Phil Simon » Consulting

Long-Term Greedy

philsimon — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:07:50 +0000

I recently spoke to a potential client (call it YYZ) about some potential report development work. All of the details of the specific report requests aren’t terribly interesting so I’ll skip those here. I will, however, briefly provide a high level overview of YYZ’s current report distribution process:

super user runs report
super user prints it
admins segregate report it by customer
admins scan individual reports as separate PDFs
admins email PDFs to customers as invoices and request payment

Yikes! Obviously, this is not the acme of efficiency. After years of doing it this way, YYZ finally realized that the money spent on automating report distribution would more than pay for itself. YYZ asked me if I wanted to the job. This post explains why I turned down the work.

Saying No

Why did I take a pass here? Not because of these reasons:

I couldn’t do the job. No. While I may not be the world’s greatest report writer, I assure you that I can more than hold my own. I have very little doubt that I could have done what the client wanted.
I don’t have the time. No. I could have fit the work into my schedule.
I don’t need the money. Hardly. Property taxes in NJ remain the highest in the nation, but that’s a discussion over beers sometime.

I turned down the job because YYZ really didn’t need my help after all. (As an aside, I seem to be writing quite a bit about saying no these days.)

After doing five minutes of research, I discovered a product called PDF-eXPLODE that should allow the organization to automate the electronic distribution of invoices. What’s more, buying this product would, in all likelihood, cost much less than hiring me to do this for them.

My contact at YYZ was not aware of PDF-eXPLODE, much less the fact that it is available for free as a trial version. Rather than keeping this information to myself, however, I passed it on to him.

Some people might say that I’m crazy to turn down work in any economy, much less this one. In the short-term, perhaps this is accurate. I know for a fact that many consulting firms would never have done what I did.

For example, years ago, I worked for a large, publicly traded consulting outfit that vigorously pursued each and every lead. Anyone who asked, “Does the client really need this?” would have found himself in hot water. This firm was so concerned about meeting quarterly earnings’ numbers that it frequently made truly awful decisions, one of which is detailed in the Portnoy case study in my first book.

So, what’s the biggest difference between my own little company and a large consulting firm? Four words: I’m long-term greedy.

Simon Says: Be Long-Term Greedy

“Long-term greedy” is a powerful and evocative phrase with origins to Goldman Sachs, a company that has been in the news a great deal these days for all of the wrong reasons. The once venerable firm is plagued by scandal stemming from some moves made during the meltdown of the housing debacle. Gus Levy is credited with coining the phrase. According to Wikipedia, being long-term greedy implies “that as long as money is made over the long term, trading losses in the short term were not to be worried about.”

You don’t have to be an investment banker to be long-term greedy. Despite the fact that Goldman’s reputation is tainted this days, you shouldn’t mind the comparison. For several reasons, I still find it best to be long-term greedy. To return to the YYZ example above, consider the following:

If PDF-eXPLODE doesn’t meet YYZ’s needs for report distribution, I’ll bet you a coke that my contact will reach out to me.
If I had taken the job and done the work, what would have happened if YYZ found out about PDF-eXPLODE? I doubt that they would have asked for a refund, but they’d naturally wonder “What else does this supposed reporting expert not know?”
YYZ probably has other report development or consulting needs and I’m probably at or near the top of their list.
People talk. Word of mouth is huge. The goodwill that I built up with YYZ may very well translate into additional clients.

Feedback

Are you long-term greedy? How do you balance the long-term development of your business and reputation with your company’s short-term needs? Is being long-term greedy a luxury? Or do you ever have to adjust your viewpoint based on external factors?

Photo by adhadda kedhabhra.

Long-Term Greedy is a post from: Phil Simon

The World of No

philsimon — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:30:15 +0000

Without question, my least favorite word in the English language is usually “no.” I’d tell James Lipton as much if asked on the sometimes pretentious show Inside The Actors’ Studio. Now, there’s a reason that I qualify that statement with “usually.” In this post, I’ll tell you why not all “no’s” are created equal.

Appropriate No’s

Sometimes, no is the only legitimate response to a question. Consider the following:

It’s alright to steal music, right?
Are you going to miss Rush on this tour? (Hells no!)
Will you shoot par today?
Did you sleep past 5 am today?

These are examples of “appropriate no’s.” In each case, “no” is the only answer.

But alas, dear reader, there are other kinds of no’s.

Contemplative No’s

Let’s say that I propose a solution to a problem on a consulting gig that seems to make sense–at least to me. The decision maker listens to me and considers the idea. After careful thought, though, she decides against it and tells me why my idea won’t fly. She thanks me for the effort and appreciates my enthusiasm.

