Business is running faster than the rest of the enterprise in the Digitalization journey

We like what we have seen so far and the initial proof of concept reinforces that this solution will work well for us. The use cases are quite clear and we can work on prioritizing the four models that we have discussed and finalized. The pipeline of additional opportunities and use cases can be confirmed in the coming days; the teams should work to define these in the near term. You can work with IT and Procurement to complete the infrastructure requirements and the terms of reference. How quickly can it be deployed ?

The vendor loved the diktat like a dream come true; they had invested significant time and effort on their first big potential customer, the scale up opportunity validated their product vision. Business team pushing the deployment added to the excitement with the senior team members throwing their weight behind closure on both sides. The solution provided a significant boost to the digital thrust that the enterprise had embarked upon based on the vision of the Board; it also challenged existing legacy and conventional solutions.

Off went the mini delegation to the IT team designated by the CIO for the prestigious project; they completed their planning for the infrastructure, data integration, impact to other processes and systems, deployment and scale up. Dependence on other groups and vendors were acknowledged and their timelines incorporated into the project plan. The extended timeline did not please any of the stakeholders but was accepted as the most realistic plan which could be executed without any further delay or disruption.

Sequentially the process moved to Procurement, the last stage gate before the project starts rolling. True to reputation and their KPIs, they started with the contract, inclusions and exclusions, licensing models, and outcomes that the solution would deliver. Each tenet was discussed, debated, demands going from unreasonable to giving up some ground, as time rolled by, much to the chagrin of business who wanted the new technology to leapfrog competition with a differentiated offering that would take time to catch up.

The final step to get off the ground – financial negotiation – introduced a new element into the mix, the Finance team because the values were quite large and the vendor as yet small unknown entity. They started from the beginning to discuss what, why, when, who and asked for alternatives against which the solution was benchmarked. Other software that the company had bought were not as expensive, so why is this one ? How much is the discount over list price ? Are we really the first customer in this segment ?

It took some effort to get them moving towards closure; the business head and the CIO, both pushed hard to retain the early adopter advantage in their industry; there were others who were talking and that is where they risked leadership position. With the criticality that time represented, the Board nudged the team to expedite the decision; chastised suitably, the teams closed the deal grudgingly at a value that they believed was higher than what they would have agreed to if they had the time at their disposal to negotiate.

With time lost in the process, suddenly everyone wanted the solution implemented yesterday; the CIO hustled the team to take up the work on priority, the vendor allotted their best resources to the project, and business provided program management and domain expertise. Ancillary vendors were pressurized to deliver in unreasonable time, most obliged so as to not attract the ire of one of their premier customers; the solution was ready and began to churn out changed business outcomes that pushed competition to the edge.

Support from the Board and leadership team ensured that the rigor to monitor did not falter and the promise of deliverables was kept. The Board acknowledged the initiative and associated results, the support provided by the IT team as well as the leadership demonstrated by the Business Head. It was a case of good governance winning with results that mattered. Doubters if any did not raise their concerns or pollute the environment that was committed to putting their best effort to succeed, truly a team effort.

Today, business has taken over the reins of technology led transformation not wanting to leave their future in the hands of technologists. They are taking control and shaping their destiny in the ever changing and disruptive world of digital innovation. Every new technology threatens to challenge conventional business models and legacy systems which constrain agile movement to counter new startups who have nothing to lose. Acquisitions make up for the lost opportunities at a significantly higher cost.

Stay hungry !

Sins of the past haunt the present, impacting your future too, what to do ?

The new CXO (John) had no handover or parallel working with his predecessor; there was no handover document or any evidence of work done and in progress. The incumbent (Bob) did not know that he was going until the end of the day on a weekend when he was told not to come from next Monday. It was a first time experience for the newcomer who had a few changes in his career. Not that the company had precedence of taking such action against senior people, the circumstances were material enough to precipitate such an action.

But let’s set the context first: It was a top 10 company in its industry, visible and perceived market leader in some segments; proud of its legacy and people, they had set some benchmarks. Calculated risks was a part of the DNA to maintain leadership in the market, the company had hired Bob to take the innovation agenda forward; on his part, he was a veteran and subject matter expert having spent many decades in his chosen industry and field of specialization and acknowledged as a steady dependable performer.

Under his charge the company took on a few innovative projects that on success would leapfrog them in the industry; while the element of risk was low to moderate, the management accepted the same and pushed ahead with endorsing the effort. Bob welcomed the opportunity and set forth to execute with the cross-functional team, the vendor a past acquaintance with reasonable credibility. A few months delayed, the project went live with much fanfare and received mixed reviews from the sales team – the primary users.

Cracks began appearing quickly which led to tactical fixes and then the blame game started; the users blamed Bob’s team that they did not understand the ground reality and build castles in the air; they in turn blamed the developer for making assumptions with no domain expertise to back it up. The developers blamed the customer for changing the brief in every meeting and the cycle repeated itself with every iteration. The matter was escalated to respective CEOs who met but disagreed on every aspect unwilling to take the blame.

Heat turned high on Bob who had chosen the vendor while he fruitlessly attempted to mediate to find an amicable solution. Lawyers on both sides fine combed the contract to find an upper hand; both ended up litigating unwilling to step down from high moral ground. The size and proportion of the project and its failure had an adverse impact on company performance; the CEO was chastised for allowing such an event to occur. The company needed to set an example for the imbroglio, and the fall guy ended up being Bob.

