Process Connections

About Process, Training, and TSA

2010-11-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

The media has jumped on the flying public's anxiety over the new scanners and pat down procedures with a ferocity rarely seen in recent journalism history. As a result, there is a fair amount material available on the matter. For several days now I have listened to the furor over this issue, read numerous news articles, blog posts, comments to many posts, and watched several YouTube videos. There is no doubt in my mind that we are observing, in a very public forum, the breakdown of a public relations and airport security process.

In case you've been incommunicado with your computer, television, or newspaper for the past several months, the federal government has allowed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to purchase scanning machines that provide a “picture” containing a high degree of detail about the form and contours of an individual's body, i.e. even though clothed, the image makes a person appear naked. It is possible for a traveler to refuse a scanning experience. However, in doing so, that person tacitly agrees to an "enhanced" pat down procedure.

Discussions have revolved around both the scanning machines and the pat downs. Concerns have been voiced regarding the scanning machines:

effectiveness of the scanning machines regarding airport security
invasiveness regarding the “nude” appearance of
the scanned images
storage ability regarding the images taken
safety in terms of the radiation dosage,
especially for certain populations – pilots, flight attendants, frequent fliers, and others[1]

As for the pat downs, various individuals have commented on the:

demeaning nature of the "enhanced" pat
downs
inappropriate behavior of some TSA officers
necessity of "enhanced" pat downs for children

In addition, many journalists, bloggers, and commenters have raised questions about whether or not these changes in airport security could be considered a Fourth Amendment violation, resulting in unreasonable search.

Effectiveness

Security experts are questioning TSA’s approach to airport security. Take the comment from the Netherlands’ Schiphol Airport Security Chief,

"If you look at all the recent terrorist incidents, the bombs were detected because of human intelligence not because of screening ... If even a fraction of what is spent on screening was invested in the intelligence services we would take a real step toward making air travel safer and more pleasant."[2]

American security consultants, such as Bruce Schneier, have similar observations.

“Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else -- Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included -- is security theater."[3]

Other security pundits cite the Israeli[4]method of handling terrorist risks, i.e., profiling, as much more effective.

Am I in favor of racial or ethnic profiling?

No, it is an unacceptable activity in a democratic society. Do I favor profiling questions based upon an assessment of risk? Yes, remember that Timothy McVeigh was an American white male!

Is my sense of security increased due to TSA’s activities? No, not really.

“The current security system in which everyone is a suspect is bound to be ineffective and burdensome. No system can perform efficiently when one is looking for a needle in a haystack by checking each straw individually.”[5]

Flying is risky, but not nearly as risk filled as driving an automobile. Do I want to be on that single flight that has a terrorist that was missed by intelligence services and TSA? No, I don’t. There are no guarantees in life, nor do I expect my government to provide one to me regarding airport security. In the words of a Thanksgiving holiday traveler,

“I just want to know if the TSA workers actually believe they are keeping people safe by feeling us up if we opt out of the full-body scan,” said Cara Eshleman, a baker from Arlington County who is flying out of Reagan National Airport on Wednesday and plans to opt out if she is directed to a full-body scanner. “It's too bad I already bought my ticket. If I'd have found out about this before, I wouldn't be going anywhere for the holidays.”[6]

Am I willing to trade my civil rights, privacy, and liberty for security theater? Absolutely not! It would appear that I am not alone.[7]Yet, TSA is busy assuring the public that “78% of poll respondents approve the use of full body scanners.”[8] What TSA conveniently glosses over is that the referenced poll was taken in January of this year, well in advance of the new procedures being put into place.

Invasiveness

If I have committed no offense, broken no law, nor behaved in a suspicious manner, how is it justifiable that I should be subjected to a machine that produces an image in which my body appears naked? This is just wrong on so many levels! Although TSA openly admits that the scanners are an invasion of people’s privacy, they justify the necessity by invoking images of bomb carrying terrorists boarding an American airplane.

"I just don't think the government has the right to look under
people's clothes with no reasonable cause, no suspicion other than purchasing a plane ticket."[9]

“I am concerned about the exposure and I am equally concerned that someone saw my precious daughter as if she were naked. I was then put through as well and was humiliated and felt as though I were in a peep show. Before this trip, I honestly felt the scanners were a good idea and a price to be paid for travelling - after living it first hand, I have to say it is flat out WRONG[10]

Some people who experience these scanning machines feel violated. Still TSA basically holds the position that if someone feels violated, “too bad” it’s a small price to pay for security. I disagree. Price of this degree of invasiveness is too high.

Storage

The scanning machines can and do store images! TSA has already admitted that it requires all purchased body scanners to have the ability to store and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.” The agency also contends that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.[11] Right! In its reply[12] to the House of Representatives questions about privacy, TSA also states,

No cameras, cellular telephones, or other devices capable of capturing an image are permitted in the image viewing room. Any official or employee who fails to follow these strict procedures is subject to serious discipline up to and including removal.[13]

Given how unforthcoming the agency has been regarding these new procedures, can I really believe that some passengers’ images won’t end up in someone’s private file or on the Internet at a future time? The answer is probably not! In addition, the verbal remarks to buxom passengers attributed to TSA officials don’t fill me with much hope that anyone’s privacy is really respected by the TSA’s employees.

One traveler observed, “I will bet that we will catch more TSA employees guilty of inappropriately forwarding full-body scans of celebrities or attractive women than we will terrorists.”[14]

Safety

As frequent flyer who spends more than 70,000 miles each year, over roughly 45 weeks, in the air, this concerns me enormously.

Over the last several years I have listened to my fellow passengers question whether or not the security measures that the American flying public is forced to endure really work. I fly out of small airports on regional jets most of the time and, due to my frequent flyer status, often sit next to pilots or flight attendants on their way to work. Many of them tell me that I fly more than they do. That being the case, I have a health concern about radiation from a backscatter full body scanner.

TSA maintains that the health concerns are minimal and that most people are exposed to more radiation from their cell phones. This doesn’t allay my unease about the scanners. I want scientific proof! Not only that, but I find the cell phone reference specious, especially since I use a headset to keep my phone away from my head and my phone typically rests on a table at least 3 feet away from my body.

Demeaning Pat Downs

In the few weeks since the policy came into effect, the ACLU has received hundreds of complaints from travelers who have been subject to these invasive and suspicionless searches.[15] Interestingly, the 900 complaints that the ACLU claims to have received exceeds the test sample size of both polls claiming that most Americans don’t mind the scanners but have issues with the pat down procedure.

Below are some of the comments that travelers have reported to the ACLU.[16]

“I am upset, humiliated, degraded and feel abused and criminal, when I am guilty of nothing.”
“In all of these years and the thousands of flights and millions of airlines miles I have never been so humiliated. If my choice is to risk having my genitalia spread all over the internet and my body exposed to unknown radiation or to have my testicles bounced and my buttocks stroked I will not fly any commercial airline.... our humanity and our dignity are being violated. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!”
“I opted out and was sexually molested in public. The method used to search my body was on par with a sexual massage by a stranger of the same sex. My penis was touched by a man. My anus and groin were rubbed by a man. My scalp was rubbed by the same person. How can this be acceptable...? These TSA agents are not qualified to deal with the psychological or ethical responsibility of this technology.”

In fact, during testimony before lawmakers in Washington, D.C., TSA’s new administrator agrees that the new pat down procedures are more invasive.

“I'm frankly bothered by the level of these pat-downs,” Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., told Pistole. “I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched. I wouldn't want to be touched that way.”

Pistole, who has been subjected to a pat-down himself, allowed: “It is clearly more invasive. But the procedures are necessary,” he said, “to detect devices not seen before.”[17] You saw it, ladies and gentlemen, “…necessary to detect devices not seen before.” Comments like this one have led some
to wonder if cavity searches are next on TSA’s agenda.[18] I wonder if Pistole has children. If he does, what is his explanation to them about a stranger in a TSA uniform that may touch them in private places and that it’s OK? One father said it best.

“We spend my child's whole life telling him that only mom, dad and a doctor can touch you in your private area, and now we have to add TSA (agents), and that's just wrong.”[19]

Inappropriate Behavior

In addition to the flying public and lawmakers’ perceptions that TSA’s new pat down procedures are demeaning and certainly more invasive than the previous procedure, what about inappropriate application of the new procedure by TSA officers?