Contemplative no’s don’t bother me much. After all, I’m a consultant with no real authority. It’s their world; I’m just playing rent. They know what’s best. My advice is always theirs to take or leave.

Reflexive No’s

Again, let’s say that I’m trying to solve a problem. Maybe I’m trying to do something productive or try to make one of my partners, publishers, or clients money. Here are a few specific examples:

While working with one of my publishers, I have routinely proposed what I considered to be good ideas to promote our book. These include greater use of social media, book signings, other events, and book reviews.
When confronting an issue on a new system implementation, I’d figure out a “work-around” that would in no uncertain terms solve the problem.
Often I’ve dealt with wholly inefficient business processes and suggested reasonable alternatives to expedite things.

In each case, the decision maker didn’t bother to fully consider my ideas, often barely listening to my suggestions. The response was almost always something along the lines of “that’s not how we do things around here.” I call these “reflexive no’s” and I’ve come across them many times in my career.

And these bother me the most because those who give me “the reflexive no” just don’t try. They don’t care. They’re apathetic. They don’t want to learn or experiment. These people are stuck in their comfort zones and, as my friend Scott Berkun has written many times, this is exactly how mediocrity persists. That mentality stifles innovation and, ultimately, success.

Feedback

Am I just stubborn, cranky, and cantankerous? Does the reflexive no bother you as much as it does me?

The World of No is a post from: Phil Simon

Extremes in Risk Tolerance

philsimon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:01:38 +0000

In my Getting to Know You post, the category for next blog topic receiving the second highest vote total was “IT Project Failure.”

Ask and ye shall receive.

I have been giving quite a bit of thought lately to the topic of enterprise risk management. In large part, this stems from the fact that I recently completed a project in which my client’s risk tolerance was off the charts. I mean crazy. In this post, I discuss three types of organizations with respect to risk tolerance:

The Zero Risk Organization
The Oblivious Organization
The Acceptable Risk Organization

The Zero Risk Organization

Several years ago, I worked on a project for an organization that would not do anything if there was even the smallest risk. To that end, it employed a full-time internal auditor to carefully monitor all IT projects. He would report his findings to the CIO.

So, you may ask. What’s wrong with this?

In the abstract, nothing. But IT projects are never abstract. Actions have consequences. The project consistently suffered as the implementation team attempted to address his concerns, and he had a bunch. Sure, many of them were well-founded, but how do you concurrently assuage an auditor’s concerns and make up time on a delayed project?

You don’t.

Simon Says

If your organization is not ready to take on some level of risk, then don’t start a major systems or IT initiative. Ever. All projects come with some degree of risk. It’s that simple.

The Oblivious Organization

Now, let’s turn to the other end of the spectrum. This type of organization is perhaps best epitomized by my most recent client. The mentality could be described as:

There was no such thing as risk. Period.

Here’s the crazy thing, though. The company routinely addressed IT projects in this manner. According to lifers, every system that the company implemented in the last ten years was managed the same way. Proceed as if nothing is wrong. Ever.

This was a shock to just about every consultant on the project. You see, good consultants have been trained to identify and attempt to minimize risks throughout projects. Sadly, the CIO did not want us “editorializing.” Translation: keep your mouths shut. We don’t like naysayers.

Simon Says

From a consultant’s perspective, you can’t win on projects like these. If you broach a legitimate issue, you’ll be silenced and possibly removed from the project. If you don’t, then you’ll invariably be asked, “Why didn’t you tell us about this?” Organizations like these have a high employee rejection rate; it takes a certain personality type of accept the risk of lawsuits, audits, and generally appearing foolish as you expose yourself and others to excessive levels of risk.

The Acceptable Risk Organization

Ah, I can’t tell you how much I enjoy working with companies and people who understand risk and possess a modicum of perspective. Serious risks are actually taken…seriously. Further, key people understand the time-sensitive nature of many problems. They understand that, as my friend Bob Charette has told me, risk is always a function of information, time, and money.

Simon Says

Of course, no organization has unlimited information, time, and money. Trade-offs need to be made. Fortunately, “acceptable risk organizations” understand this and are likely to make the right calls. Things won’t always go perfectly, but these realists create contingency plans in the event that things go awry.

Feedback

I have a few questions for you.

What’s your organization’s risk tolerance?
What causes some organizations to accept so much risk?
Can people with one risk tolerance be successful at organizations with vastly different risk tolerances?