John was handed the project as his key task to recover lost ground and ensure that the deliverables are aligned to the requirements of the sales team. Past success with sales projects gave confidence to John in getting started on the right note. He met the sales teams, created empathy, won them over and created a democratic governance process for vendor selection. It was important to John to keep all stakeholders engaged and feeling wanted in the new avatar of the much maligned project which had taken Bob as collateral damage.

During his interactions, John unearthed and unraveled the story slowly putting the pieces together with surprise, trepidation and decided to keep circling back with his team and the CEO to ensure that he hears alarm bells early enough to take corrective action. Not that the project had a smooth run, it did see its share of bickering and debate, John needed a lot of patience and assertiveness to keep everyone on track. The cautious approach worked well and the project unfurled successfully with bouquets following for John and the team.

John did not allow the ghosts of the past haunt him beyond the cautionary approach for this project; he was also pushed into closing the litigation and creating a settlement with the antagonist of the past. The intellectual property thus created was important to the company and the vendor very well knew this and leveraged it in their favor. The good news was that the vendor gave up all rights to the IP, the bad news was that it cost the company a lot more than the total cost of the old and the new projects combined to close the case.

What options did John have in such a situation ? He was tasked to resolve a conflict, he did reach resolution at a cost. He completed the project satisfactorily which was expected in the second attempt. The price paid rankled the company for a long time and the CEO did not let the dead stay buried with references to history. John would smile at these references and move the agenda to another subject. While he was not directly responsible for the failure and its consequences, it hurt that his profession was tainted.

Taken for a ride: the preferred vendor or the enterprise ? 2 sides of the coin !

It was a great journey working with you and the team to design the solution … regret, unfortunately we are unable to proceed with the engagement and would like to thank you for offer; we wish you all the best in your future endeavors ! After unsuccessfully attempting to shift the blame from himself, the CFO gave in and agreed to recall the vendor and accept their last provided offer to move ahead. It was a tumultuous ride that had culminated in the imbroglio the enterprise found itself in with the vendor shortlisted by the business and IT. (see earlier post)

The delay had almost cost the business the early mover advantage; they required the solution to be primed within a time window for which they will now have to super stretch. Regulatory deadlines can be unforgiving to business and the Business Head was thus on tenterhooks. He sensed that the wounded ego will not take kindly to the decision; the scorned CFO should have been his ally, after all they had a good working relationship in the past; the CIO was a political outcast with his neutrality now going against him.

With a letter of intent the project was kicked off, the contracting took a while; each and every clause was scrutinized and fortified to put the vendor in a precarious situation should the project suffer any kind of deviation. To safeguard his interest, despite undue pressure the vendor did not commit full resources until the paperwork was completed. The business team watched the drama as it played out waiting to get started; the CIO continued to counsel the vendor with a mix of pragmatism and spirit of the now fragile partnership.

Starting on perceptibly shaky foundation, the project got off to a fair start with all sides putting in the rigor required to make up lost ground and deliver to promise; review meetings were used for course correction as the steps taken were firm and steady thus covering the halfway milestone with time to spare. The first process prototypes were approved for build and the finishing line appeared to be within reach. Everyone was charged and they were progressing in perfect unison, an example out of the textbooks on project management.

Next review meeting had an uninvited yet powerful participant who wanted a personal assessment of the good news that the project reports were portraying. He tested the patience of the team with his questions that attempted to elevate the highly improbable to highly likely even though it did not make any sense to build for probability of events that may occur beyond the six sigma. The system design not addressing the probable though not possible kept recurring as a theme and he declared an emergency by the end of the meeting.

No one had anticipated the CFOs active interest in the project considering that after finalization of the contract they had not heard anything from his offices. So the new found interest made everyone a bit uncomfortable, wondering where it was headed. By the end of the meeting it was evident that it was a blatant attempt to derail the project by challenging the team credibility to have thought through the processes and design a solution that addressed all use cases; the team went into a huddle to find a strategy to overcome the new challenge.

The vendor provided referenceable material on global best practices and how they had addressed similar scenarios in other markets; the CIO reached out to the subject matter experts to list down occurrences of exceptions over the history of the company rather than work on hypothesis of an eventuality hitting them. All the material thus collated clearly vindicated the stand the team had taken and the solution they had architected which appeared to be adequate to counter the new threat to their project.

Such distractions they could do without and they could not have taken on the CFO headlong; so they decided to use the CIOs connections to get an external consultant – an acknowledged authority. As providence would have it, the next meeting was the Steering Committee which had all stakeholders. The Consultant gave an independent critical analysis of the project pointing out a few observations where the team could improve outcomes. The CEO applauded the audit report and endorsed the team to move with full speed.

Contracts protect enterprises from external risks, how do we stay protected from internal mischief ?

Elephants can dance, but can they win a dance competition ?

The company let’s call it A was the posterchild of the industry; they had grown faster than the market, had better margins, and a product portfolio that gave them higher traction with customers. The war chest thus created was used to acquire business interests and market expansion globally; the stock market rewarded them with benchmark beating valuations with a rare possibility of anyone catching up. The promoters kept tight control over the business and expenses with close trusted advisors – part of the inner circle.

Investments in manufacturing excellence fueled the growth, quality was a way of life which enamored them to their customers. Practicing frugality in other areas, they perceived COTS to be uneconomical in comparison to home grown solutions. Thus they built a reasonably large team to recreate the wheel for every process, automation with custom built solutions for all areas of the business. While the industry adopted globally accepted best practices and solutions, company A justified its decision to stay different.

