• Location, Location, Location: Terminology Confusion in ERP Projects (April 11, 2009)
• If I Told You a Fractal Solution, Could You Change the CEO's Mind? (December 6, 2009)
• Why Corporate IT Fails when Competing with Consumer Tech ... and How to Change the Game (January 5, 2010)

Technorati Tags: business value of IT, change management, innovation, people management, project management,

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmaclMacLennan,

This post started off as an excuse to experiment with Google Docs, and this really neat feature I discovered - embedding a spreadsheet in a web page as a sharing method. However, it struck me as a potential way to cost justify the time, effort, and expense of implementing collaboration systems with the Most Cynical Among Us.

We've all been in large meetings, with tens of people from the project team, along with the expensive consultants, sitting around a table listening to the project manager read their slides to us. The meetings always get scheduled for a full hour (it's the default in our calendaring system!), and everyone feels the need to speak, if only to make sure their voice has joined the chorus of agreement.

However, many of the Most Cynical Among Us have observed the large number of people in the room, and asked the question "How much is this meeting costing me?" It's a worthy exercise to go through ... so I whipped up a little spreadsheet model to quantify the hard and soft costs ...

It doesn't take long to play with the model and see the dollars add up; even if you don't believe in tracking "soft costs", the amount of time spent in meetings can get really big, really fast.

Are status update meetings inherently a waste of time? Absolutely not - communication is critical, and most organizations typically don't do enough of it. An exercise like this just puts the potential cost, in time and money, in real terms - and reminds us to focus on maximizing that investment.

Can this meeting be avoided? Collaboration platforms (blogs, intranets, etc.) let us update the team virtually; people can get the information when it's most convenient for them.

Are we communicating effectively? Sometimes, face to face communication is required and preferred - especially when you need to monitor how the message is being received in real time. Hence the broad focus on effective presentations and impactful communications ...

Look at the cost of your last meeting - did you get your money's worth?

PS: I welcome any suggestions for improvements to the model -  to request edit access or to get a copy, send email to jpmacl_docs@cazh1.com.

Previously ...

• Corporate Web 2.0 is Spreading - Here comes the Blog (May 15, 2007)
• Hidden Gold in Automating Recurring Processes (May 28, 2007)
• Communication is the responsibility of ... (August 19, 2007)
• Success, Failure, and Insights after 12 Months of Internal Web 2.0 (March 10, 2008)
• RSS: Underappreciated Web 2.0 in the Enterprise (May 1, 2008)
• Low Tech SharePoint Hack: Project Status Indicator (March 14, 2009)
• Real Business Users and SharePoint (July 14, 2009)

Technorati Tags: business value of IT, collaboration, hands on, people management, presentations, productivity, project management, Web 2.0,

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

The short answer, as you know, is that it's impossible to tell you how to be insightful and imaginative in a single blog post. All I can do is point you in the general direction, and (hopefully) ignite a little spark.

What's the Goal? and, Where to Begin?

I previously talked about the growing calls for effective data visualizations; we have access to all this great information, and there are insights in there somewhere - but we need just the right point of view to rise above the cloud of data and see the real opportunity. It helps if you have experienced that rush of insight when looking at a particularly impactful graphic; not just a good looking slide, it calls out something important in a particularly effective way. Haven't we all watched that earnest TV lawyer pull the winning argument out of the blue [right before the final commercial break] and win the big case?

Of course, it's not enough just to want it - you have to have a little reverse-engineering in your soul. You need confidence & bravado (I can and should be able to create those killer pictures), hunger & curiosity (how did they do that?), and confidence to know that you can - with a little hacking. It also helps to have the blissful ignorance to assume that it's within your technical grasp.

Step 1: Find Someone who Knows - and Follow them Around!

I'm a big fan of the "follow him around" method for learning new technology - not classroom instruction, more like a series of specific examples of applied technology. I had seen plenty of examples of presentations that I thought were very effective, but I didn't understand what was happening, what exactly was making them so effective. I had to find someone that could talk about putting together effective presentations - and had the good fortune to attend a seminar by Edward Tufte. Sure, you get some nice books, great to page through - but like most technical manuals, they don't really make sense until you've watched Tufte deconstruct the graphics. I learned the importance of taking extraneous ink off the page, and how scale, color and shape can illustrate and/or obfuscate. I didn't walk away from that experience with specific skills as much as clarified ideas - and a hunger and curiosity for more.