Extremes in Risk Tolerance is a post from: Phil Simon

Mark McGwire, Project Management, and Coming Clean

philsimon — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:23:23 +0000

It’s hard to not hear about major events in today’s 24/7 news cycle, whether you want to or not. I can’t say that I’m a Paris Hilton fan but it’s really hard for me not to hear about her current adventures. By the same token, I doubt that even those indifferent to sports did not hear about Mark McGwire’s recent (if belated) admission that he took steroids during his halcyon home run hitting years.

The point of this post is not to excoriate McGwire for doing wrong. He was hardly the only guy to shoot up in baseball, much less all sports. Rather, I’d like to take a deeper look at his apology as it relates to project management and the corporate world.

McGwire’s apology was no doubt sincere but was equipped with an infuriating disclaimer. He did it “for health purposes.”

Huh?

For a transcript of the interview, click here.

Rant

Why don’t people just fess up when they are caught? I like to think that we live in a forgiving society. While coming clean is laudable, it’s hard for me to get over McGwire’s disclaimer. The whole thing me of a recent incident in which someone dropped the ball on an IT project and offered a similar excuse-laden apology.

To make a long story short, on the penultimate day of a consulting engagement, the project manager (PM) literally dropped ten custom report requests on my desk that I had requested several times over a three month span. Oh, did I mention that I was in the middle of another crisis at the time with production data?

The PM apologized but quickly added that “he knew that these reports were ad hoc, not ‘enterprise’ reports.”

Huh?

Don’t worry. I didn’t understand the distinction either.

Now, I have been writing reports out of enterprise systems for nearly fifteen years. There are all sorts of reports from all sorts of tools but dropping the ball is dropping the ball. Period. That’s it. Don’t try to bullshit me on this. (Incidentally, most of these were actually relatively easy reports to create but there was no way for the PM to have known this. In any event, to sit on important tasks for more than two months and then expect someone to save the day at the last minute represents a horrible work ethic for anyone, much less a PM who’s supposed to show leadership to the rest of the organization.)

Simon Says

When you screw up in baseball or the corporate world, just call a spade a spade. Equivocating merely increases the amount of damage that you’ve done to your credibility and reputation. I understand the need to save face. Really, I do. However, providing excuses only rubs salt in the wound and minimizes any benefit of the doubt that others will grant you.

Feeback?

What do you think? Do excuses irritate you as much?

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Mark McGwire, Project Management, and Coming Clean is a post from: Phil Simon

Disposable Workers, Newton’s Third Law, and The Lock Down

philsimon — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:01:28 +0000

The most recent issue of BusinessWeek has an interesting article about The Disposable Worker. Long story short: fewer people are working as full-time W-2 employees and more are working as one of the following:

temps
part-time workers
independent contractors
other types of “agents”

Now, I’m not about to write “the post” that discusses the macroeconomic trends brought about by these changes. Suffice it to say for now, the increased use of “non-employees” is affecting many, many things.

In this post, I discuss the often overlooked risks facing organizations that rely on people like me.

Benefits to Employers

For employers, the benefits of using “non-employees”, for want of a better term, include:

avoiding paying benefits and paid time off
employee-based taxes such as unemployment insurance
greater overall flexibility with respect to labor costs

If an organization’s goal is to minimize short-term cost savings, then it’s hard for me to argue against using consultants, temps, and independent contractors. Cost aside, contractors and temps have no employment contracts and we’re generally not covered by US labor laws. For example, I cannot tell my de facto “boss” that I’m taking FMLA. This is not to say that I don’t have any rights in the workplace; it’s just that I don’t have as many rights as my boss. What’s more, government organizations such as the EEOC and OSHA are way to busy these days to take claims from people like me.

Risks to Employers

Newton’s Third Law states: “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Organizations need to keep this in mind. Even in a tough economy, key independents and temporary workers do get other offers. For much more on this, check out the book Free Agent Nation. In short, non-employees are always on the lookout for the next gig.

To be sure, consultants working for firms as proper full-time employees will collect a check next week whether their clients retain them or not. (Unless, of course, they are laid off.) Still, organizations need to remember that consulting firms are constantly trying to place their people, often whenever and wherever they can.

On my previous consulting engagement, the organization lost several key consultants because its CIO essentially attempted to extend consultants on their penultimate days. For two reasons, this always irks me.

First, it smacks of hubris and narcissism.What do you mean there are other organizations out there? You mean that people aren’t waiting by the phone for us to extend them?