Industry faced regulation in growing degrees making it mandatory for everyone to adopt technology based solutions for compliance. Auditors expected electronic trails and information as tamperproof evidence of process adherence. Major part of the industry prepared for and over a period of time gained compliance; the cost of deviation was adverse impact to business, and customer dissatisfaction. Industry norms demand compliance, so do adherence to country specific laws which is treated as a part of doing business.

While major part of the industry simply bought solutions from existing providers and got done with it, company A tasked the IT team to build the necessary systems. Step by step the solution was built to specifications signed off by the business teams based on downloaded information from regulatory websites and second hand experience. Since they were building the basic minimum functionality, where technology was lacking compensating manual controls were put in place, deemed adequate for audit purposes.

Faced with an audit during the phase of construction, company A demonstrated the scope of work and the fact that they were building everything required to make the process compliant. The auditors cognizant of the effort, accepted the input as work in progress and signed off on the timeline, to be reviewed during the next audit. Step by step functionality was put in place albeit slower than anticipated with parts of the business used to freedom and flexibility finding it too complex to adapt to the new way of working.

Increased regulatory activity and deadlines with harsher penalties for non-compliance put the industry on alert specifically in some of the large markets. Cost of non-compliance was denied access to consumers until remediation fixed the gaps and there was enough evidence to demonstrate end-to-end process non-repudiation. The increased complexity of the new laws put the laggards in a precarious situation, especially ones who had custom built solutions which required longer time to validate.

Vendors and consultants offered help to anyone willing to accept the problem and assist in putting together a compliant solution. Many global solution providers who had not explored niche markets by virtue of their size and cost of doing business, sensed a tactical opportunity to gain market share and grow the business. Leadership teams swooped down on the big targets including company A. Having survived the economic ups and downs with their own solutions, company A reluctantly agreed to the meeting.

The CIO who was brought on board post the last large acquisition to drive technology led efficiency and transformation; coming from one of the leaders in technology adoption, he was seen as a good catch. The CIO with long industry background was aware of the problem and informed that they were on the way to solve the problem in the next 12 months – the deadline to be compliant. He did not believe that there was a need to press the panic button; deadlines do shift when it comes to regulatory requirements.

After a couple of attempts at elevating the issue, vendors decided not to waste any more time in their quest to gain the business of company A. The CIO guarded the rest of the company executives to the upcoming challenge who were known to throw around their weight to get things done eventually, attempting to second guess the inner circle. The sycophant environment and the belief that we are too big to fail made them vulnerable to the upcoming date, their size made it almost impossible to breast the tape in time.

Company A scrambled to the finish line partially ready, the business impact was significantly larger to the investment, attitude and inertia cost them a few notches in market standing. The CIO was fired for not elevating the issue and preparing the business; he had not taken the initiative nor involved other CXOs. Dip in profits and dividend crashed market capitalization, they had to fight hard to stave off an unfriendly takeover bid. Elephants can dance was a turnaround story, repeating history is not easy.

When running against time, you rarely win !

Every industry has its share of regulations to which they need to comply; regulations could vary by geography or product within the industry. In a global economy this becomes important towards growth as well as the ability to continue doing business in a market. Enterprises have over a period of time set in a process to respond to changes in regulations which impact their profitability or revenue in any significant way; most compliances are driven by technology solutions driven by IT teams and thus making the CIO a key stakeholder.

Compliance requirements are broadly of two types: the first one related to taxes and levies which apply in the operating market or country of origin of the enterprise. Companies have to comply to both and at times they can be complex and time consuming; applicable benefits and incentives also need to be factored in to get the financial benefit. Most large software vendors have modules to help their customers comply within the timelines; for custom solutions, IT organizations eventually get the process and timeline right.

The second type of compliance is driven by consuming markets driven by protectionist measures or keeping in mind the interests of citizen consumers. Such requirements have a much wider impact to the industry and result in lobbying for and against depending on the impact. Such regulations or laws tend to have high budgetary requirements and need longer timelines to get the organization ready. At times they may impact core processes or make a market unviable to service, requiring a strategic decision to continue to operate.

While the discussion started a decade back, in the last 5 years there has been impending regulation which required every company in that sector to comply to continue doing business. The timeline shifted a couple of times and then a phased compliance roadmap spread over 5 years was published allowing more than reasonable time to plan, execute and comply. The high complexity technology dependent process that impacted core business thus necessitated companies to go back to the Board to gain approval for budgets.

This was a big one and had real impact to business; so Consultants, vendors, business partners and IT solution providers started discussion with their customers who needed to comply with the new regulation. Different companies reacted in as many ways; the early adopters listened to everyone, initiated a cross-functional team to review the impact and craft a program towards compliance while there is still time. They ensured that there is adequate time to get it right and make it standard process before the deadline.

The second lot of companies took the wait and watch approach observing the early adopters, talking to the ecosystem who helped the first lot and then put together a program to implement solutions that have already been proven to work. They did not get early pricing benefit but took relatively less time to implement the solutions towards compliance in time; they could compare options from within the working set. Surprisingly between the first and the second set of companies they represented only about 60 percent of the industry.

So what about the rest ? Did they know something the others did not ? Did they not understand the adverse impact of their inaction or failure to comply ? Was the problem not as acute as the industry touted it to be ? No exemption was available nor there existed possibility of an extension to the deadline. The group had enterprises big and small, multi-national as well as family owned companies and they were geographically spread thereby not forming any trend that could justify their stance of not taking action.