I was the only female in a crowd of men. Even though I was not next in line, I was called over to the body scanner. As I got closer to the scanner, I could clearly hear him say ‘[G]ot a cute one, some DD's.’ ... I was appalled and decided at that point to ‘opt out’ of the scanner.... I was then put through the pat down procedure which I only can only describe as sexual assault.[20]

“Simply, I was sexually assaulted. My breasts were caressed in an almost amorous manner. And on the second canvassing of my groin, single-finger pressure was applied to my labia majora - the plane of which was near-broken, during which the agent made a wildly off-color remark.”[21]

Standardized procedural, as well as sensitivity, training could possibly mitigate much of this issue. Oh wait, according to a report released by the GAO[22], TSA does not have “a standard process to identify and coordinate the necessary computer support” for its computer based training of TSA officers!23]

Clearly TSA needs not only a better understanding of process and procedures, but also better training and execution.

Constitutionality

In an extremely lengthy blog post an author on Flopping Aces reminds the reader that, according to David Leach (first US air marshal under the Nixon administration), that various U.S. courts have agreed that:

“... yes, it was a violation of the fourth amendment, but it was acceptable to the courts with two provisos. One, that it be applied universally so there’s no chance of any discrimination, and two, that the search be limited to looking for weapons and explosives.”[emphasis added][24]

Let’s look at that first proviso, “be universally applied.” If I am to accept the truthfulness of the complaints registered with the ACLU, universal application of these new procedures is nonexistent. Talk to any private pilot, and s/he will tell you that there is NO screening of persons or luggage prior to boarding a private plane. Further, for those individuals fortunate enough to have access to private aviation, whether through company or government access or due to personal wealth, there is NO screening of anything. Again, I question the universal application of enhanced screening and pat downs.

Summary

It’s easy to say, “You don’t like TSA’s rules, don’t fly. Use an alternative.” According one of the polls[25] taken over this last week, some 48% of the respondents intend to do just that. They are going to stop flying. I don’t believe this is a realistic solution. The disruption to our economy could be serious were people to act on this sentiment.

So far, our elected officials seem to have allowed TSA to issue edicts, in the name of national security, without much discussion or inquiry into preserving the civil rights of the American public. To be fair, the American public, by and large, has unquestioningly followed along with each restriction of rights – until now.

TSA appears to have bypassed the process used by nearly every other federal organization that wants to change regulatory guidelines, regulations, or operational procedures.[26] In doing so, they have lost, not only the willing compliance of many citizens, but the confidence of the American flying public that they are acting in our best interest.

Rationality and a conversation about reasonable risks needs to occur. Why couldn’t we as a society engage in a national dialogue about where we are going to balance civil liberties and national security? That is, in part, the purpose of the Federal Register – to allow for discourse and discussion about federal rules and regulations. We could start there.

[1]http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1777-full.html#203670

[2]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/12/airport_security_scanners/

[3]http://www.schneier.com/

[4]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/what-israel-can-teach-the_b_408720.html

[5]http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/11/22/do-body-scanners-make-us-safer/israel-doesnt-use-scanners

[6]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112303954_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009122902788

[7]Interactive: 61% Oppose Full Body Scans and TSA Pat Downs; 48% Will Seek Alternative to Flying”

[8]http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-01-11-security-poll_N.htm

[9]Resisting Scanners

[10]Passengers' Stories of Recent Travel/

[11]http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20012583-281.html

[12]TSA reply to House of Representatives – 24 Feb 2010 page 3, question 8, paragraph 3

[13]Ibid

[14] “Note to TSA: Let me keep my shoes on”

[15]http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/aclu-reports-more-900-complaints-month-over-enhanced-tsa-security-measures

[16]Recent Travel Stories from Passengers

[17]“New Airport Pat-Downs Are MORE Invasive, TSA Boss Confirms”

[18]"Why Cavity Bombs Would Make TSA Irrelevant"

[19]“A whole new fear of flying”

[20]Recent Travel Stories from Passengers http://www.aclu.org/passengers-stories-recent-travel/

[21]Ibid

[22]"Transportation Security Administration’s Management of Its Screening Workforce Training Program Can Be Improved," Office of Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security

[23]Ibid, pg 5

[24]“The TSA conundrum: When security ugly and hype meets legal reality”

[25]Zogby Interactive: 61% Oppose Full Body Scans and TSA Pat Downs; 48% Will Seek Alternative to Flying”

[26] Petition for Suspension of TSA Full Body Scanner

Thoughts About Changing Culture

2010-10-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week @RomanStanek posted a tweet that is a quotation by the renowned management consultant Peter Drucker.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Drucker also on numerous occasions admonished managers to work with an organization's culture rather than attempting to change it. The rationale for his viewpoint is understandable. Working within an existing framework and building on strengths while minimizing weaknesses can be more efficient than championing major change.

Sometimes it's absolutely necessary that an organization's culture change.

A colleague of mine works with a start up in the Midwest. She is frequently a source of great stories, some of which are more akin to cautionary tales. It seems that the start up is located in a state that is pro-employer with very few laws or regulations that protect employees. Consequently, businesses are able to terminate employees far more easily than might occur in other states, such as Michigan or California. It could be argued that this condition is both necessary and beneficial, especially in an economic environment like the one that has existed here in the U.S. for the last couple of years.

The issue is that organizations might want to think more about how human capital policies and practices are reflective of its culture and strategy, and whether or not the overall the overall community's perception is a concern. Briefly stated,

Doing what is legal might not necessarily be the appropriate course of action.

OK, The Story

Barbara called me last week and her first words were, "They've done it again!" Knowing that she had to be referring to the start up, I could only respond with, "OK, what is it now?"

"Remember when I told you about them terminating the single lady who'd just had her baby?" Barbara reminded me.

"Yes, and while what they did might be considered morally reprehensible by some folks, Small Startup, Inc., (SSI) was operating within the law to say that her position had been eliminated and lay her off."

We had discussed about 6 months the matter of SSI laying off the woman one week after she returned to work. I suggested to Barbara then that since management's philosophy of "If it's legal, it's OK" was inconsistent with hers and she might want to reconsider whether or not helping this company was a wise activity for her. My advice was based on the notion that Barbara would be in constant conflict morally about SSI and, as an advisor, that isn't a good situation for anyone.

"Well now they've terminated one of their developers for not showing up to work." She said.

"On the surface, that sounds reasonable to me," I said.

"Wait, let me give you some background before you say anything else."

I waited for her to continue.

"The developer lost her 10 year old child. SSI gave her bereavement leave of a week. She returned to work after the week and couldn't cope. She asked for additional time. HR said that she had no vacation time left and if she didn't show up for work, they would have to let her go."

Barbara's voice was shaking by the time she uttered those last words. I understood her dismay, but knew that SSI had followed an attorney's advice with regard to their decision.

At the moment. Barbara is trying to decide what she should do regarding her involvement with SSI. For myself, there are several questions whose answers I am still pondering.

Given the company's overall strategy for getting its enhanced product to market were there options regarding how to work with these two employees?
How would I advise the management team about their decisions' affects on the overall community perception of their organization?

How far should they need to go to manage community perceptions of SSI?

What would you advise Barbara to do? How would you advise SSI?

When Is It OK To Be Dishonest?

2010-09-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

A colleague shared with me an incident that occurred recently on one of her projects. Sally is the lead business process consultant helping a client organization automate a record to report business process. As with many projects of this sort, she has encountered challenges along the way. Some of them have been people related; others have been data related; and still others have been technical.

Yet, the challenge that she struggled with the most was discovering that the project manager and engagement manager had deliberately mislead the entire team. How did she know that they had lied to the team? Both of them announced it during a team meeting.

Sally's concern was how could she believe any communications from these two individuals knowing that they had mislead her and others.

There are several relevant questions here.

Why did the managers come clean when they did, instead of staying quiet?

What choices are available to a leader/manager when sensitive information cannot be shared?

Is it acceptable or desirable behavior to mislead or lie to subordinates or colleagues?

The first question is fairly self evident. Many people when confronted with the probability of a dishonest statement being discovered, eventually correct the statement to one that is more truthful. The exceptions to this observation are sociopaths and habitual liars, which would be a topic for different blog.

The next question regarding choices is much more interesting. Leaders and managers frequently are privy to information or knowledge that cannot be shared ever or perhaps until a later date. To complicate matters, some subordinates are very perceptive and can sense when there are social/political/ organizational undercurrents. The more outspoken subordinates will simply ask a direct question. How does a good leader respond?

My response in those situations has been, "I can't answer that right now. We are working on [the matter/situation] quietly, but this is in the realm of confidential information at the moment and I am not at liberty to share." Are people comfortable with that answer?