Step 2: Find Lots of Examples - and Steal some Inspiration!

Over the past few months, I've been following a number of blogs dedicated to ideas around information visualization - more skilled practitioners to follow around! The links below to take you to particularly interesting examples; your task is to subscribe to them all and regularly scan for ideas ...

Information is Beautiful

• Great Visualizers: Mike Deal charts The Beatles - I don't know exactly what that graphic is that shows the keys of Beatles tunes, but it looks cool - I want to figure out what it's showing, and how to build one

Cool Infographics

• The Caffeine Poster, How Much Caffeine Are You Drinking? Made all the more interesting by this follow-on post, The Making of The Caffeine Poster
• 16 Infographic Resumes, A Visual Trend Resumes done in graphics? Well, maybe not for me, but these are great examples of packing a lot of information in a small area - and, making the message stand out in the crowd!
• Pink Floyd Timeline of Band Members
  

Flowing Data

• 11 Ways to Visualize Changes Over Time – A Guide It's not always about examples of applied data visualization - there are plenty of mini-tutorials gettin published, like this one
  

EagerEyes.org

• Understanding Pie Charts Another techniques post, this one deconstructing peie charts. I never knew why I wasn't a big fan of the pie, but this article points out a lot of stuff that's pretty obvious (now that you mention it ...)
  

Chart Porn

• Haiti This blog is just a non-stop source of interesting examples
  

New York Times

• Another common source of terrific information visualizations is the New York Times - many folks blog about the most effective examples, even our friends at Ask ET
  

Step 3: Get Your Coding Hands Dirty!

Remember, after you are done being wowed by the presentation - figure out how you could build one.

• The old stalwart Excel comes with an ever growing list of graph types. Can't find the one you want? Try to hack at the standard stuff using VBA!
• Sometimes a blog post will point you to some utilities. No, I never heard of Gource, but you can bet I'm looking for a project to use it with!
• Open source has a lot of interesting tools out there - from jQuery addins to full-blown BI suites - lots of tools to load up with your data.
  

Remember - get inspired, find some starting points, and get building! the only way to really understand how to create insightful, impactful visualizations is to do a lot of experimentation.

Previously ...

• Stretching Your User Interface Design Muscles (April 16, 2008)
• Data Visualization: 'Life' of Open Source Projects (June 16, 2008)
• Another Take on Enterprise Open Source (February 18, 2009)
• Practical Innovation Lessons from Software Vendor R&D (April 16, 2009)
• A Company is like a Sphere (September 15, 2009)
• Why Corporate IT Fails when Competing with Consumer Tech ... and How to Change the Game (January 5, 2010)

Technorati Tags: data visualization, design, development, hands on, innovation, presentations

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan,

Between business requests and breathless vendors, I am getting caught up in the growing tide of interest in "data visualizations" - managers requesting highly interactive, highly graphical, highly intuitive analytics interfaces (think Minority Report). But what are we trying to accomplish here? We keep on hearing about "executive dashboards", a heads-up display of in-my-face KPIs, or statistics and exceptions delivered automatically to my e-mail and/or Blackberry. However, when I ask management folks to get a bit more specific - how would you actually use this information? Is there an interest in doing the drill down, the click through, the hand waving? Not so much - basically, I've heard that folks are satisfied with what they have (ex. daily sales reports or customer service metrics), and are not necessarily interested in micromanaging through their staffs (by drilling down through graphical views on their desktop).

The real interest is in giving the right "stuff" to middle management and team leaders ...

1. Data Sets - access to transactional data in enough detail to permit mixing, matching, slicing, and dicing, to identify and target hidden opportunities for business value (growth and/or savings)
2. Data Access Tools that provides fast and flexible manipulation of the figures
3. New and different Data Visualizations to enable insight and help target opportunities

... and we can iterate on these already:

• The first item - access to data - is getting easier over time. Projects like data warehousing and ERP implementations have taught companies the value of clean transaction data and correct & complete master data. We are also expanding the number of folks that know how to do basic query and extract operations, from all sorts of transaction systems (on premise and in the cloud), into data sets that can be manipulated off-line.
• Next - most folks can and should be happy with Excel and pivot tables - especially with the improvements in Office 2007 and beyond. It's becoming easier to specify filters, cross tabs, and aggregate operations, and Excel can also handle reasonably large data sets - tens of thousands of rows.