Talking to a few of these companies, they fell into a few distinct buckets: the first who would do only the bare minimum to comply, and that is what they had done. Their decision making criteria was that why change until absolutely necessary. The second understood the problem and took decisions based on cash outflow, deferring until the last minute and choosing the lowest cost option. The rest of the rest were resting not necessarily fully aware of the challenge and the solution; some were surprised that many in the industry had already taken big steps.

Will they make it unscathed ? Coming soon …

Who is ultimately responsible when a project (with IT dependency) fails to deliver ?

Business had worked with IT to select the vendor who came with fairly good references and connected well with the team during the courting period. The CIO found the choice acceptable as the project was fairly straightforward and not much could go wrong in a project that was expected to last 4 months end to end. The CEO of the young smallish development partner took interest in the project with a large enterprise that promised more business in the future should this be delivered on time, budget and functionality.

The project started well with meetings attended by IT, functional teams, and project manager from the partner extending into long sessions; the subject was discussed, debated and look at from all angles to make a better wheel than the wheel required. The scope document went through multiple iterations as the subject matter expert (SME) kept changing parts in every meeting. Keeping in mind the need to push ahead, the CIO brought back the team to focus on the business need and speed to get the product to market.

The SME regaled in story-telling and kept the audience in attention with anecdotes unrelated to the discussion, hijacking the agenda and the project timeline. By the time the project was expected to complete, the team was just about getting ready for scope sign-off. Unfortunately other projects occupied the attention of the CIO which further pushed the timelines. Business had in the meanwhile moved on discounting the impact of the project; to compound the problem, the Vendor Project Manager quit.

The team and timelines were recast with the signed off project scope and the development team got started; the first wireframes were a hit, and the UX fell flat, while the development team struggled to get the new and to them unknown technology stack to work together. Frequency of review sessions reduced as the project red flagged itself on the CIO dashboard. Startled though not surprised the CIO called for an all-hands meeting to review challenges and determine if it made sense to continue the project.

The CIO and the vendor CEO decided to keep a close watch on progress; the solution was tested by the QA team and snag list identified for launch. The first field testing threw the team into a tizzy with UI that was unacceptable to the controlled group and bugs that surfaced. Speaking to the project sponsor, the CIO pushed the vendor and the SME to define the dates by which they expected the project to close. Both agreed to close the project within the next 10 weeks which appeared reasonable to all involved.

As the time drew closer, the vendor escalated pending issues with the SME and vice versa making it an extremely trying time for everyone involved; it appeared that the project would never end while costs had also gone out of hand. It required drastic steps for the project to come back to relevance to everyone involved. So the SME was eased out of the project while all payments frozen until firm delivery dates were met with quality that was the selling point for the vendor during the initial pitch to the team.

Another month later at its anniversary the project finally saw light and was launched quietly; it delivered success to the business despite some competitors having launched similar services. Much to the surprise of many, six months after the project was forgotten, the CIO decided to conduct a post implementation review to assess learning from the project to which he also invited the vendor to capture internal and external points of view, learning and accrual of benefits identified prior to project commencement.

It would be easy to stick the blame on the SME who caused the initial delay, or for that matter on the change of vendor Project Manager; development quality and testing could be touted as one of the causes or the fact that the technology stack was a new one ! What about bad UI or UX which would have been a disaster if launched ? CIO or Business Head not giving it enough attention or as many would say lack of leadership ? Did it matter as the project delivered value and everyone was happy in the end ?

It mattered to the CIO who meticulously documented the milestones, challenges, frustrations, and put them across for the group to review, sleep over and come back with their assessment. A detached view gave everyone the perspective of individual shortcomings and collective reasons for the project delay and the predicament that everyone experienced. The Organization was richer to the learning which raised the bar for future projects and institutionalized the Post Implementation Review process.

I wrote this piece after the feedback I received to my last week's article on CEO choosing an IT Vendor

Delayed decisions, rushed implementation, the story of our lives

This is continued from the previous week, click here to access the first part.

Predicament at every company: a year from the time the project was conceptualized, the deal was concluded. Year-end pushed start of the project by another month. Everyone’s patience had reached a break point; the originally estimated project plan of 8 months was trashed with a view that it needs to be done faster. The business wanted it done in 5, the CIO was willing to push for 7; the vendor knew it will take 8 months realistically; having lost time no one wanted to accept reality thus putting the project to risk.

And that is how they got started on a project that was beginning to lose relevance after the elapsed time since it was identified as a business need. The project team was cobbled together with an eclectic mix and the vendor provided his best team at that time. The compromise plan of 6 months appeared achievable with the fine-tuned steps which required rigor thus far unseen with the team. The CIO and the function head wanted to stay involved but other priorities and fires competed for their attention.

Customers had embraced the new offering of which competitors enjoyed the benefits, being early in the market. Demand was at its peak and the company wanted to regain some of the lost ground and recover loyal customers; so they pressed on with the effort. Like all projects this one did not get off the ground with ease, the baggage of the delay was too large to discard. The first fortnight saw slippage of a day which was deemed recoverable; but by the end of the month it had stretched to three days.

The second monthly steering committee had an uninvited guest who was pleasantly surprised to learn of the progress made; the CEO thus complemented the team for their commitment promising them a brighter future. With redoubled effort everyone applied themselves to the challenge as if it was the ultimate test of their skills and their existence depended on it. Passion hitherto unknown ran through the team with mini celebrations marking crossing of milestones and camaraderie that had the potential to become corporate folklore.