Second, while I understand that budgets are tight, why would a CIO pose substantial risk to its organization by letting key people walk when your employees have not sufficiently learned from those consultants? This is a point that I make in both of my books.

Simon Says

Don’t wait until the last minute to extend consultants and other key non-employees, particularly as your project reaches a critical state. Follow these guidelines and you can maximize the chance of a smooth transition and minimize the chance of scurrying at the last moment:

let everyone know well ahead of time when non-employees are scheduled to leave
make sure that end-users know this and have the time to spend with “disposable workers” before they are off to another project
if an extension is necessary, let attempt to arrange this as early as possible to ensure that you can lock down the resource
by all means, don’t complain when that resource has found another gig

Feedback

What do you think, blogosphere?

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Disposable Workers, Newton’s Third Law, and The Lock Down is a post from: Phil Simon

Can Consultants Lead? Three Viewpoints

philsimon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:01:53 +0000

Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” I’ve been thinking quite a bit about that line recently as I finish a, er, challenging project.

A few months back, I wrote a post called “Doing Things Right and Doing the Right Things” in which I lauded organizations that “got it.” From a consultant’s perspective, it’s simply a pleasure working with organizations whose management routinely does the following:

abides by best practices
listens to–and even encourages–dissenting opinions
holds itself accountable for unorthodox decisions
holds its end-users accountable for results
doesn’t pin everything on people like me

Well, I’ve entered Bizzarro World on my current project and it’s time to ask an important question:

Assuming that Drucker’s definition holds water, can consultants lead on difficult projects?

This post provides three viewpoints on that question.

Yes, we consultants can lead in the face of difficult clients, end-users, and senior management.

When clients routinely impose impediments to success and make suboptimal decisions, consultants can still do the right things. Ah, the case for optimism. Perhaps we do not (or cannot) tell our clients some of the things that we’re doing behind the scenes because we know how they’ll respond (not favorably). I suppose that “doing the right things” includes keeping clients in the dark about some of those right things.

For example, consider apathetic end-users who don’t look at data validation reports that manifest major issues. Consultants who proactively broach issues and encourage crusty end-users to investigate them are acting appropriately here, if perhaps above and beyond the traditional call of duty. Doing things like this is the very definition of leadership, especially when faced with a less-than-welcoming audience.

Is this paternalistic? Probably, but what’s the alternative? Diligent consultants are willing to risk both pissing people off and removal from engagements when their clients make bad decisions. After all, our names will be attached to the projects for better or worse and, in all likelihood, we’re going to be blamed for everything anyway. Why not go down fighting?

No, attempting to truly lead will only irritate clients and will ultimately “lead” to removal from engagements.

Many clients believe that no consultant is going to tell them how to run their candy store, to borrow a phrase from my friend Patricia Barlow of The Blue Mesa Group. Attempting to lead and influence the outcome of a project, engagement, or strategy is an exercise in futility. Add to the fray a bad economy and a related lack of consulting work. All of these factors make it ill-advised for consultants to truly exhibit leadership in these circumstances.

A corollary of this viewpoint is that some clients don’t pay consultants to lead. We are there to enable their vision, no matter how much we may disagree with it, no matter how certain we are that things will blow up when we leave. As a result, consultants need to “get over it” and allow clients to shoot themselves and reload.

It depends – the stock consultant answer to every question.

Not everything is a binary. Consultants may be able to lead to varying degrees based on the following factors:

the type of engagement (technology- vs. strategy-oriented)
the size of the engagement
the internal political climate of the organization
the economy (see above)
the industry
regulatory or audit considerations
timing

Two similar projects (much less two different ones) may yield vastly different opportunities for consultants to lead. A small scale data quality initiative at a nimble startup probably allows consultants to lead more than a large system implementation at a bureaucratic government agency.

Chime in, consultants, clients, and other thinkers out there. What do you think?

Can Consultants Lead? Three Viewpoints is a post from: Phil Simon

The Practice Mentality

philsimon — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:01:06 +0000

I’ve always been a sports junkie and, in particular, a fan of SportsCenter. Hey, we all need our escapes from the daily grind, right? While watching the Allen Iverson retirement announcement last night at a local bar, I couldn’t help but remember one of my favorite rants of all time: the infamous “Practice” monologue.

Say what you will about “AI” or “The Answer”, but this is a fascinating video to watch. Unfortunately, many people on IT projects follow The Answer’s lead. Applied to new technologies and systems, I have worked with many over the years who simply don’t take testing seriously, or at least seriously enough. To them, it’s just “practice.”