We are certainly not "finished" with #1 and #2 - still plenty of work to do in terms of data cleansing, data access and basic manipulation. However, the biggest opportunities for improvement in 2010 are in the area of visualizations - new and different ways to display multidimensional data.

Here's a simple example of profitability analysis using a visualization that is not available in Excel:

Click on the picture for a full-size image!

This type of graph is called a tree map or heat map. It's a basic query - show gross sales by customer for a number of product families, but this clever picture shows a number of things in a two dimensional view:

• Area in the graph represents sales - represented in dollars
• White borders denote product families - like Cookies, Diet Snacks, and Organic Food
• Red borders carve out specific customers
• Color represents degree of profitability - the most profitable are bright green, and the least profitable are bright red.

With a quick explanation of what you are looking at, targets of opportunity jump out at you - go for the big red boxes (like C) to cut the non-profitable stuff, or the really green boxes (like A) to sell more of the really profitable stuff. You can also get a bit more imaginative, looking for the right blend of size and shade to find customers "on the edge" of going really green (how can we make B as green as their neighbor, A)?

Creating Opportunities for Insight - Playing with Visualizations

To really get at #3, we may need better tools, but we also need some new and different communication design ideas. What types of data visualization are possible, given the dimensions of the data we have? Which visualizations might lead to some interesting insights? Or, take the opposite view - given a particular data set, what truths are in there, and how might we draw a picture of that (to clearly illustrate these truths for the interested observer)?

Clearly, there is no cookbook approach to something like this. It takes a certain amount of insight and imagination, and that is a critical skill combination that most IT departments, by nature, simply do not have. IT and Finance are two areas where structure and process typically trump design sensibilities.

No, I'm not saying that there is no artistic ability anywhere in IT; it just doesn't come out very often as we labor away on our project deliverables. As previously noted, corporate IT is typically not rewarded for design - just results (done = good, "good" = meh).

I don't think that the business is asking for fancy tools as much as creativity and new ideas for ways to represent business questions and answers. Instead of the same old bar charts and tables of color-coded numbers - is there a better way to visualize this data to facilitate insights?

Next … sources of inspiration ...

Previously ...

• Stretching Your User Interface Design Muscles (April 16, 2008)
• There ain't much IT in IT Management (May 7, 2008)
• Data Visualization: 'Life' of Open Source Projects (June 16, 2008)
• Excel 2007 is a BOB system (Bag'O'Bugs) (October 5, 2008)
• Hacking the Google Chart API from Excel (January 17, 2009)
• Practical Innovation Lessons from Software Vendor R&D (April 16, 2009)
• Who owns Master Data in your company? (May 30, 2009)

Technorati Tags: data visualization, innovation, presentations

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

I've been working with internal developers over the past few weeks, experimenting with a treemap / heatmap-style visualization that is quite interesting / insightful when loaded up with data, but very tough to configure and manipulate. We are also struggling with a presentation layer (surrounding this data control) that doesn’t adapt to the size of your browser screen, or behave well when placed inside a frame set or table.

I suspect our primary challenge - typical thinking for most corporate IT departments - is that we only work with the tool we know. The only way to display information in a browser from XYZ's data warehouse is to use their particular Web portal platform. We need to switch focus; let the data warehouse provide beautifully aggregated and accessible data, but go elsewhere for the presentation layer.

Corporate IT needs to develop a sense of adventure, a thirst for new and different ways of doing the same thing, and a curiosity about different presentation architectures (ie. there's more than one way to skin a cat). Manufacture some spare time, and get down to some serious "play", with CSS, HTML, and SharePoint (as previously noted, our target intranet platform); learn all you can about the level of control you have. Note that you probably have more flexibility than you think … but now we're playing with JavaScript, VBScript, or any number of client-side technologies.

Unfortunately, we all seem to get to the same creativity-killing question: "how do I charge my time?". Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of the timesheets and reasonable chargeback systems, quantifying IT alignment with the business - but therein lies the subtle yet significant difference with "the IT guys" and the iPhone / iPod / Kindle / Nintendo / Best Buy expectations of our business partners.