Absolutely not! My personal preference is to admit to withholding information or knowledge rather than be dishonest about doing so. The other choice, of course, is to answer dishonestly and pray that you won't need to reverse your stance publicly. Are there options aside from the two discussed above? I'm not certain that there are, but if you are reading this blog post and know of any, I'd be interested in your comments.

The last question perhaps should be two questions. The issue of acceptability raises considerations of a more ethical nature. The notion of desirable behavior leads to discussions around practicality. My purpose here is to provoke discussion about a situation that teams -- leaders, managers, and their subordinates -- encounter rather frequently. So rather than endlessly debate the ethics or practicality of dishonest statements in general, I am asking you, the reader, "What would you say to your team if asked about a sensitive, confidential matter?"

So, Tell Us What Really Happened at OOW 2010!

2010-09-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

OK, FMT's Marketing Director is really after me to say something in one of my blog posts about the next Ask Us Anything Webinar on 29 September 2010. Since this blog is more about my personal passions than an advertisement for FMT Systems, I have been challenged regarding a context for talking about our monthly Webinar.

Enough grousing!

Strangely the idea for Ask Us Anything (AUA) came from the Marketing Director and I talking about giving back to a community that had given our organization so much support. In addition, we wanted to participate in helping the Oracle community as a whole learn more about business process and what it means to be a process focussed organization. This seemed especially important given Oracle's SOA Suite of applications and its focus on its Fusion products.

To single out a few of our esteemed AUA presenters might sound like favoritism or an advertising ploy (FMT's Marketing Director would love it though!). We've had numerous Subject Matter Experts present each month so that the momentum and attendance increase with each session. Instead, I want to send a blanket "Thank you!" to everyone who has participated in FMT's webinars. You know who you are. Further, your generosity and willingness to engage are very much appreciated.

I am also inclined to invite new presenters with cutting edge topics to reach out to our Marketing Director. If you have an interest in presenting a topic for AUA in 2011, contact her through aua at fmtsi dot com.

But more importantly, we want to share the knowledge that we have, with you. Of course, you may not tune in each month as some topics may not apply to you. But we do encourage you to keep an eye out for the invitations and Web site postings each month. Happenings in the business process and IT enabling worlds are numerous and frequent. AUA is a marvelous way to keep informed.

Please visit our events website or click immediate registration to join the September webinar. Now that I've made FMT's Marketing Department happy, I'll be talking about an issue related to team dynamics tomorrow.

Ideas, Innovation and Implementation - Getting Things Done Better Faster

2010-09-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

If we're not getting more better faster
then they are getting more better faster,
then we're getting less better
or more worse.
Tom Peters

Ideas are simply that, "Ideas." The key to success lies in effective implementation.

In most organizations, people find that their managers will put the NO in innovation, roadblocking their individual efforts to make improvements. Take this simple statistic as proof: A Sirota Survey of 2007 found that 85% of employees say their morale declines significantly after spending 6 months on the job. (And, 2007 were the good old days when it came to employee engagement and morale, it appears.)

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world. And there are broad issues of employee engagement and morale operating in most organizations these days. So it would seem obvious that there are some leverage points in the workplace that we can use effectively to improve how things are working.

The real key is the successful implementation of ideas, either from the view of the entrepreneur or the manager looking to improve performance. It is a tool for employee engagement as well as a way to improve performance and profits.

For almost 20 years, I have been using a simple cartoon to describe how organizations really work -- it is an inkblot for leading discussions as well as a metaphor for how things tend to roll along.

Consider that we are using a wooden wagon. A leader is pulling with a rope and people are behind the wagon, pushing it forward. It is rolling along on wooden Square Wheels, but with a cargo of round rubber tires.

Someone said, “Those who do have no clue. Those who lead miss the need.” I think that describes the reality – the view at the back of the wagon (boards and hands) is different than the view at the front. The hands-on people KNOW that things are not working smoothly but have no ability to make the changes. The wagon puller is focused on meeting current goals and there is little time to stop and chat.

The round wheels already exist. In most organizations, the exemplary performers are already doing things differently and their sharing of best practices would be beneficial, if only we had the chance to stop, step back from the wagon, and discuss issues and opportunities.

I successful entrepreneurial businesses, you can see that the good idea(s) are shared with the people and that there is an engaged and involved workforce working to make those ideas a reality. This is the essence of entrepreneurial leadership, IMHO. It is really hard to go it alone, even when your idea is “most fabulous.” You need others to share the vision (and perspective) and to have a sense of ownership and involvement to generate the motivation and peer support to succeed.

Last key point: Nobody ever washes a rental car.

Without a sense of ownership involvement, it is not likely that people will be motivated, and thus the many issues around implementation and rollout of those good ideas will be roadblocks instead of challenges.

The Round Wheels of Today, are the Square Wheels of Tomorrow.

There will always be opportunities for people to implement and sell better ways of getting things done and improving performance. It is really about wheels and about people…

so, "Don’t Just DO Something, Stand There!"

Step back from your wagon, scan the issues, and look for things that could be done differently. Then, involve and engage others in discussions about how to do things differently and how to implement these ideas.

A special thanks goes to Scott Simmerman of Performance Management Company for preparing this post.

See more on this at http://www.squarewheels.com/ and see toolkits of illustrations at http://www.PerformanceManagementCompany.com

For the FUN of it!

Square Wheels® is a registered servicemark of Performance Management Company, ©Performance Management Company, 1993

Cassandra's Dilemma

2010-08-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

I had a visit from Cassandra my 20 year old daughter this week. She and some friends stopped by our house during their journey from New York to Asheville. They were in New York to visit friends and perform. Her friends are street musicians and Cassie is a costume designer who also performs as a living statue. If you aren't familiar with living statues as performance art, go to Flickr and enter "human statue" in the search box. Some of the performers, including Cassie I might add, are very creative in their presentations.

Many folks are content to watch human statues for a bit and move on. Occasionally, people do take photographs. As part of her performance, Cassie requests donations from folks who want to take photographs. She even has a small sign explaining this.

While she was visiting, Cassie told us about her experiences performing in New York and some of its subway stations. She regaled us with stories of people's various reactions to her performances. After several stories, she paused and said that she wanted advice about something that happened during one of her performances. It seems that a passerby saw her and wanted to take a photograph. Upon photographing her image, the passerby dropped a dollar and a note into Cassie's collection box. The note said, "I feel cheated. I paid $1 for roughly a minute. My job requires that I work 7.5 minutes to earn $1. Here is my address so that you can send me a refund of 95 cents." Cassie showed me the note written on a small yellow piece of sticky paper, and yes, an address was there.

Cassie's dilemma was, although she was deeply offended, that she wanted to respond to this person about the realities of her work without sounding hostile or condescending. Needless to say, I was very proud of her mature approach to the matter, but also unsure about how I could help her with this.

Her father told her a story about living in San Francisco and walking back to work from lunch one day when a man approached him and said, "I want you to give me a million bucks!" My husband stopped suddenly and asked the man to repeat what he said as he couldn't believe what he heard. The man repeated his demand and added, "Well, if I had just asked you for a couple of bucks, you would have ignored me!" My husband started laughing while agreeing with the truth of the man's statement. Then he reached into his wallet, gave the man $2, and said, "You made me laugh and that is valuable. I don't get to laugh often enough. Laughter is definitely worth $2!"

As a business process professional and manager of a consulting organization, I am constantly talking to our administrative and consulting staff, as well as clients, about good customer experiences. Without customers, or in Cassie's situation - an audience, we have no work and no revenue. As a business it is vitally important that your customers find it easy to work with your organization. A smart business person designs sales, delivery, and collections processes with that goal. Yet, every now and then, a customer comes along for whom those processes either don't work or aren't perceived as valuable. What then?

I suggested to Cassie that she write a short letter describing her creative process and the activities that comprise it. This approach came from the my own encounters with clients who didn't always understand what was actually involved when attempting to improve a business process so that it was more customer focussed.

Sometimes a description, or education, is necessary. Often an explanation resolves the issue. Occasionally, clarification falls on deaf ears.

My next suggestion was that she refund the 95 cents and think about how this encounter might be avoided. I also asked her to think about whether or not her negative experience with the passerby was significant enough to move her toward changing how she delivers her performances or requests donations.

Why? Her unhappy customer already told her how the situation could be resolved satisfactorily. When a discontented customer/client indicates what it will take to rectify an unsatisfactory interaction, a smart businessperson does what the customer wants. In addition, the entire interaction needs review as a lesson learned to determine what, if any, changes should be made to the business model, its associated processes, and accompanying business rules.

I knew a managerial accounting professor who used to tell his students at the start of each semester, "Cash is god!" My view is, "Customers are Titans!"