Moving through the project stage gates and two months remaining, the peak appeared to be within grasp; the team did not relax or let their guard down. Their perseverance and togetherness is what management books profess as the secret sauce to team effectiveness. The team was surprised by the random occurrence of the CIO and the business head for an impromptu review and words of encouragement; little did they know the deliberate design between the two to let the team discover their formula for success while they kept a watchful eye.

Finishing touches to the offering is what remained with two weeks to launch, cross checking and verifying results. The tension in the air was palpable, excitement infectious, the team bonding complete in their quest for glory. A couple of members had left traversing the tough terrain unable to take the pressure, few were eased out with their unwillingness to change polluting the team. There was no bitterness for these colleagues, the focus unwavering; other parts of the organization were taking notice of the magic.

Success was declared with one day to spare much to the delight of the team who had forgotten to breathe in their commitment to deliver. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, congratulatory messages poured in from across the enterprise, the CIO put the team in front to receive the truly deserved accolades. The vendor had never experienced success of this type and was animatedly excited backslapping everyone around. The CEO and the Board commended the commitment and leadership of the two believers.

While decision delays on project initiation are normal, the recovery and delivery on committed time with quality is a rare occurrence. Over the last three decades in corporate life and sports, I have observed consistently winning teams’ exhibit synergistic and symbiotic relationship between team members, accepting diversity and complementary skills. They stay cohesive with invisible leadership thus giving opportunity to each team member to take charge as the situation changes discounting hierarchies and titles.

Have you experienced such magic before ? Share your story …

Fixed bid or Time & Material contract ? Choices gone awry benefit vendors

This is a continuation from last week, please click here for the earlier part

After prolonged discussions, debate and extensive negotiations, the project was signed off with the final vendor in a proclaimed win-win scenario with a fixed bid for the defined scope. The project was complex, audacious and mammoth in its attempt and intent to deliver functionality with breadth and depth that had never been attempted before. The customer and vendor were equally excited with the casting if successful would leapfrog both into elite league of customer case studies and success stories.

The project got off to a great start with participation from the leadership teams from both sides solemnly offering their unstinted support promising to leave no stone unturned towards success. The team brought together from various business streams as well as different locations represented the able and willing though not necessary the best. They understood the challenge and opportunity in front of them, daunting and exciting, they believed with support from the leadership team they can climb Mount Everest !

First milestone achieved within the defined timeline boosted the morale and charged the team to start believing that they could indeed pull it off. Aside from the congratulatory back slapping there was a renewed energy towards every task and adoration for the CIO who kept the team together with a balance between coaching, mentoring, critiquing decisions and helping find a better solution. The first milestone was important though not critical; they knew it and the journey was about to get tougher and daunting.

Time flew after that with rush of activity taking its toil; they missed the next milestone creating a sense of urgency and pressure to make up time. The vendor started getting edgy as every creeping day added to the cost and reduced profitability for the project. Reports moved from Green to Yellow and then Red quickly with escalations that resulted in frayed and short tempers. The management instead of looking at what needed to be fixed started asking who was at fault thereby undermining team and leadership credibility.

Each decision was challenged and hypothetical exception conditions were cited to demonstrate ineptness of leadership. The noise reached a crescendo demanding change to rescue the project which was critical to the company with large investments committed. The team rallied behind the Project Manager and CIO providing a vote of confidence which was brushed aside; convenient scapegoats, the duo were replaced by a wannabe CIO and dozen experts who visibly formed a coterie.

In the large unparalleled project, the new team out of depth agreed to vendor’s every point turning status from red to green within a fortnight. The vendor seized the opportunity to push in cost escalation due to reasons attributable to the customer; after all they had replaced their team members while the vendor had retained the entire contingent. Some of the business team members sensed an opportunity to prove a point and pushed through large set of customizations to retain existing process.

Score and more programmers descended bringing with them further extension to scope and project timelines. What was thus far a controlled project running to defined specifications and timeline was now a free for all – change this and change that – because other change was accepted. The project bore no resemblance to the disciplined approach that was the hallmark of the earlier team which had a purpose and direction to where they were headed and what would be the outcome at the end of the project.

By the time the original go-live deadline arrived, the project had transformed into a massive custom development factory using the product only as a foundation. The fixed cost model was converted to time and material since no one knew the end point. The management and specific CXOs who had taken a tough stand against the earlier IT leaders accepted the new situation with lame justification that the solution would now be well tailored to enterprise processes though they had lost on best practices, cost and time opportunity.

Business patience elasticity was tested to its limits until opportunity loss started hurting market share and murmurs of dissatisfaction could not be controlled. Additional experience and grey hair was brought to the rescue; with 100% cost overrun, 80% slide in timelines, and 40% reduction in scope the project was eventually declared live. No one celebrated the event, no joy left in the milestone that was a molehill to the aspirational Mount Everest. Life had gone round dishearteningly and disorienting the disappointed expeditioners.

What about the original PM and CIO ? They had quit happily on the suggestion of the management early on around the time of the original go-live milestone !

Value Destruction

When I came across my CIO friend who looked like he had been trampled multiple times by a runaway cattle herd, I was anxious to find out more about the cause of his pitiable condition. His demeanor suggested that he was on the brink of giving up, ready to throw the towel, just run away and retire into the Himalayas, to hell with the fabled Ferrari and take up the way of the monks. For someone always willing to help with a ready smile, it was a sight that concerned many of us to do a root cause analysis and help the poor soul.