Rewarding Different Behaviors

Corporate IT is measured by and rewarded for projects - specifically, getting things done. In most organizations, that's where it ends; IT is usually not rewarded based on the ongoing use of the project deliverables; in fact, ongoing support ("maintenance") is expected ... a cost of doing business ... overhead ... part of baseline costs ... and, in a manner of speaking: free (no premium is paid).

It’s the exact opposite on the Internet and consumer IT; you are expected to build the stuff for free, and just give it away. You will get your rewards when people come to your website, click on your ads, buy your products, become sales leads. You’re rewarded after the build is complete – but (if you are good), you are rewarded over and over again.

• Corporate IT – metrics for success stop when the project is complete
• Consumer IT – metrics for success start when the development work is done

This also helps explain why Consumer IT delivers "stuff" that people like, that is intuitive, easy to use, and just works. Witness the apple iStore – developers earn cash only when they sell their apps, long after the build is complete. But it's not as simple as that - note that even though there are a huge number of apps out there, less than 5% are big successes (>100,000 users). Competition and market dynamics drive quality and innovative, creativity is rewarded when an app rises above the fray. Check out the disturbing collection below; how many different ways can you write the same, silly, popgun program? You'd be amazed ...



... yet five minutes of playing with each of these shooters, and you start to see the subtle variations and evolving methods that applications that get the most return visits.

Hope for Corporate IT - the Anti-PMO

The iGun story tells us about the darwinian action that comes with large amounts of repetition, duplication, and failure. Success can be quantified by your failures - how many failed experiments have you thrown out there, just to see what sticks? On the internet, preferably a lot - because that’s how you learn what works, and how to make the “really cool stuff”.

Corporate IT might stand a chance in an environment where experimentation and failure is encouraged (but not necessarily rewarded - we need to learn from our mistakes). In essence, we need to build an anti-PMO and give permission for folks to do stuff that has no apparent value.

What will it take for you to facilitate a more creative environment? For more ideas on establishing an innovation environment, check out this old post ...

Previously ...

• The Innovation Generation and User Interfaces (April 9, 2008)
• Stretching Your User Interface Design Muscles (April 16, 2008)
• Low Tech SharePoint Hack: Project Status Indicator (March 14, 2009)
• Five Stages of Twitter Relevance (April 21, 2009)
• Failing Faster (June 14, 2009)
• Real Business Users and SharePoint (July 14, 2009)

Technorati Tags: business value of IT, design, development, entrepreneur, innovation, PMO

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan,

Some block-and-tackle IT management stuff for today - taking a long, hard look at the IT budget, a task that is less-than-pleasant for many. Most of my peers have already cut any and all low hanging fruit - it's time to start thinking aggressively.

Software Maintenance for the Small Stuff

Most have concentrated on their ERP and other large, strategic vendors - but what about all of those little invoices that come every year - development tools, management utilities, network monitors, etc. After a while, it really adds up - but too often, we look at the relatively small amounts and just approve the dollars without a thought. It may be time to gather up these little guys, and take a good, long look.

• Why pay for something that we rarely use? Typically, I have purchased perpetual rights to use a product, but I pay annually to keep on support. Why not let the support / maintenance lapse, but continue using the product (on the rare occasion I need to)?

• Even if I use the software a lot - why pay maintenance if I rarely call support? Does the vendor offer support on a time-and-materials basis? Don't dismiss this option out of hand - I find it difficult to believe that a vendor will turn down an opportunity to start hourly billings in the event that something significant goes wrong.
• Do I really need to pay support if I have scheduled a project in the near future to get it decommissioned? Just looking to realize the savings a bit earlier ...

Alternatives and Duplicates

Are there alternatives available that would cost less on an annual basis?

• Do I have any point-solutions that can be replaced by unused, duplicate functionality in my ERP system? Something to consider, especially if the solution was implemented a few years ago. Perhaps the R&D group from your ERP vendor caught up to their competition?
• Is third-party support available? Rimini Street is the classic ERP example - possibly some consulting firms will offer support for the more mature, niche-stuff in your portfolio?
• Of course, there is always open-source; no acquisition cost, and [typically] no annual maintenance.
• Are there applications in your portfolio with similar / duplicate functionality? This is common for even mid-sized shops, especially as time passes and those pesky vendor developers keep improving and extending their core products.