Characteristics of “The Practice Mentality”

I have found over the years that “The Practice Mentality” is more prevalent than one would expect. Specifically, end-users on IT projects often and perilously:

Lack a sense of urgency
Pretend that tomorrow will never come
Assume that others will bail them out
Ignore warning signs

Let’s explore each one a little more. I’ll even throw in my “tough love” recommendations free of charge.

Lacking a sense of urgency

Many end-users do not realize that implementing a new technology is analogous to building a house. You can’t decide after you added the roof that the ranch now needs to be a colonial. Consultants like me need to have clarity on major design decisions as soon as possible. At a certain point, an ostensibly minor change can cause major problems, delays, and budget overruns.

Simon says: Make major decisions as quickly as possible and hold people accountable for them. When facing a considerable bottleneck, stopping the project altogether might be a drastic step but will certainly drive the point home.

Pretending that tomorrow will never come

This one baffles me the most. I’ll admit that, say, one year out, a new system or application might be difficult for many to conceptualize. But three weeks? To quote Gob from Arrested Development, “Come on!”

I’ll never understand how people can be remotely comfortable not knowing how essential features, reports, and the like work when they will be responsible for them in one month’s time. Perhaps Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree says it best: “Denial is a better way of getting through another day.”

Simon says: Escalate potential end-user commitment issues before they become potential showstoppers.

Assuming that others will bail them out

At some point, organizations have to cut the cord with consultants. We’re too expensive to keep around forever. During IT projects, we often save the day, finding a creative solution to an unexpected bump in the road. Lamentably, this often breeds a sort of co-dependence on the part of client end-users. Yeah, I’ll say it: consultants can be like drugs, and I’m talking about the addictive kinds.

Simon says: During the later stages of testing, management should endorse a “hands off” approach for consultants, at least to the extent possible. Dry runs will help assess end-users’ ability to fend for themselves. If current internal staff cannot handle the new demands of their jobs, think seriously about replacing them. Soon.

Ignoring warning signs

Many projects invariably reach their points of no return. Legitimate concerns raised by rabble-rousers like me often go unnoticed. The organization has to make its date, come hell or high water. If end-users don’t know how to do their jobs, then how is ignoring this fact going to make it go away?

Simon says: Don’t be afraid to move a date if key areas of the business are not ready for a new technology. The pain now will probably be inconsequential compared to the pain later.

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The Practice Mentality is a post from: Phil Simon

When Consultants Attack….Other Consultants

philsimon — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:01:30 +0000

Note that no alligators were harmed in the writing of this post.

My friend and fellow consultant/author Jim Harris and I have had a number of discussions over the past few week about our next blog bout. Our first one on

When Consultants Attack….Other Consultants is a post from: Phil Simon

In Defense of Consultants: A Punch-Out Based Rant

philsimon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:30:20 +0000

One of my favorite games as a kid was Nintendo’s Punch Out. Yep, I grew up in the 80s when this game was all the rage. While I could never get to Mike Tyson, much less beat him, I was able to get pretty far.

Don Flamenco (pictured above) was one easy victim for even Nintendo neophytes. Just a simple left-right combination repeatedly would quickly knock him out. Hey, Don was no Von Kaiser.

I reference Don because, as a consultant, sometimes I feel like him. What’s more, I suspect that I’m not alone. Well, today I’m going to stand up for every consultant unjustifiably raked over the coals.

Now, I’m not completely naive, at least about these types of things. I’ve known for a long time about the blame game. One of the first things that I learned as a newbie consultant in 2000 is that (insert name of problem) is always my fault. I can document my concerns, write status reports until my fingers bleed, and copy the world on an email. However, after I leave a client site, I won’t be there to defend myself against the invariable quips that “he never told us that” or “well, that’s the way that Simon told us to do it.”

I also understand that sometimes organizations and senior managers want things the way the want them; no consultant is going to tell them how to run their business. A client once told a friend of mine (also a consultant) that “we don’t pay consultants to disagree with us.” Ouch.

While that mentality is troublesome, I’ve come to terms with it over the years. However, that is not to say that this doesn’t still bother me on occasion. So, to paraphrase from The Declaration of Independence, I hold the following four consulting truths to be self-evident.

Disclaimer #1

My intent here is not to bash all people and organizations that hire people like me. That would be pretty dumb, not to mention off-target. Many organizations are rife with senior management and end-users who allow consultants to truly do their jobs. For the purposes of this post, I’m only venting about clients who:

think that they always know best
routinely ignore consultants’ advice
make suboptimal–and irreversible–decisions
come back to those very consultants looking for blood

Disclaimer #2

I’m really not trying to whine here. I’m just blowing off some steam.