He was not a recluse or introvert but in recent times conferences and seminars had been prominent with his absence. He was a busy man, everyone knew it; he was also known to be a master in time management rarely forgetting an appointment or being late or making anyone wait. So his growing hermetic avatar was a surprise to many of us who surrounded him to hear the cause of the rainy clouds replacing sunshine. Hesitant at first, after a few drinks he decided to share his predicament to lighten his heavy heart and seek a solution from collective wisdom.

His mega project that was on the watch list of many vendors, partners and the industry had run into some minor challenges. He engaged a specialist consulting company to review the situation and suggest the way forward. They had suggested shift in approach for the issue and resource augmentation with specialist skills which appeared to be a rational approach. Some internal stakeholders taking advantage of the situation wanted to take control with infusion of their coterie. Despite no skill match, they had prevailed to further damage of the project.

Like termites the project was soon crawling with unskilled people ignorant of business or ability to manage complexity and were projected as God’s gift to mankind and specialists. Despite the situation deteriorating, status reports were altered to reflect progress. This continued for some time with the CIO being asked to back off. Protests and discussions with key stakeholders and management changed nothing. The project in a tailspin now, the CIO could only watch from the sidelines; he was hurting from the damage to his toil and blood.

The large business and IT project team disillusioned by the downward spiral were of broken spirit indifferent to the outcome. Unable to bear the incompetence some quit the project and the company weakening the now shaking foundation and structure. Timelines slipping further and expert opinions overruled, there was little hope for the transformational project that was to be the savior and enabler for the business and enterprise. Unable to bear the hurt to his passion child and with no recourse, the CIO had decided to detach from the company.

We listened with stunned and angry silence absorbing the pain, empathizing with the CIO living his agony, everyone unanimously wanted to reach out and touch his wounds to heal them. No one disagreed with his decision, many wanted to help his recuperation; there was shock at enterprise apathy and silence by a large affected group to the value erosion. Lightening his burden the CIO managed a fleeting smile which lifted the gloom from the group. He joined the light banter that typically follows a serious discussion.

Time flew by, months passed away, the CIO moved on to newer ventures and greener pastures, happy and successful again with no visible scars of the past. It was as if he had buried the bitter experience never to be unearthed again, any discussion on it a taboo. But morbid curiosity never lets’ go especially when someone you know and respect has been wronged; you want the perpetrators to get their due punishment. Meetings with common industry peers and vendors does raise queries on progress and status.

A year into the intervention, the project had seen slippages on timelines consistently; some of the leadership team finally found a voice and challenged the continually sliding deadlines. Running out of excuses though unwilling to acknowledge their limitations they shifted the blame to the business folks for not defining the requirements, cooperating and providing accurate data; it seems there is no hope for redemption. Last heard there was pressure to shape up or ship out; a new date has been set to go live in whatever state, business disruption be damned !

The Chicken and the Egg

They traveled the seven seas in a small group looking wide and far for the ultimate solution to beat all solutions and their competitors. Visiting software solution providers and their customers, the team ensured that they explored all the nuances of the solution as used by their hosts. It was a search spread over many months and millions of frequent flyer miles. They came back with voluminous notes which were put together to create the decision matrix. A winner emerged from the chaos; it was the current market leader.

The team was excited with the prospects of implementing the world’s best solution; they presented their conclusions to the management using business case formulated on vendor provided parameters and some internal thinking. Despite the high investment required, management accepted the widely used solution considering that alternatives were not even known by name. The system integrator and implementation partner who had worked through the journey celebrated the decision along with the team.

The team chosen from business, IT and the vendor made preparations and started the project as a cohesive group with broadly defined timelines. It was perceived to be easy with clear use cases and the fact that current manual process was riddled with inefficiency. Lagging competitors by many years, the team and everyone around acknowledged the need and urgency. Well begun is half done, so goes an old English saying; that applied quite appropriately to this marquee project which had all the ingredients that consultants and wise men talk about.

Months passed by in the requirement gathering phases and everything was hunky dory; the rigor of the business team was highly appreciated. Some more months passed by, the team was still in discussion on feature fit to the future state process. Exceptions were highlighted and the system expected to cater to these. The implementation partner was getting restless. Another couple of months later there were no conclusions on the final process; the IT team raised a red flag to the CIO, users reciprocated with an escalation to the functional head.

A senior functional resource was brought in to resolve the bottlenecks; he quickly realized that the users were attempting to force fit their existing processes into the new system. The group had challenges in understanding the basics features of the system despite multiple rounds of demonstrations and step by step explanations. Their lacked the ability to define new optimized processes and with no interest in changing the process they kept shifting the goalpost. Soon it was evident chances of success were like water on Mars.

The SME decided to unearth documents that were the foundation of the product selection. The going in comparison set was not a portrayal of the future state but a broad level definition of the function which obviously met every systems checklist. The selection was based on market positioning and market share in their industry. Almost everyone was using it and thus the decision was kind of obvious. It did not need the process that was adopted to determine the tools. The lack of focus on process from the beginning led to the current situation.

What comes first, process or technology ? Should an organization determine the future state before attempting to select a tool or follow the process that this company did of finding the best tool and then try to figure out how to make it work ? If technology is indeed subservient to business and process, then the journey traversed by the team had a fallacy; even when choices are limited as was the case again, should the process take precedence over technology ? The savior understood the problem and solved it quickly to get the project back on track.