Compare your Risk Requirements with Reality

As much as we grouse about vendors, IT departments often mimic their behaviors, especially when justifying software maintenance and infrastructure redundancy based on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). How often does this stuff really fail? How bad is the software, how loaded with bugs, that we simply must have access to (and faithfully apply) every patch?

I'm not looking for a storm of protest here - I have plenty of "war stories", just like you, of timely support calls that provided just the right patch, and untimely hardware failures that went unnoticed because of well-engineered failover. However, it's time to think aggressively, and re-examine / revalidate all of your assumptions.

• How about reducing our level of telecommunications failover – can we get cheaper / slower backup circuits? 
  
• Consider sharing backup servers between multiple applications - where the first failover application takes over, eliminating the second apps safety net.
• How often do my techs end up solving the problem for the vendor - how much value am I really getting, especially for the really mature stuff?

“Risk” is always powerful word, especially when dealing with a conservative management group. However, for this exercise we can’t just accept the powerful but un-valued justification of “risk mitigation” – we must quantify risk on an historical basis. For example - if we talk about dropping support for a software product, we can and should quantify how often we had to call up the vendor for support / help, or how many bugs we’ve fixed by applying a vendor patch.

Here's the most important idea; we should be able to draw a clear line between cost and quality (where, in this discussion, "quality" = "risk mitigation"). If we want this level of quality, we have to pay this much money. If we want to save money, can we accept a lower level of quality (or, a higher level of risk)?

I always go into budget reviews with the idea that the business is asking for a thoughtful discussion of tradeoffs, and not dictating targets (no matter what the memo specifically says!) More often than not, the Finance group or the General Manager is asking questions like "how can we save $X ?", or "what would it take to reduce by Y% ?". The cost vs. quality/risk tradeoff is something that can and should be a joint decision between IT and the business.

Previously ...

• Measuring and Reporting IT Value (2 of 2) (November 20, 2007)
• Three Business-Case Arguments for Agile, & The Moose On The Table (January 14, 2008)
• There ain't much IT in IT Management (May 7, 2008)
• IT and the Business are Closer Than You Think (June 28, 2008)
• Facilitating Innovation: Establishing an Environment of Possibilities (August 22, 2008)
• The Delicate Art of Pushing Back (July 5, 2009)

Technorati Tags: business value of IT, IT management,

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan,

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).


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.

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 ...

Previously ...

• Three Business-Case Arguments for Agile, & The Moose On The Table (January 14, 2008)
• Five More Realities for Driving Business Value from Technology (January 30, 2008)
• Success, Failure, and Insights after 12 Months of Internal Web 2.0 (March 10, 2008)
• Optimizing the Wrong Part of Knowledge Management (March 16, 2008)
• The Right Web2.0 Tool for the Audience (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) (May 9, 2008)
• Facilitating Innovation: Establishing an Environment of Possibilities (August 22, 2008)
• Location, Location, Location: Terminology Confusion in ERP Projects (April 11, 2009)
• Who owns Master Data in your company? (May 30, 2009)
• Bootstrap Market Research: Master Data Management (What, Who, How) (November 30, 2009)

Technorati Tags: best practice, collaboration, CRM, documentation, ERP, hands on, Knowledge Management, SAP, supply chain, tech management, wiki

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

As the new year approaches, debates over the "value" of IT and business projects intensify; it's not holiday stress, but the excitement of the approaching New [fiscal] Year. Lately, I'm hearing more about the struggle to quantify business value, especially when selecting those few projects that will "make the cut". We will definitely iterate on our scoring framework, adding a cost / benefit template to facilitate more apples-to-apples comparisons between projects (yes, don't scoff  - it is possible - more in a later post ...)

However, I think there's an interesting vision in some people's minds; a sort of value-optimization Utopia where, even with hundreds of project ideas on the list, the executive team has the insight and ability to select the best projects and fund them appropriately -  as long as they all have business values assigned.

I don't think assigning a value to every proposal is realistic, and certainly not something to aspire to - well, not directly anyway. There are a number of significant hurdles to deal with - the reluctance of people to commit to hard benefits, the lack of suitable productivity metrics for new technologies and methods, and the difficulty of communicating innovations to those who didn't think it up on their own (ie. close the patent office, we're done).