Making Amends and Right Actions

2010-06-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

In Roy Osing's 10 June post of his BE DIFFERENT or be dead Blog, he talks about the importance of apologies when working with customers.

I couldn't agree more.

If you are interested in a process for using a mistake as a growth opportunity, look at Harvard Business Review's Best Practices Blog post by Amy Gallo.

One of the many facts of being human is that we are fallible. If your organization is very lucky, it may go for several years in a customer relationship without having any missteps. However, for most of us, mistakes happen and apologies along with course corrections are in order.

What I didn't see in either blog post was that although customers appreciate and value transparency and apologies, you can't assume that they necessarily will forgive you - some will and some won't.

For those customers who are forgiving, recognize that you will work twice as hard and twice as long to regain their trust.

For those customers who are unforgiving, you still need to ensure that your course correction exceeds their expectations. Why? Because it's the right action to take. When you leave, you do so with dignity knowing that you did your best to do the right thing for your (soon to be ex) customer.

What have you done to regain a customer's trust? Or what did you do when your customer wouldn't forgive a mistake?

Fire! (and Ready, Aim . . .)

2010-04-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

I read Evan Levy's blog post with enormous interest today. Why?

The conversations and challenges he describes regarding organizations looking for an MDM vendor are hauntingly familiar. I have similar conversations in the BI / ERP arenas where FMT Systems conducts most of its work.

As with Mr. Levy, I find myself asking clients and prospects, "What are you trying to accomplish?" The answers to this question are various, as might be expected, which of course leads to a discussion of priorities, business process automation issues and concerns, as well as suitability of different tools for specific user communities.

Then comes the inevitable question, "Well, what do you think of [insert vendor name here]'s offering for (BI/ERP)? We already have their [insert product name here] and maybe we should look at them first."

Actually, no -- organizations should be looking at their needs and requirements first! Think about which tactics will enable your company/agency/enterprise's strategy and meet its goals. Then select the best tool for accomplishing those objectives. All of us have seen the reverse scenario in action and it doesn't work.

Musings from Collaborate 2010

2010-04-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

It seems that while some of FMT Systems's colleagues were at the Oracle user conference last week, a question arose. "What does FMT Systems think about Oracle's product User Productivity Kit (a.k.a. UPK)?" As an organization we have tried to find something we like about this product and it simply hasn't occurred.

Some History

UPK was actually one more step in PeopleSoft's long journey to uncover a suitable online training tool that would speed the process of developing training materials for its ERP product. When Oracle purchased PeopleSoft, UPK was being licensed for use from a third party. Oracle was obligated to continue that agreement as part of the purchase. Further, Oracle hadn't gained much traction in the training arena for its Tutor product. So some wise soul within Oracle decided to push Tutor as a business process and SOX compliance tool and use UPK as its training tool.

Strangely Oracle is in the same position now with UPK that it is with its Tutor product. The foundation of both software applications relies upon technology owned by third parties. In the case of Tutor, it's Microsoft, and historically this has caused interoperability issues. For UPK, it's Adobe.

Training Perspective

The software market for rapid development of training materials is still highly fragmented, yet one major player stands out (no, not Oracle) -- Adobe. The company's purchases over the years have continually strengthened its position in the documentation and training arena. Adobe owns Framemaker, Flash, Shockwave, and Captivate, to name a few; all of these software tools were developed by companies that Adobe later purchased and successfully integrated into its product line.

When Oracle UPK is compared against Adobe Captivate, I fail to understand why any organization would purchase the former over the latter. Captivate does everything that UPK will and it is astonishingly less expensive ($700/seat versus $10,000/seat).

I also hear the question you are asking. "What about Oracle's pre-loaded content?" Isn't that a reason to purchase UPK? I don't think it is. FMT consultants have worked with that material and most of it ends up being deleted because it doesn't apply to the customer's environment. Why pay $100K (in the instance of EBS R12 purchasing and procurement content) for material that isn't usable for your environment?

Captivate, due to its design and technology foundation, is a broader based tool. It can be used for more than software training material development. Further, Captivate's user interface is easier to use and more efficient. FMT implementation team members have used both UPK and Captivate, and we prefer Captivate for all of these reasons.

Finally when our clients ask for our suggestion regarding which tool to use for rapid material development for ERP training, we recommend Captivate. Which tools do you use for rapid training material development for your Oracle EBS or PeopleSoft environment? The consultants at FMT and I would love to hear about your experiences.

Corporate Strategy and KPI's

2009-07-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

The next two or three posts are going to touch on business intelligence and business process management as they relate to ERP and training issues.

Folks who have attended my presentations about BI and assessing organizational readiness have heard me say, "Managers must dance to the corporate strategy and use metrics and business intelligence (BI) to guide them." To give this idea a more personal viewpoint, let's consider the following.

If my mission is to have a healthy existence and my strategy for accomplishing that is to eat properly, get appropriate rest, and exercise. I might want a collection of easy to read indicators, i.e., a dashboard, which contains metrics, such as those listed below, to guide me in measuring how well my strategy is working.

Bar chart that indicates daily calories consumed, including monitoring of fat, carbohydrate, fiber, and protein percentages
Line graph showing number of hours slept each evening
Pie chart that illustrates hours of exercise each week, including percentage of cardio and strength building (I need both in varying percentages)
Daily graphs showing:

walking distance covered over specific times
resting heart rate
active heart rate
blood pressure

An organization can (and I believe, should) follow the same approach. Sure it's easy to just follow the herd and use the key performance indicators (KPIs) that everyone else in the industry uses, in which case your organization will simply be one of many average competitors in your industry. To be a truly exceptional, and seriously competitive, organization, the KPIs used should be unique to your organization's strategy with metrics that ensure your organization is operating in alignment with its stated strategy and that the strategy is working.

Business intelligence software sales personnel may speak glowingly of the volumes of pre-built KPIs that come with their software or how simply their product can be installed and producing information for analysis. Use their pre-built KPIs and be one of the herd or strive to be the exceptional organization and engage in the hard work of developing KPIs that will guide your organization to alignment and excellence.

Calling All ERP Experts (both inhouse and consultants)!

2009-01-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

Recently a colleague called me with a story involving a client.

It seems that a new client requested assistance with a problem regarding its ERP installation. My colleague, let’s say his name is Joe, charged two of his consultants with the assignment of preparing a detailed task list that would form the basis for a project plan. Their list was to be based upon the scope and statement of work provided by the client.

The consultants told Joe they had several questions to pose to the client before they could finish the plan. Joe went back to the client with the queries and received additional information regarding a hard deadline for the project’s completion. Joe cautioned the client about responding to the consultants’ questions, indicating that the aggressive deadline meant that answers to their questions had to be available within 24 hours or the deadline couldn’t be met.

Joe waited 24 hours for a response from the client, no e-mails and no phone calls. He sent an e-mail to the client contact reiterating the dwindling time available for the project and that the risk for timely completion had increased. Then 48 hours passed with no word; Joe sent another urgent e-mail. Then 72 hours passed with no word; Joe sent a more strongly worded e-mail.

Finally, the client responded, after a week had passed, with the necessary information, but there wasn’t enough time to complete the project by the hard deadline.

What would you advise Joe to do? I’ll let you know what I did next week.

What I Learned On My Vacation Away from the Office (DevLearn 2008 #3)

2008-11-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

I left DevLearn 2008 on Friday and managed to take the weekend to spend with friends and family instead of working, which I usually do. The advantage to removing myself from work and work focussed topics is that I had time to reflect on the workshop and sessions I attended, as well as reflect on my experiences at DemoFest, which provided an enormous amount of food for thought. DemoFest was an incredible experience. I have not participated in anything like it before. The hall contained easily 20 tables maybe more, I'm not certain. On each table were computers with various kinds of online training samples that were created by elearning professionals, many of whom were employed by companies that wanted the content for compliance or skill development or technical training purposes.

One of the most sophisticated uses of elearning that I observed was designed to train salespeople in the pharma industry about compliance issues. The simulation had the learner "travel through" a week in the life of a pharmaceutical sales representative. It included typical received e-mails, conversations with physicians, managers, and co-workers. The level of detail and complexity of this training was impressive. It was very easy to gain a sense of the subtle and complicated ethical challenges that occur daily in this field of work. In addition, the learner was given the opportunity to experience the consequences of good and poor decision making. What became apparent to me as I watched this and other demonstrations and training samples at DemoFest was that enterprise software training as it is currently delivered through online channels IS BORING and nearly mind numbing.

