Articles

How Not to Run an IT Project: A Case Study

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010
Categories: Case Studies, Enterprise Systems

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The reasons for, and statistics on, IT project failures are well known and cited. However, because so many organizations attempt to hide their dirty laundry, rarely do we see an insider’s account of the precise points at which a project derailed. In this Executive Report for the Cutter Consortium, a case study examines these issues at one organization in the midst of a major system migration.

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DataFlux

Posted on 15. Nov, 2009
Categories: DataFlux

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Read all of my posts on the Data Flux Community of Experts by clicking on the “Continue Reading” icon on the left.

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Systems Breakdown Case Study: A Square Peg and a Round Hole

Posted on 01. Jun, 2009
Categories: Articles, Case Studies, Enterprise Systems, IT Project Failures, Project Management

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Every organization uses software applications to support its business processes. Some organizations buy, some build, and some rent software as a service (SaaS). Buying and integrating proprietary applications are sometimes complicated by M&A activity. Acquired or merged organizations often use different applications and systems than their new owners.

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System Challenges in a Recession

Posted on 15. Apr, 2009
Categories: Articles, Data Issues

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These days, rare is the organization undertaking a major system initiative. On the contrary, many organizations are struggling to survive and carry out basic operations, trying to do more with fewer employees. This article focuses on system considerations for organizations in lean economic times with respect to enterprise systems.

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The Burnt Hand Teaches Best: Financial Firms Turn the Corner on New Systems

Posted on 01. Apr, 2009
Categories: Articles, Enterprise Systems, IT Project Failures

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While there is no secret sauce to building and implementing client-facing systems, financial firms tend to minimize failure rates by utilizing ISVs and extensively documenting business requirements. Seasoned ISVs allow firms to quickly create and roll out custom applications that can increase firm revenue, profitability, and ROI. With respect to enterprise and back office systems, however, financial firms should not try to build from scratch. They realize no competitive advantage from payroll vendors or employees. In this sense, financial firms tend to have many of the same issues as the rest of the corporate world.

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Traditional or Milestone Consulting: Which is Best?

Posted on 24. Mar, 2009
Categories: Articles, Consulting, Recession, Training

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In a traditional consulting arrangement, a firm deploys a team of full-time individuals at a client site for forty hours per week, typically four days at ten hours per day per consultant. Conversely, under milestone consulting, a client employs a consulting firm to check in with them on a regular basis, ensuring that the project is both meeting its individual goals and, from a broader perspective, remains on track. A client will often utilize a hybrid consultant–equal parts project manager, techie, and application expert–to visit on site every two weeks or so. Now that the definitions are out of the way, let’s discuss each in more detail.

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Suppressing values to minimize the number of tables in a Crystal Report

Posted on 02. Feb, 2009
Categories: Reporting

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A simple rule of reporting is that adding tables and views increases the amount of time for the report to run. Many first-time report writers believe that you have to add multiple instances of a table in order to derive different totals, such as month-to-date, year-to-date, etc. You don’t.