Yet, even if you did address all of those problems, and could easily measure impact and communicate effectiveness on 300+ terrific project ideas - how could anyone to claim the ability (or the time!) to rank such a list from "best" to "worst" (or, since I don't propose projects are bad to begin with - "most best" to "least best")? Truth is, they don't - most of the business leaders I've worked with have no interest in looking at 300 projects, and would be a tad perturbed if I tried to get them to peruse such a list. Do you appreciate it when your teams bring a thousand problems for you to sort through?

Rules of Thumb

Most people have a favorite way of eating their elephants. Yes, one bite at a time - but where to start? How to carve?

Deliver Small, Iterate, and Evolve: The agile among us would focus on short-term deliverables with small measurable steps to make incremental improvements. Speed and iterations will drive the quality and help focus on those areas of work that have the most short-term promise.

Focus on the Big Rocks:  The biggest and toughest problems - or the projects with the most benefit - are sometimes so daunting that they intimidate us into dealing with "the easy stuff". Clear your calendar and tackle these larger opportunities first, else you'll never get to them.

Focus on the Constraints: Understand which resources are keeping you from launching multiple projects at once. These are typically people - in key positions, with monopoly knowledge. Simplify things by prioritizing their projects first - but strongly consider launching efforts to remove the constraint, by having them document, train, or automate their knowledge.

Practical Problem Solving

As I proofread this post, it sounds like a checklist for common sense; no surprises, just a different level of detail depending on the organizational level you are speaking with. It's important to understand the fractal nature of business challenges; no matter where you stand in the organization, the number of items on your ToDo list (and/or the number of challenges you are juggling) is roughly the same. The sooner you can put yourself in the other person's shoes, and speak to them at the level of detail they (not you) need - the more effective your conversations will be.

Besides, they're paying you to solve problems, not define them.

Previously ...

• Measuring and Reporting IT Value (2 of 2) (November 20, 2007)
• Innovation That Matters - Substance Over Style (January 12, 2008)
• Three Business-Case Arguments for Agile, & The Moose On The Table (January 14, 2008)
• Optimizing the Wrong Part of Knowledge Management (March 16, 2008)
• The Innovation Generation - Communication Styles (April 1, 2008)
• IT and the Business are Closer Than You Think (June 28, 2008)
• Facilitating Innovation: Establishing an Environment of Possibilities (August 22, 2008)
• A Plea for Empathetic Communication (November 16, 2008)

Technorati Tags: business value of IT, documentation, innovation, Knowledge Management, people management, PMO, project management

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan

When I talk about having an "offsite strategy" meeting, I'm looking to get out of the office and have some good, "strategic" conversation over a cup of coffee or a beer. Back when I worked for a software development company, we did our best design work at a hot dog stand in Des Plaines, IL; since then, I've always found it more fun to conduct some "bidness" in the proper atmosphere ...

This was the germ of an idea that suggested a solid (simple, easy-to-remember) domain name and an interesting excuse to get some hands on with newer web technology. I've wanted to build a Google Maps mash-up for some time, and I've been seeing a lot of stuff about jQuery on Twitter - so as a break from a high-profile project at work, I hacked together something over the past few months that was both fun and practical (because, of course, it's important to be able to quickly locate a suitable meeting place ...)

Lessons Learned

Actually, the practical lessons learned from this project have to do with understanding modern web technology, understanding technology at a reasonable depth, and discovering a new value prop for Twitter ...

• If you are just starting out, try developing with web APIs, and augmenting your HTML and CSS with jQuery, mootools, Scriptaculous, or Dojo. Code not your style? You should be looking at Google Wave and the Semantic Web - two other things on my radar screen.
• If you are into code - well, this stuff is definitely getting more interesting. I found jQuery to be powerful yet complicated, definitely tricky. CSS for flexible layout is kids stuff - get ready to dive back into debug mode. The goal, however, is not to become an expert - just develop a healthy understanding of what is simple and what is difficult.
• Twitter and the real-time web took on a whole new meaning for me - I use Tweetdeck, and often set up searches to watch a keyword like "SAP", "master data", or "jQuery". This has become a great source for better plugins, but you can also get a quick sense of the market - the best code gets the most RT's!