I thought back to the classroom training I had observed over the years with enterprise software. One trainer, I recall, staged "Family Feud" contests to help students remember what they had learned during the sessions. Another trainer sang Mr. Rogers' "Welcome to the Neighborhood" with special lyrics talking about the enterprise software. I remember still another trainer letting her students make "wrong" decisions and choices with exercises and lab sessions in the classroom and use the consequences to teach them how to fix errors in the software system. Bottom line these gifted trainers had the ability to make learning about enterprise software - FUN!

Aside from one very savvy client, I haven't heard anyone in the enterprise software arena use the words "training" and "fun" together. The expectation is that a company's users are supposed to understand that this mission critical software is vital to the organization's existence, and that should be motivation enough to get them online or in the classroom to learn the new business processes and application mechanics. This is serious business and we are supposed to be serious about it, right?

The challenge is to find a means for creating online asynchronous training sessions that engage learners in a similar fashion as those gifted trainers without "breaking the project budget" for the implementation or upgrade.

If a plant manager could "take a walk through his day" with the new business processes and applications to get a better understanding of what he will be doing when the new enterprise software is "live," how well would he appreciate the changes? How well would he retain the information? How motivated might he be to change his behavior?

DevLearn 2008 #2

2008-11-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like attending a conference and wishing that you could clone yourself!

Yesterday at DevLearn 2008 was like that for me and today's sessions look to be just as compelling. In the afternoon, I attended a session where the presenter discussed his view of training's purpose - to teach and embed behavior change. In addition, he discussed training in terms of a business function and a process. Then he continued his presentation by talking about why and how training efforts failed so miserably in fulfilling the promise of creating business value. He certainly started me thinking about all the times I've watched enterprise software implementations address the business process transformation and automation issues without the consideration that the education and training around that effort is also a process that must deliver business value.

Another presentation I attended was more a demonstration of various learning technology tools and how they are being used, very creatively, by the Department of Defense. I saw a field treatment guide for a non-medical soldier on an iPod. Literally all the soldier had to do was look at the image of a clothed body on the screen and touch the portion were an injury occurred. The iPod application launched a series of questions that, when answered, guided the soldier to a solution for addressing the problem in the field until medical assistance could be found, simply amazing!

Finally, some of you who read this blog know that I wrote a white paper earlier this year about rapid elearning development tools and their appropriate use in enterprise software implementations and upgrades. Many of the tools that I covered in the white paper have users and representatives here at DevLearn. Needless to say, I have been collecting feedback and stories from users and product direction information from the company representatives so that a new, updated edition of the white paper should be ready in January 2009.

DevLearn 2008

2008-11-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

I have taken a small break from chapter writing to rediscover what is happening in the world, especially as it pertains to training and performance issues. So here I am in San Jose at DevLearn 2008. The entire conference is focussed on Web 2.0 applications and their usefulness for performance support and learning.

All of yesterday was spent in a seminar about using Second Life (an "open" virtual world - anyone can join) as a tool for engaging learners in change, performance support, and training.

I know, I heard those stories too about 2nd Life being used for all sorts of nefarious endeavors, and such. Did you know, however, that Princeton, Stanford, Elon, and San Jose State have sizable presences in 2nd Life? In addition you will find Coldwell Banker, Sun Microsystems, and Intel. What are they doing there? Yesterday I found out.

They are using Second Life to have classes, interview applicants, onboard new employees, conduct meetings, deliver training, and that is just the beginning. I even found a hospital that is experimenting with 2nd Life as a communication channel.

OK why does this matter?

Virtual worlds offer the possibility of a richer and more retentive learning experience than what we have today. Imagine having the ability to take a new employee on a tour of your company's facility or learning about steel production (and visiting a blast furnace) without OSHA concerns or learning about how your organization will function in the future due to business process transformation. All of these scenarios are feasible in a virtual world.

I am excited about how virtual worlds could change our thinking about organizational change, business process transformation, and training. What about you? What do you think of virtual worlds?

Second Life

DevLearn 2008

Stay tuned for discoveries that I make during today's sessions!

Project and Resource Planning

2008-09-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Throughout more than 15 years of consulting I’ve come across consistent issues during project planning. One of them I would like to address is project resource planning.

Perhaps you are running an ERP project implementation. Maybe you are running an internal IT department and you have a new requirement, which comes from your company's CEO or from your consulting Sr. Vice President or from the Senior V.P. Client Sponsor. It is mission critical, with time deadlines and penalties (and yes money), if you do not hit the target date. The new project requires over 20 dedicated resources that are already 100 percent allocated to other projects or tasks. So what do you do?

a. Add a new project without adding resources, thereby delaying everything else, and ignoring the impacts?

b. Add a new project without adding resources, but, carefully plan the existing workloads and tasks for your team, thereby giving you the ability to inform your management of the likely impacts?

c. Add a new project, plan the required resources; add additional resources as a means to mitigate the likely impact to your other projects?

Too often I see project managers (PM) choosing option A, seriously. To add injury to insult, these same PM's create deadlines without sufficient milestones to measure progress or to gauge the amount of risk absorbed along the way.

How Does This Happen?

An ERP project will have scope creep. Add another module; increase the number of business processes to address; or increase the complexity of the task by training, not 500 people, but 5000 people. Maybe your company buys a new division from another company. You have until Christmas to migrate the other company’s ERP applications on to your company's production ERP system. Yes, all of these things have happened and continue to happen.

So what should the response be from Project Management? You may have no choice. It could be that you must complete these new tasks. However, without proper task planning (project plans, milestones and enough system/people test cycles) you are doomed to fail. How so? Missing deadlines is one common occurrence. If you go live, critical business processes might be unable to function at "Go Live", thereby costing your company much more than the monies saved by a one or two month delay. (The cost of failure is almost always more expensive than the cost of success.)

The proper response should be calculating the required resources needed and estimating the impact to your existing projects and tasks, assuming no increase to the available resources. Bear in mind that resources are not interchangeable. If you add a relatively inexperienced resource, that person will not replace the your senior resource you just committed to the new project. By completing this exercise, you can tell your management what the likely impacts are to existing projects, for both time lines and cost, as well as the non-monetary impacts such as employee frustration, long hours, mistakes, project and company morale.

In a coming chapter for our book we will discuss the basics of project planning and techniques on avoid the above problems, and how to inform management, even when they don’t want to listen or understand the pitfalls for poor planning.

Who Does What? #3

2008-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is the third and final discussion about who does what on an enterprise software implementation or upgrade project. After this post, I plan to focus on other topics we have been "batting about" in our conversations.

Business Process Analyst
Business Process Analysts (BPA) work with the BP Leads, process owners, and team members to facilitate the business process transformation work. BPA’s frequently come from the implementing organization because they know how the organization’s various business processes are performed under the legacy system(s). They also, in most cases, have the tribal knowledge regarding how an organization’s business process came into existence. This tribal knowledge helps the project and BPTT team determine the size of the business process gaps (current processes to desired processes), the company culture for initiating and accepting change and the underlying motivations and reasons for the current business practices.

Key qualities for BPAs:

Thorough knowledge of existing processes or the ability to find someone who has that knowledge
Respected by their peers, not a 2nd or 3rd string player
Desire to improve conditions and not necessarily married exclusively to the past practices
Able to see a larger picture, sometimes with ERP and process transformation some features or efficiencies are lost but overall the organization should gain efficiencies across the entire end-to-end process

Even more significant than the above key qualities, are the following questions:

Who will be your key business support people (note that business, not ERP, support is mentioned)? After you have gone live and the consultants have left (or you have redeployed your staff) who will support the end users and their respective departments?
Who will be responsible for the thinking about and planning regarding the future support team that will run the new business processes? Your BPAs should be considered as potential resources for these requirements. Select them carefully.

However, as noted with the organization’s BT Lead similar conditions apply to the BPA’s sent as members for the project team. They may not be the division or department’s top performers. This usually means that the BP Leads must motivate and mentor these individuals to ensure that all the work is completed. The gating factor for getting the best resources stems from the conflicts over the short-term “running the business now” vs. the longer-term consequences for “running the business later”. A more complete examination about this topic occurs later, when resource planning is discussed.

Training Materials Developer
Frequently an overlooked and unappreciated role, the Training Material Developer helps set the stage for how well an organization’s employees will accept the new business processes and systems. For most people the first time they see the system is during the user training sessions. Training should be appropriate for the audience, from both a difficulty level and a delivery method. Even with the best trainers, ineffective training materials limit how well the user community will learn the new business processes and systems.