1. Most consultants generally know what they are talking about.

By “most consultants”, I mean experienced, battle-tested consulted warriors who have been in the trenches many times. I’m not talking about newly-minted college grads who are no doubt book smart but may lack the wounds and knowledge accumulated over years of battle.

2. If you don’t listen to your specific consultants because you don’t trust them, then get rid of them and find new ones. Good ones. Then proceed to listen to them.

This paradox never ceases to amaze me. Consider the following two queries.

What is the logic behind bringing in experts only to ignore them?
If they’re not experts, then why keep them?

These aren’t rhetorical questions. I seriously would like to know the answers to them. Feel free to comment or contact me.

3. Most consultants care about the success of their clients and their projects. They don’t disagree with their clients for giggles.

Look, the consultant’s world would be a far better place if we could all live in peace and harmony. I never met a consultant who preferred to work with difficult, apathetic, passive-aggressive, or change-resistant clients. Give me people eager to learn new technologies and make optimal decisions any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

When I feel the need to swim against the stream on a project, it’s not because I like increasing my blood pressure. Rather, I like to think that it’s because I care (see point #1) and I have been down a particular road before. Translation: I have the benefit of foresight that my clients probably don’t. No, I’m no psychic. However, in a year or so when I’m on another gig, clients may realize that I was right and certain bells cannot be unrung.

4. Clients who routinely ignore consultants’ advice must forfeit the right to blame said consultants forever.

Alright, this will never happen. Still, this is my modest proposal and I can be a bit idealistic (read: delusional) here. I for one would love to live in such a world, although I’m still working out the kinks in this one. If constitutional amendment isn’t passed, then I’d settle for the ability to say, “I told you so.”

In Defense of Consultants: A Punch-Out Based Rant is a post from: Phil Simon

Doing Things Right and Doing the Right Things

philsimon — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:47:52 +0000

A few people have taken me to task since my book was published. I’ve heard questions such as:

Why do you always focus on the negative?
You’re a glass is 20 percent empty kind of guy, aren’t you?
You have some deep-seeded issues, right?

Well, the third question might be worth exploring on a couch, but I digress.

I don’t consider myself a Negative Nelly. However, rare is it that I encounter an organization that uses its systems wisely. I am pleased to say that I came across one such organization this week—call it Stewart Enterprises, although this is a pseudonym. Four things stood out as I interacted with senior management and end-users over the course of this past week.

Using Add-On Tools to Enhance the Application

Stewart did not possess the resources—or the desire—to customize its ERP. At the same time, however, the vendor’s “vanilla” application did not meet some of its business needs. What to do? Stewart used add-on tools such Microsoft SharePoint to create email alerts and enable document sharing, improving the end-user experience while not taxing IT resources and creating additional headache. Second, Stewart created many Crystal Reports that isolated potential problem records before they became thorny issues.

Sans customizations, Stewart avoided many of the pitfalls facing “tweak happy” organizations. Specifically, upgrades and patches would not “break” its customizations. What’s more, Stewart would not be reliant on the one individual who knew where the bodies were buried. This is just plain smart.

A Sense of Humility

Stewart knew that it was not using its system in an optimal manner. Rather than take a “that’s the way we do things around here approach”, management and end-users openly embraced new ways of doing things. This started at the CIO level and cascaded down to entry-level clerks. They asked other consultants and me questions such as:

Have you seen other clients do this better?
How do other organizations resolve this issue?

Employing a Hybrid End-User

Stewart employed an extremely capable Crystal Reports writer with extensive “front end” application knowledge. (In my book, I refer to these end-users as hybrids.) As a result of her reports and trouble-shooting capabilities, end-users had better access to information than those at most organizations at which I have consulted. Stewart thus minimized the traditional technical-functional disconnect.

Recognizing and Addressing Deficiencies

End-user documentation and training was admittedly a bit lacking at Stewart. For that very reason, the company contracted myself and a few other consultants to shore up these weaknesses. Rather than wait for a key end-user to depart (such as the previously mentioned hybrid), Stewart’s management took a proactive approach.

Conclusion

Needless to say, it was a pleasure working with an organization, senior management, and end-users that “get it.” Organizations wondering why their systems fail should take heed of this post. There are steps that you can take to better your systems and the information in them.

Doing Things Right and Doing the Right Things is a post from: Phil Simon