Preparation and Processes

Most (if not all) activities involve 2 stages - Preparation and then Execution. For any activity to be executed effectively and in a timely manner , preparation is key. Lets take the example of the activity of preparing to go work in the morning. If you need to iron your shirt or find your socks then you will be much slower than if you had those things prepared. You will also will be more frustrated. Cooking is another example where the preparation of your ingredients and tools before hand is vital for a satisfactory result. There many, many other such examples.

In a company setting preparation usually resolves around getting the right information and mobilizing the right people. From the information perspective data can be stored in many locations. The more spread out the information the longer it will take to prepare the data and the less accurate the information will be. It is therefore vital that data is organised and accessible to everyone to meet repeatable requirements. I highlight repeatable because one-off activities many require additional new preparation. But most activities in a given industry are repeatable. Skilled management are able to recognise those repeatable patterns and  define strategies to streamline and optimise Preparation.

Long term project success

In general great solutions stand the test of time with little or no maintenance - that differentiates a poor solution from a good one. A great solution takes this further and requires little effort to evolve. Successful projects are also governed by this rule.

Technology in most cases is not the limiting factor of producing a great long-term project outcome - it is the mindset and  imagination of project participants.

Critical success factors are defined during requirements stages, attempting to instill longevity into its the solutions foundations, by covering as many events and outcomes as possible as laid out by the business. But the theme of these factors is still governed by the project decision makers.So if simple, easy and seamless maintenance is not a priority then factors nvolving maintenance would be included as an afterthought or simply ignored when shaping the projects direction - Ultimately a functional but poor solution is achieved.

The maintenance aspect of the project is in most cases treated as an afterthought - especially if the project is handled by an external consultants - but its still the stakeholders responsibility to highlight maintenance as a central theme . Ignoring it displays a short-term attitude of the Return of investment. Maintenance has a huge impact on costs and time. A project may have cost 1 million GBP to complete but over the course of of 2 years maintenance cost may add 4 million to that value due to additional labour costs.  Investing in maintenance from the start may add 1 million GBP to initial project costs while reducing maintenance costs to 2 million.

For example you as a consultant has been tasked to create a ecommerce website 123 for company xyz. You have a choice of building an automated ETL mechanism to extract product data from an existing system, or you can enter this data by hand. So you present these options to the business with the associated advantages and disadvantages. If time to market takes priority , then the manual approach would most likely be selected. If maintenance takes priority then the ETL approach would be taken.

Successful projects requires maintenance to built in at its core.

Measuring Integration

Integration has been and still is one of the most difficult aspects systems development - both from a technical and social perspective. As was mentioned in previous articles, in most cases people move towards silo-centric solutions - integration is seen as ‘nice to have’, in management speak. Then one day integration suddenly becomes a ‘must-have’ due to competitive pressures. These pressures usually leads to a poor solutions.

The integration index is the number of steps required to access or retrieve any piece of information in any setting. For example at home - how many steps are required to find out the bill spend last month. The more integrated the environment the less number of steps required. In an organisation the number of steps is instrumental in the determining its efficiency.

Note the definition of the integration index will change over-time - this can be seen as the first draft

Workplace Education

Education in the workplace is of critical importance - now -more than ever, due to changes in technology and development and process methodologies. Employees minds must be kept sharp in order to adapt to fast changing demands.

Too often employees lose sight of the point and purpose of what they are doing within an organisation. They go through the motions instead of taking a critical look at what they are doing -  and how they can be improve things. Such a critical perspective can only be achieved if a good understanding of the core concepts of the role and business surrounding it is achieved. Yes, there is ‘learning on the job’, but that has its limitations. In the face of tight deadlines we usually only learn all that is required to get the job done quick. Therefore time need to be taken to educate the workforce - at all levels

Workplace education usually means taking days off for training on or off-site. This type of training is expensive in terms of time and money - unless the skills are actually used.

Such formal training though is invaluable in many circumstances but it not nimble enough to cater for smaller but fast changing requirements. To meet such requirements training material should be created by the team in the form of examinations (multiple choice, short question and scenarios) and quizzes. The masses of (usually un-read) documentation generated by the team would be revision material. This would be a simple and effect way of ensuring internally generated knowledge is understood by all and not wasted. I would predict it would have the effect of strengthening core competencies and increasing productivity - How? The information would be memorised and understood. A quiz with a valuable prize would be an ideal way of encouraging a team to brush up on theory behind the work they actually doing.