The primary responsibilities for the Training Material Developer are:

Working with the Training Lead to use the selected delivery training channels for the target audience
Preparing the materials in advance of classes
Verifying the training materials meet the project standards, established by the Training Lead, Trainers, Business Transformation Lead and Business Process Analysts in advance of the training classes.
Revising the materials after the initial training sessions as needed.

NOTE: Many ERP implementation providers provide their own training materials (such as SAP Tutor or Oracle User Productivity Kit, for example) claiming the materials are “pre-built” and ready to use. Caveat emptor! Frequently these materials are merely role-based training materials, designed to illustrate the narrow focus within a user’s specific job functions. Training material developed in this manner does not provide the user community the necessary background for how the business processes work or the understanding necessary for when things go wrong or for when the initial business conditions change over time.

Sometimes combined with the Training Materials Developer or with the Business Process Analysts, the Trainer’s key task is to teach the user community how the new business processes and related systems work, with the goal of enabling them to perform their day-to-day tasks when the system goes live. Trainers should be familiar with the overall business processes and day-to-day tasks and how this relates to the ERP systems. Qualities to look for in a Trainer:

Have they delivered this training before? Do they understand the business processes and the ERP systems class participants will use?
Did they have similar or related roles in Industry or Government thus giving them the ability to relate to the class members?
Are they patient with class questions and able to answer when appropriate or table questions as needed?
How well do they communicate?

Trainer
Not all Business Process Analysts can teach. Depending on the staff’s capabilities and availability an organization’s wiser choice might be separate or contract trainers. When using trainers ensure they understand enough of the existing (As-Is) and thoroughly understand the future (To-Be) business processes so that they can impart this knowledge to class participants. Do not expect to be able to “parachute-in” trainers at the last moment and at the same time, have users receive quality relevant training; getting trainers on-board takes time.

NOTE: Typically a trainer is not responsible for teaching an organization’s users the fundamentals of their job tasks, such as Accounting Concepts for the Controller’s department or Inventory Record Accuracy considerations for the Warehouse staff. During the analysis of the training requirements and staff skill levels, the Business Process Lead and Training Lead should make this determination in advance and plan accordingly.

Training Coordinator
The Training Coordinator is responsible for all logistics for training. Sometimes this position is referred to as the BPTT team coordinator, in which case, this person handles all logistics related to business process transformation, communication, and training activities. Given the complexity on larger projects this role requires a highly organized person, flexible with frequent changes yet firm enough to be taken seriously by the other team members.

And although this position is usually staffed by a junior or less experienced person we cannot overstate the importance of this role. Without it, users will not be trained or, at best, trained poorly. And unless the project is small, do not expect the Business Process Analysts to do their own training schedules, as many classes should be scheduled in logical groups or sequences across business processes. Additionally, some class participants may need to take sessions across multiple business processes. The Training Coordinator can minimize the schedule conflicts and help give the training events the detailed attention that it deserves.

Who Does What? - #2

2008-07-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

On large implementation projects where the software “footprint” might include financials, supply chain, human resources, and distribution, there could be a sizable group charged with implementing Business Process Transformation and Training (BPTT) for a project. On smaller projects, you may have fewer people and even some roles combined, such as training material developer and trainer.

Who is part of the BPTT team?

Business Transformation Lead (aka Change Management Lead)
Business Process Lead
Training Lead
Communications Specialist
Business Process Specialist (aka Business Process Analyst)*
Training Material Developer (aka Instructional Designer)*
Trainer*
Training Co-ordinator*

Business Transformation Lead
Think of the Business Transformation (BT), or Change Management, Lead as you would a symphony conductor. It is his/her primary responsibility to keep all the different players on the BPTT team performing together with the appropriate timing and synchronization. In addition, the BT Lead lays out the methodology, milestones, and deliverables for the other BPTT team members.
On large ERP implementations, it is common to see two BT team leads - one that is a resource from the business (sometimes an HR employee who is tasked for the duration of the project) and another from a consulting organization. In a case such as this the BT leads jointly arrive at a methodology that fits the implementing organization’s environment, milestones that are consistent with the overall implementation plan, and deliverables that allow the organization to continue its business transformation after all the consultants have moved on to other projects. Smaller ERP implementations may have a single BT lead that could be “on loan” from the organization’s Human Resources department or a consultant from outside the organization.

The BT lead usually participates in all project update meetings, stakeholder committee meetings, the steering committee meetings, as well as leading meetings for the BPTT team. It is entirely possible for the BT lead to spend a third of his/her time in meetings alone, which means that the more organized and methodical this person is, the more easily all of his/her assigned tasks are completed. The challenge is finding someone who is at once personable, sensitive to an organization’s cultural and behavioral issues, organized, detail-oriented, verbally articulate, and quick thinking. In our experience we have observed BT leads who were personable, sensitive, and verbally articulate or personable, organized, and detail-oriented. It is a rare individual that comprises all of the cherished qualities of a BT lead.

One situation that occurs often enough to be noted is that organizations involved with business transformation using an ERP implementation or upgrade frequently send their “second or third string players” to the project team. In one business transformation project, the initial BT lead provided by the client organization was very senior and well connected throughout the various business units and departments. He was so highly thought of that he was pulled from the project team to take a new staff position in the executive offices. The next BT lead provided by the client was a talented woman from the IT department who was tempermentally unsuited to working in the fast paced project environment. Consequently, she returned to her previous position in IT and the team received another client BT lead. This individual has been with the organization for 18 months, working in one of the call centers. Thrilled to be out of the call center, this man was energetic and eager to participate in the project.

While the BPTT team members on this project welcomed him and his enthusiasm, there was also the recognition that this man had nothing in his work experience that would prepare him for the challenges he was about to face. As a result, the team spent 30% of its collective time mentoring this young man and teaching him about business transformation in organizations (much of what is in this book) so that he could be successful.

Business Process Lead
The Business Process (BP) Lead is the individual who works directly with business process owners and their teams to document current and future processes, improve processes, and align processes with software functionality. In a large ERP project that covers multiple functions of a business, it is possible to have a BP Lead for each core process the organization is considering for automation. In smaller projects, a BP Lead might have all of the financial core processes. Another could have all of the distribution processes. Some examples of organizational core processes are:

Record to report (financial)
Procure to pay (financial and distribution)
Order to cash (sales and financial)
Campaign to sale (customer relations management - CRM)
Sale to delivery (CRM and distribution)
Design to build (manufacturing)
Order to ship (distribution)
Hire to fire (human resources)
Customer contact to resolution (CRM)

Some of the best Business Process Leads were employed in other professions before working in the business process arena. It is the experience and understanding about business process that they learned in those prior environments that enables them to assist client organizations. For example, expert business process consultants in the financial area frequently have worked as staff accountants or controllers. Business process consultants in the CRM arena have functioned as sales or call center managers. In addition to understanding a particular functional area of business, Business Process Leads also know the strengths and weaknesses of the software that the client organization intends to use as part of its business transformation initiative. This knowledge enables them to help the client teams automate processes while minimizing customizations to the ERP software.

Training Lead
The Training Lead is responsible for several activities and tasks. The first task is working with the BT lead and Communications Specialist to discover who the end user community is, including finding out about:

how they are feeling about the coming changes in the business
how they approach training
what their learning styles are
how information is communicated through the organization
what their concerns and hopes are regarding the coming transformation in the business

In addition, the Training Lead’s responsibilities include:

identifying what the user community needs to learn and how they will best learn it
designing the curriculums for the various subgroups within the user community
ensuring that training logistics are handled
setting up the necessary “feedback loops” so that evaluation occurs at every step of the training development process
coordinating activities among the instructional designers, subject matter experts, and business process leads and specialists so that the training materials and delivery are as complete as possible for “go live.”

Communications Specialist
The Communications Specialist (CS) is charged with developing and executing a communication plan that describes the organization's reasons and goals for undertaking a business process transformation initiative. In many ways, the materials distributed by the CS are the first contact that employees have with the project. Further, the CS is responsible for producing project information updates and working with the PMO and BPTT Lead to keep the key messages about the organization's business process transformation on employees' "radar".

* coming in Who Does What - #3

Who Does What? - #1

2008-06-27T03:14:00.000-07:00

ERP implementation or upgrade projects, in many ways, have a life of their own. While the team members may report to accounting, sales, procurement, receiving, or a warehouse for their daily work, they become separate from those departments when they join the project team. Yet, it is extremely important that the project continues to be part of the overall organization and aligned with the corporate strategy. To ensure that this occurs, an umbrella organization is created - the PMO or project management organization. Effective PMO groups assist communication between the project and the organization as a whole. The PMO also helps the business process and training team by removing obstacles and facilitating communication among the client subject matter experts, the functional and technical consultants, and the BPTT team members. Who are the individuals that comprise the PMO?