The Knight in shining armor took some difficult decisions and changed some resources while staying involved with the rest focusing on what mattered. He separated the critical and the important while parking the good and nice to have. Exceptions will be addressed when they occur, let’s move on with the 99%. Suddenly everything started moving and though delayed they were back on track. Given the situation I believe that it does not matter which comes first in the poultry farm; it is about where you want to go.

The organization acknowledged the fact, “People are not your best assets, the right people are !” and that’s a story for another time.

Formula One IT

Congratulations for being the chosen one ! The business likes your solution and we are also fine with the technology, functionality and customer references. Now that we have an agreement on the price lets quickly get legalities and other formalities out of the way. The process for PO creation and other paper work will take another couple of weeks. The question is how quickly can you allot resources to our project ? I do not believe that we need 3 months to get the solution off the ground into a pilot or for that matter go-live.

Any objections to aggressive timeline expectations from the customer are brushed aside citing urgency in business need and the dynamic business environment. Software vendors sheepishly accept the modified forceful project plan which assumes turnaround of all documentation from users with no delay or for that matter existence of clean data. Idealistic as it may appear both sides approach the project with enthusiasm that is outward for the vendor who is happy to get the business. D-day arrives and the project kicks off with much fanfare.

This situation has occurred a lot more often than gets visibility; time to market expectations from commercial-off-the-shelf software implementations (leaving aside ERP type solutions) are getting shorter. Most of them offer standard process automation or functionality that is typical across companies. Thus with basic configuration and some integration the anticipation is that the solution will be up and running in no time. Reality however bites every time with outcomes that do not live up to such expectations exposing the fallacy in the approach.

Analyzing scores of such projects undertaken by many of my peers the discovery was not very surprising. The facts were largely consistent and created a picture which when played back to the CIOs made them cringe and accept it. There were reasons and there were reasons; they were not the usual that have been published by various groups who track challenged projects. In almost all cases these failed to achieve timelines as well as deliver the functionality expected and the CIO ended up with the short end of the stick.

To begin with the evaluation of available options extended to eternity with high business expectations wanting to select the perfect solution. Comparing apples with pineapples creates a situation where the end result morphs from being a custard apple to a jackfruit. Moving from one demo to another scope expands to encompass all exception conditions. Sanity prevails after some time with CIO or business CXO intervention to bring back expectations closer to reality. Elapsed time through evaluation now puts pressure to achieve results in impractical timelines.

What started as a city street drive has now converted into a formula one race ! We need to finish the journey in the fastest possible time; get your experts, put more people on the job, why does hardware delivery take so much time, put it on the cloud. Configurations cannot take that long, it should be possible to reuse expertise from other customer projects. We are not that different but we are different; what we meant is not what you have understood, you don’t know our business and we don’t have time to educate you.

Time keeps ticking with business participants unable to adhere to unworkable timelines resulting in missed milestones and angst on all sides. Reviews soon become infrequent with everyone wanting to just finish the project with redoubled effort. The cascading effect leaves everyone frustrated and wondering why they accepted the stretched targets or ever got into the project in the first place. The formula one race with no equipment, trained drivers and crew suddenly is back to being what it should have been, a street car race.

Accepting reality brings everyone back to what they should have done to begin with; plan with real assumptions, acknowledge dependencies and the need to follow a workable model with good project management practices. It is good to take time to find the right solution which needs to be given due time for deployment too. I believe that CIOs need to continuously educate business users not to apply consumer principles to enterprise software deployments. They need to push back even at the cost of being unpopular or appearing unaligned.

Sometimes they should also be ready to go to a formula one race !

Agile development, elongated deployment

Exchanging notes with some old friends, reminiscences of long drawn ERP or similar projects and some quick wins took us on a rollercoaster ride. Everyone had been through a couple of implementations that stretched patience and planned deployment timelines that now seem unreasonable. In those days 5-year multi-geography deployment was acceptable; after all the first implementation/deployment had to stabilize and learning imbibed before taking the next steps. Baby steps before running you know !

I remember my first ERP implementation almost two decades back that lasted almost a year; that company was the size of today’s small medium enterprise. But in those days business agility was measured in years and not in quarters or months or for that matter weeks. A decade later I was involved in a global deployment of a large back office system; we were at the tail of the global project spread over 5 years. Since the business impact was considered nominal, no one saw any issues with the 5 year cycle.

A debate then ensued attempting to answer the question that in the current uncertain world how long is long indeed and untenable ? In the age of SCRUM and hyper time sensitivity towards every change in business process or new business idea, what is an acceptable implementation plan for a project that spans multi-countries ? How long should it take to replace an ERP system or a financial accounting system across say 50 locations, each with some variances or country specific regulations or statutory reporting ? No easy answers here, I have not come across less than 3 year plans for such deployments.

It is an acknowledged fact of IT implementations that they bring about change; when we look at large scale projects, the change is always disruptive (the level of disruption varies from positive to extreme negative). The subject matter experts from the business end up with pressure of maintaining existing operations while dividing their time to project led improvements. Setting expectations and constant communication that is the hallmark of large projects rarely finds its way into the smaller innovation projects. But can this be sustained over 3-5 years ?

What about systems that are created with urgency portrayed by the business but languish in their use ? Many times IT organizations work under undue pressure to create solutions deemed critical towards continued success or to react to competition, but they end up as shelfware. Unanimous in their reality this thread triggered reactions on or lack of sign-offs. Can the CIO in such cases cite past instances and refuse to toe the line ? Probably not, the backlash of such behaviour would be extremely negative to IT.