Business Process and Culture 2

Fantastic article from the fastcompany website. This relates to what was written in my previous post on 'Business culture and process'.

No matter what new systems or processes are installed and implemented  in organisation, if the process or system is not aligned with the culture - it will not work as intended if at all. For example, integrated systems will fail to deliver any long-term benefit (at great expense) if there is a culture of little or no collaboration across teams.

Politics and process

Politics will always exist in the workplace - as ultimately it is an expression of power. It can become a powerful overriding force, leading to poor processes and all the ills which accompany it. Why? Limited team engagement, limited organisational engagement. Limited engagement around. Professionalism and Politics in the work place is inversely related. The higher the level of professionalism the lower the level of political influences and visa versa.


This subject of politics and process is something I will explore in future articles.

Automate the Science, Free the art

Many occupations and activities have been described as a combination of ‘ art and science ‘. I would assume the science part covers the implementation of processes in a methodical manner. The art part would cover everything else, such  the inception of the process, interacting with the environment, unexpected events, persuasion, etc .

Computers and machines are taking over the science part of the equation. Add rules and AI into the mix and its encroaching on some of the art as well.

The distance between creative thought and implementation is becoming smaller and smaller over time. This will lead to a new age of ‘interesting’ innovations and disruption in existing industries as the ‘expensive process’ barrier to entry shrinks.

Stream lined processes and creativity

Where you find efficient and elegant processes you will find open-minded, high quality leaders and managers. These processes make complex activities appear simple as opposed to poor process which make simple activities complex. Talented workers will recognise poor processes and leave the organisation if they unable to change the process ( ...and there is another job waiting for them).

With a simple and efficient processes in place, which are allowed to evolve and change, creativity will flourish. The mind can focus on developing innovate solutions to other issues as opposed to worrying about breaking something (system, code, database, document etc) while following a poor process.

Small action big results vs large action small results

Where processes are manual and complex in nature invariable a large amount of effort is required to achieve the smallest result. Sometimes this can be a deliberate strategy to transfer responsibility down the line. Where small actions produce produce big results, responsibility is more concentrated – so more care needs to be taken. The higher risks of small action and big results are more than off-set by increased productivity, reduced costs and greater job satisfaction for those willing to take on the responsibility.

Business Process and Culture

Business Processes mirrors the organisations culture. Long winding and complex manual processes usually reflects a business culture which lacks creativity - if it is not broke then no fix is required. New processes then follow the same template.

Without a change or even a modification in culture poor process will persist. A company may hire an external consultant to provide advice on streamlining processes. In the short to medium term time-frame, these new processes may be maintained. In the long-term as the business evolves and new business requirements need to be satisfied, the company culture will ultimately drive the evolution of new processes. Old ways of doing things will gradually morph the new processes back to the old or a hybrid variant. 

Silo mindset

Silo mindset - The growth of silo centric systems can attributed to the prevalent silo-mindset within the IT departments and leadership.

Business users (stakeholders) within a IT project, are its fundamental participants. They provide requirement to get the job done. They push for solutions which meets their needs and their needs alone - regardless of what's going on in the rest of the organisation. In most cases you can say that Business users have silo mindset. And this is perfectly natural.

As the IT professional within the project , maybe the Project manager, or Business analyst, you have have 2 choices in dealing with with silo-mindsets

Choice 1 - Go along with these business requirements to the letter. They then produce a silo based system with its own data-store and little or no integration

Choice 2- Propose the building of a system with integration as a major additional requirement.

Choice 2 will cost more and probably to take come time to complete , but these short term cost are more than made up by the long term benefits of transparency, lower maintenance cost and many other benefits of integration.

Silos

Organisation allow their data silos to grow due to a short sighted belief of 'if its not broke, then don't fix it' or an unwillingness to make the investment required to create a unified solution. In the mean time more resources are being wasted keeping the silos alive through duplication and fire-fighting. Time is ultimately wasted and no real progress is made.

Synergy and Duplication

Companies which fail to address problems which relate to different teams and functions working and sharing information together usually suffer in their market place. The problem is not the lack of technology, but the lack of on an incentive (or willingness) for teams to work together and share information. Duplication of processes is a wasteful side effect of companies who do not exercise synergy effectively. The collaboration between different complementary functions are not effective which leads to process as well as data silos. Effort is duplicated.