Project Sponsor
Steering Committee
Program Manager
Workstream or Track Leads
Key Stakeholders

Project Sponsor

The Project Sponsor, typically a Senior Executive, provides the top management support required to see the ERP project to completion. Not only does he or she gets approval for the project scope, timeline and budget, but ultimately is held responsible for the project’s success. Necessary skills include the ability to navigate the politics across company departments, key external stakeholders, and fellow executives. The Project Sponsor’s activities do not amount to a full-time role, but depending on the size and complexity of the project, this role may consume 25% to 75% of his/her time.

The Project Sponsor also provides guidance to the project team on strategy, direction, and issue resolution at a more hands-on level than is possible for the Steering Committee (see below). In conjunction with the Project Manager, project sponsors may have responsibility for managing external suppliers and negotiating internal resources. The Project Sponsor is also the second point of escalation with respect to significant project issues. Although the Project Sponsor may have the authority to resolve these larger issues alone, these decisions are typically ratified with the Steering Committee before distribution to the project team.

Steering Committee

Every ERP project requires senior level sponsorship and buy-in across the company. Done properly, Steering Committees give senior management the ability to oversee the project progress and in doing so, help garner their support and increase their understanding. Steering Committees typically meet monthly and review project progress, provide overall project guidance, and provide positive, visible support to the organization for the project. They ensure the implementation is consistent with both the strategic and technical business goals and they resolve major business policy issues and internal conflicts that impact the project. The Steering Committee also helps manage project scope and approves all scope changes impacting funding, timing, and project risks. They set overall goals, milestones, and performance criteria and secure and maintain resource commitments for funding and personnel.

Project Manager

Just as every ship needs a Captain, every ERP project requires a part to full-time Project Manager to direct the day-to-day activities. Working under the guidance of the Project Sponsor, the specific responsibilities of the Project Manager include:

Developing and maintaining the project plan, including milestones, checkpoints, and deliverables
Establishing the project team and project resources
Monitoring and reporting the progress and status of project activities
Managing project resources to see that all tasks are assigned to an appropriate resource
Leading status meetings with the overall Project Team, Track Leads, Management, and the Steering Committee
Resolving implementation issues, escalating as necessary to Project Sponsor and Steering Committee

Track (Workstream) Lead

Most projects of any size require multiple levels of management. The Project Manager manages the overall day-to-day activities for the entire project, but in the example of larger projects impacting multiple functional areas or multiple business processes (sometimes called workstreams), Project Track (or Workstream) Leads manage the day-to-day progress of each specific area. Project Track Leads can do much of the heavy lifting, with up to 75% of their time allocated toward detailed project work as opposed to managing the track. However, the larger the project, the more management takes precedent over specific project work effort.

The Track Leads ensure that project activities within a track are worked through to completion and on schedule. The Track Leads share responsibility for coordinating project activities with other team members, meeting with other members of the project team as needed to resolve issues, completing deliverables, communicating status, and escalating issues as necessary to project management. Each Track Lead is also responsible for specific deliverables in his/her area of expertise.

Key Stakeholders

What about Key Stakeholders? Stakeholders are organizations or groups internal or external to your company who have a positive or negative interest in the outcome of your project and may influence the success or failure for the project. Internal Key Stakeholders for an ERP implementation or upgrade project include the respective department heads (Procurement, Logistics, Manufacturing, Finance, etc.) or if your company is organized around business processes instead of functional departments, the executives in charge of Procure to Pay, Record to Report, Order to Cash, Supply Chain Planning and so forth. External Key Stakeholders usually include your audit firm, customers, suppliers, or other groups not in direct employment by your firm.

Ultimately your Key Stakeholders decide whether or not the project is a success. For example, if you implement your project on time and on budget, but the key users of the project (which are usually represented by your key stakeholders) hate the results, face it, the project is a failure. They may even sabotage the new business processes and related ERP Systems in an attempt to return to the old way of doing things. If the Key Stakeholders are your customers they may go to your competitors instead of using the newly implemented ERP System. Given the potential to determine success or failure they should be involved early in the definition and approval of the project. And as projects do not progress in a linear fashion, the expectations of the stakeholders must be continuously be realigned with the project progress.

Critical Success Factors

What factors make or break a project? How can the above PMO members help or hinder the outcome?
Too many times PMO sidesteps its basic objective for getting obstacles out of the way for the team members actually doing the work. Instead you may find the following issues, mistakes, and hidden agendas:

How can this project help my career or bonus or recognition?
If the project is going badly, can I blame someone else?
Nevermind the facts, why can’t that task be done as planned?
Or no the project is not under-resourced, we planned it that way. You just have to work weekends and overtime to get it done.
We need a new ERP system and the IT (information technology) project team will drive new business processes
I’ve always used that third-party provider as my PMO advisors. So what is they do not understand the underlying technology, project risks or related business process areas?
Why communicate to our suppliers or employees or customers? They are not part of the project team.
I’ve heard about this new method for running projects. Lets do it on this project starting immediately.

Does any of the above sound familiar? Here are some project success factors common to all effective projects:

Project objectives aligned with the company’s business strategy.
Strong project leadership with well-defined project plans.
Project tasks, resourcing and timelines agreed across the Project Management Organization.
Project Sponsor, Steering Committee, Project Manager, and Track Leads, with:

Common goals and objectives across the project team, supported by the Steering Committee.
Having communication strategies in place for both within and outside the project with regular communication to sponsors and stakeholders.
Commitment by all project team members, PMO and Key Stakeholders to the project.
With the ability to quickly spot and resolve issues; having decision-making capability.

So how would you set out to organize your project to avoid these mistakes?

Observations About ERP Implementations and Upgrades

2008-06-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since my March 2008 post, several of us have begun work on a book about business process transformation and training. It’s exciting actually to start collecting in one, single place all the different observations and lessons we’ve experienced over the years. We have agreed on the topics we plan to cover. We have a schedule, and hope that we can keep it despite the reality that all of us have paying jobs for which we are responsible. Finally, it was also decided that I would share snippets of our thinking here. The notion is that some of you might have input, comments, or feedback about what we are saying.

Whose Idea Was It, Anyway?

The idea of a book about business process transformation and training (BPTT) is the outgrowth of numerous discussions with clients, conversations with peers, research, and over 60 years’ collective experience consulting with organizations that are working to achieve better business functions, and, ultimately, sustain a competitive advantage. Throughout all of these activities, we discovered that we had some observations that have become conventional wisdom at FMT Systems.

Observation 1: A process that is defined poorly with no “buy in” from the affected stakeholders cannot be automated.

Observation 2: Business process transformation is about better customer interactions, improved efficiency, and superior decision making. It is not about software.

Observation 3: Employees will not embrace or learn new software, especially an ERP system, without understanding the business reasons and rules, as well as the processes, which drive it.

Observation 4: Once started, business process improvement is an integral part of all organizational programs that seek to increase competency, i.e., Lean Initiatives, activity based management, Total Quality Management, Business Intelligence Competency Centers, and Learning Organization programs, to name just a few.

Observation 5: Too many ERP implementations fail to achieve their potential and, as a result, fail to recoup the monies invested. Although there are many reasons for this, the key failure for many ERP projects is lack of project communication among the participants and with its shareholders and customers.

Observation 6: Unless the CEO and CFO are openly and completely committed to the success of the project, it will, without a doubt, fail! This one came from a colleague who reminded me that I had told him this very thing when he was the CFO of a manufacturing company considering an ERP implementation.

Do these ring true for you? What have you observed during your organization’s ERP implementation or upgrade?

In the coming weeks, I will post additional snippets from our discussions on methodologies, tools, insights, and case studies, as we continue our work on the forthcoming book. Perhaps these posts will assist you in finding your way through the business process transformation and training maze associated with ERP upgrades and implementations. I hope you enjoy this sneak peek at our work in progress and look forward to your comments.

When Companies Focus On Technology

2008-06-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

The April Baseline magazine was sent to the office a while ago. I was finally able to carve some time to read it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this magazine, it is published by Ziff Davis and its audience is senior IT professionals, i.e., managers, directors, IT/IS vice presidents, and CIO's. In its April issue, Baseline's cover story is about Symantec's ERP recovery.

This is an illuminating discussion about what can happen to an organization when it focuses on technology, rather than customers and business processes.

Customer Happiness and Business Processes

2008-03-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

Do your business processes help your customers do business with you?