If you are an IT leader, you simply must be getting in depth with this stuff as soon as possible. Your Sales, Operations, and Finance counterparts are desperately looking for the Next Big Thing in cost savings and/or competitive differentiation - grab a mitt and get in the game!

Besides, I like to be able to understand the subtle nuances - what's easy and what's difficult - when the business starts to talk about collaboration, the cloud, integrations and interfaces, and usability. (Primarily so I can set their expectations correctly after seeing breathless demos and presentations from well-meaning vendors ...)

A Work in Process

OffsiteStrategy.com is really best behaved in Firefox and Safari, but I have put a ton of time into the site to get it somewhat well-behaved in IE6 and IE7 (still a little quirky). I've still got a list of features to add:

• I'm not stuck on the Chicago area - check out Boston and Cincinnati, for example. I am working on adding a Search box to the map, so you can find _your_ location, then look for my fave in your area. Next time I'm in town ...
• I don't have as many photos as my daughters (14GB!!), but I have some that might be fun to share. Again, mostly just looking for a reason to mess with Picasa and the APIs available there
• I'm still hacking away here at the blog, and over on Twitter - and I've looked at some interesting scripts to pull data from those two platforms over to OffsiteStrategy.com, for some interesting visualizations.

Of course, if you have any feedback - or suggested locations - please let me know.

Credits / Further Reading

Like any self-teaching hack, I've constructed the site as a mix of original stuff plus techniques cribbed from demos and samples of work from other web developers. In particular ...

Google Maps

• I've used the Google Maps API V3 as the basis for my Maps stuff. I have an API key, no big deal, but I just like the default navigation features that come with this version (try the scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the map - just like the real thing).
• I got most of my ideas for the basic UI and map action from Marc Grabanski, but I had to augment a bit with stuff from this demo program to get the InfoWindows to work like I wanted.
• I also needed this handy Lat/Lon tool to get the markers positioned exactly where I wanted them to go.

jQuery

A very nice library of routines, plus I'm amazed at how fast the universe of plugins is expanding. The important ones used on this site include ...

• Rik Lomas' quickSearch plug-in, for the excellent filter action on the table of Locations
• Christian Bach's tablesorter - did you notice that you can sort the table by clicking the headers?
• I have made some progress dealing with the shortcomings of IE6 - thanks to Andreas Eberhard and his PNG-Transparency fix.
• The dropdowns underneath the icons come courtesy of jQuery Tools - good UI stuff. I think there is more there than tooltips, but that will be for another project.
• I used Mathias Bank's excellent plugin for parsing URL parameters - wanted to send nice-looking links in email to people, that would point them where we should meet.
• When I'm done with a plugin (or my own code), and I'm keeping a local copy, I have used Dean Edward's JavaScript Compressor web app. It works fairly well, although with some code I get quirky results with the compressed results - need to keep fiddling with that stuff.

CSS

This site got me back into practice with CSS - it's been a while since I've worked in this area. I did add Eric Meyer's CSS Reset to the site, another attempt at insulating the IE6 users from unfortunate look/feel issues.

Miscellaneous Tools

I also got a lot of mileage out of a couple of other web-based goodies:

• There are many color tools online, but Color Schemer Online v2 was the best for letting me quickly go from hue to hex.
• I got all of my icons from Iconspedia, a great source for free stuff. I did search a lot on the IconArchive site - good stuff, I just didn't find any that I needed from there.
• I've used the meebo chat widget before on my blog (up and to the right ...); it's pretty nifty, and I figured it would make sense to want to get a chat going while we are discussing where to meet up.

Source Code

Are you serious? Well, ok, look for the latest over here, let me know if I've forgotten anything ...

Previously ...

• Facilitating Innovation: Establishing an Environment of Possibilities (August 22, 2008)
• Excel 2007 is a BOB system (Bag'O'Bugs) (October 5, 2008)
• Hacking the Google Chart API from Excel (January 17, 2009)
• Low Tech SharePoint Hack: Project Status Indicator (March 14, 2009)
• Five Stages of Twitter Relevance (April 21, 2009)
• Who owns Master Data in your company? (May 30, 2009)
• Real Business Users and SharePoint (July 14, 2009)

Technorati Tags: design, development, hands on, innovation, tech management, technology, twitter, Web 2.0,

Invisible Technorati Tags: cazh1, James P. MacLennan, jpmacl, MacLennan