When cloud based solutions deploy new releases, some offer customers options to use earlier versions for a short while. Not so in the case of consumer apps; when a change occurs, everyone is impacted and learns to live with the new. Why is it that we are willing to accept the change in our personal space but abhor it in the corporate environment ? Is it because that the stakes are higher or the risk averse nature of the corporate world ?

I believe the answer is in our ability to switch off and move to another in the personal space, which is not even a dream in the enterprise. If the production planning or financial accounting were to face issues post an implementation or change/upgrade, our ability is limited to rollback and not to explore new options at that time. But I am hoping there will be a day when what applies to our personal needs will also be good for the enterprise. Then the CIO will have to work harder to stay in the same place.

Strategic sourcing, pathetic delivery

The poor fellow was looking harrowed after week long meetings sans his CIO with the big global IT services company with whom the company had entered into a long-term strategic services contract. Six months having passed since the signing of the contract, he was wondering whether the decision can be changed or penalties levied for not meeting commitments, the contract protected the vendor in the transition phase. The presales team which was a permanent fixture in the office earlier was now trying to avoid coming to the meeting very well knowing the situation not being favourable.

Over a year of courting, discussions, negotiations and going over a long legal contract, it was a sigh of relief for the vendor and the enterprise when they did sign off the deal. As all strategic sourcing deals go, there was an expectation of maintaining business as usual with improved efficiency and lower cost; then move on to transformation driven by tools and technology which was the investment promised by the vendor. Over the decade of relationship, it was expected that there would be efficiency of scale, savings on the table, and investments in innovation with global benchmarking.

The big team arrived soon enough to transition services and fit or change existing processes into their framework, which they managed with some difficulty. Within a few months unable to scale up to diverse needs across locations, changes in the management team were enforced and that brought welcome improvements though not commensurate to expectations. The first big review meeting was a shocker for everyone. Some milestones achieved, lot of work in progress way past due dates, a few endpoints seemed a long way off; the CIO who was well known for his patient handling of crisis lost his cool.

To begin with interpretations of clauses done by the execution team were in conflict to understanding while drafting them into the contract. Stretched timelines became super-stretched timelines; senior consultants attempted to provide solace with no Plan B in case success eluded the team. The High tension meeting resulted in change of pace and “compromise” in favour of the customer. With new timelines cast, the pressure was on everyone; avoidable pressure as agreed by everyone present.

Why does delivery rarely match presales promises or timelines ? Are sales teams preconditioned to sell unreasonable timelines or commitments to bag orders from unsuspecting and gullible customers ? No, I am not calling the CIO names, but admiring the ability of the sales teams to sometimes get away with untenable contracts. I am also bewildered at the ability of delivery teams to squarely make a hash of even normal service delivery expectations. What causes history to repeat itself in almost every engagement ?

In this case, the CIO summed the case up with one phrase “lack of consistent communication across the ecosystem”. The presales team did not spend adequate time taking the transition team through each and every clause and expectation. The delivery team found significant differences on the ground to their assumptions which required change. The project lead busy fighting fire every day forgot that consistent communication is essential to setting expectation, managing perception and finally success.

I believe that it does not always matter what you do; what matters is how you communicate what you have done or planning to do. No news is not good news when everyone is expecting some change. Otherwise strategic sourcing will become a big tactical pain where real life experience defines success.

The follow up nemesis

The meeting finished with agreement on clear responsibilities, timelines and the next scheduled meeting date four weeks away. The minutes circulated to the team the next day captured this very well. Like all projects, this one was thus far on track though the next three months were critical. The requirement gathering had gone well and the first cut was delivered on time; everyone seemed geared to take on the challenge and another successful project delivered.

Over the next few weeks, some updates were received on the portal, a couple of emails and then none. I began to wonder getting anxious if everything was okay with the project. So a reminder was sent to the group asking for updates; received one response, silence from others. With just one week remaining for the next meeting, and progress report depicting inconsistent updates, acidity levels started rising on the real progress.

So I started calling folks and walking across to their workstations to figure out what gives ? Some titbits:

“Yes, I have completed the tasks, but was too busy to provide an update”

“You should have the status by end of the day”

“Why are you getting on my back ? By the time we get to the meeting, we will be on track”

“Sorry, something urgent came up, so am a bit behind schedule”

All this made me wonder, here we are in the midst of an important project that has Board visibility, will provide a significant benefit, everyone vied to be on the project due to the positive impact, but they do not find time to provide an update. What causes such behaviour ? Why do some people find it difficult to provide open and clear communication on agreed milestones or request for information ? Why is follow up necessary ?

With multiple priorities and fires that need to be doused, short-term dementia is pervasive. Rarely the lack of response is out of disrespect, disregard or plain indifference. Follow-up is essential to bring the issue at hand to attention, to reinforce the signal of ownership and shared responsibility. It also helps in bringing back focus on what matters.

Having said this, there could be instances of no response where connect is not adequately strong or in some cases of missing shared accountability. Another factor that contributes to silence is fear of conflict; this occurs when the issue and people are inseparable. Culturally many are unable to provide bad news and thus prefer not to respond. In all these cases, the leader has to intervene and create the way forward.

IT organizations suffer the most when following up with diverse groups – internal and external – when working on cross functional projects or when solving problems that require different technologies to work together. It is important for IT leaders to inculcate missionary discipline within the team to ensure that initiatives in which IT participates, there is clear communication to all stakeholders.

Someone summed it up well “If I did not have to follow-up, I would save half my day”.