Periodically I have been asked how FMT is able to compete with “the big guys.” After all, the company for whom I work is small. We have anywhere from 10 to 15 consultants on staff at any given time. The actual number depends upon the project requirements we have. So how does a firm like ours compete effectively?

I believe it is about focus, knowing what it is that we do better than anyone else. In our case, the focus is business process. While it is true that we work with our clients in a variety of ways – software consulting, education, training, metrics, business intelligence, and such; the focus of all those activities is: Process. It is all about how we help our clients get to a business process that makes doing business with them simpler and more satisfying for their customers.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Several years ago we worked with a small architecture firm in the Bay Area. They were competing for work that was also attractive to larger firms. Did this tiny firm win all of the bids they submitted? No, but they won about 35% of them. They were successful by having business processes that were focused on making their clients happy. One of the processes that their clients liked best was the ability to log in to a secure area on the firm’s Web site and access all the relevant documentation for a particular project, including specifications, renderings, building plans, and such.

Today such access might be considered mundane. In 1996, it was a client exciter! Suddenly it was no longer, “Did the delivery service driver get caught in bridge traffic? Did she have an accident? How long will we need to wait to see changes?” In addition to showing its clientele how customer focused the firm was, this process change affected the bottom line. It eliminated 90% of the firm’s delivery service charges and printing costs. Since the business process also shortened the cycle time for approval of revisions, billing went out more quickly reducing receivables aging and improving cash flow. Last but not least, the firm generated more business with their client base because they were perceived as “easy to do business with!”

Now we (architects and business process consultants) could have approached redesigning their business process from the viewpoint of reducing costs and maximizing revenue, but I doubt that whatever was developed would have made their clients as happy as this customer focused redesign did.

One of my main objections to ERP implementations and upgrades, as they are currently handled, is that they are viewed as technical exercises only. When they should be opportunities to improve not just an organization’s business processes but also refine those processes such that they increase the organization’s customers’ ability to transact business easily. Too often an organization’s employees concentrate on the mechanics of simply trying to automate a business process within the constraints of software (chosen by executives who will rarely use it) that the opportunity to improve the business process from the perspective of a “user experience” that is satisfying, and not frustrating, is missed.

Further, using ERP software to implement best practices begs several questions. Whose best practice? How long ago was it considered a best practice? Is there a recent innovation in best practice that is not included in the ERP software? From the viewpoint of customers who transact business with us, is this best practice for our organization? Expecting ERP software to improve an organization’s business processes can be fraught with disappointment. Better to redesign with customers’ ease and satisfaction in mind and address software later. The good news is that with the rise of SAAS (software as a service), automating business processes that incorporate the customer’s view may get easier.

I'd like to see what others think about this topic. Click the comment link below and let me know what you think.

Learning Styles: Do You Know Yours?

2007-10-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

If you have encountered a primarily tactile learner in one of your classes, the discussion in this post may be familiar. If you haven't worked with a kinesthetic learner, this post will be interesting because nearly 10% of all adult learners are primarily kinesthetic learners and their learning style is very different from those of us who learn visually or aurally. The simplest way to describe a kinesthetic learner is that she learns by performing the task, and not by watching someone do it or having an instructor describe it.

I am an aural learner for the most part. I hear something and retain it fairly easily. I was completely baffled the first time I had someone with a kinesthetic learning style in one of my classes. Further, this individual was dyslexic, which meant that I couldn't rely on visual learning as a solid back up strategy and her aural skills were weak.

What do you do in a situation like that? I experimented with a combination of classroom instruction and peer coaching, with the coaching portion scheduled first!

On a Larger Scale

Our client was rolling out a new, online employee expense tracking and reimbursement system. The training course that the training team had designed was 2.5 hours duration. As a consequent, we were delivering 3 classes each day in 2 rooms for 11 weeks to ensure that all employees were reached by the time the system was in place and the new policies and procedures were in effect. We had identified just over 200 employees who were tactile learners. Some of them were in the sales department. Others were in operations. A few worked in the warehouses.

We selected folks from the classes who were in the kinesthetic learners’ department to “walk” the tactile learners through the new system and have them perform the exercises we designed. We also suggested to the “coaches” that they be creative with the exercises. Once the coach observed that the learner was comfortable with the system, he was instructed to walk the learner through diagrams that we provided, which described the new policies and procedures. Finally, we enrolled the tactile learners in classes that occurred during the 9th through 11th weeks.

Granted, this was a solution that involved additional time –- from the instructional designers, the trainers, and the designated coaches. It worked, however. Our client’s workforce experienced less than a 10% drop in productivity with the new expense system. When you compare our client's productivity impact with the standard 25%, the additional time was cost effective.

I’ve seen numerous discussions about simulation software and its advantages for tactile learners, but we didn’t have it available then. Has anyone tried using simulation software for training kinesthetic learners? If you have, post a comment here. It would be useful to hear about how it worked.

ERP projects and business process

2007-07-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

Perhaps some folks who read this blog will be aware of the work of Dr. Thomas H. Holmes and Dr. Richard H. Rahe. I came across their research on life events and their effects for the first time in the early 1980’s. Holmes and Rahe created something called the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). It is a list of 43 most universal events that may occur in a person’s life and can cause stress. Each event is assigned a numerical value called a Life Change Unit (LCU).

The feature that caught my attention with these events is that major business readjustment (i. e., reorganization), addition of a family member, and sexual difficulties all have the same LCU value, 39. Pregnancy has an LCU of 40, while a major change in responsibilities at work has a value of 29. Now Holmes and Rahe maintained that if, over 12 months’ duration, the total LCU value of events in an individual’s life exceeded a value of 150, there was a 51% increase in the possibility of stress related illness.

If one person in an organization experiences illness due to work-related stress, how will that affect productivity overall? The effect may be minimal. If several are affected, a definite drop in productivity can, and probably will, occur. A colleague on a mail list that I subscribe to made the following observations, which relates tangentially to the stress-illness discussion.

What I have experienced first hand, is that companies that stress a good life/work balance have employees that... in short, are in-love with their companies.

By in-love, I mean that they exude an enthusiasm for their work and their company that is infectious. Working with such employees is energizing, I walk away from such encounters as an advocate for the company.

On the flip side, I worked with other well-known companies in which the employees see themselves as victims of their [company’s] policies. The guilt of missing a baseball game or time with their families feeds a poison which also is infectious and permeates their work and culture. I walked away from these experiences with a bad taste in my mouth, which follows me when I encounter the company’s products or services.

While Jeff is talking in terms of life/work balance, I think that this is a significant component of the work-related stress discussion. In an ERP implementation (or migration or upgrade) there is no work-life balance! Teams, both the client’s and the consultants, are working incredible amounts of hours in a day, easily 10 to 14. This isn’t for one day or a week or a month. This schedule can last for several months, sometimes a year. I’ve watched project managers praise the efforts and accomplishments of these teams. What I haven’t observed is their recognition of the stress involved when a parent must bring a child into work at night because the team must make a deadline and there is no one at home.

In the last couple of days a several colleagues have sent e-mail reminding me that either “we change and grow or stagnate and die.” I am in complete agreement. As I mentioned in my earlier post, change is necessary. For companies to sustain their competitive advantage, business change and transformation are crucial.

What I am questioning is: Do we have a responsibility, as trusted advisers and consultants to companies that are embarking on programs designed to bring more change, and therefore stress, into their employees’ lives, to help management appreciate, plan for, and take action regarding mitigation of the more destructive effects of the stress that can arise from constant business change and process improvement?

As always, I am interested in knowing what you think of this discussion. Feel free to respond here or send me e-mail at faun@fmtsystems.com

This is about you

2007-05-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

While I am mulling over various ideas for another post or two, I thought you might be interested in knowing about where the Learnng ERP Systems blog readers are located. Perhaps those of you familiar with blog analysis services are aware that information about site visits and RSS feed subscriptions can be gathered.

I use Feedburner and Feedblitz as their services work together to provide a rounded view of who vists or subscribes to the blog. There is an image that I took today that shows visitors' city locations, based upon IP address. The larger text indicates that the blog received more visitors from that locale.

The interest in learning about ERP Systems is global. That's pretty cool!

For those who celebrate Africa Day, happy greetings. For those in the US, have an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. Happy Independence Day to all in Jordan. Happy Spring Bank Day (on Monday, 28 May) to everyone in the UK.

Change is inevitable. Struggle is optional.

2007-05-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

I saw this at the bottom of someone's e-mail message this morning and it started several threads in my brain. We'll see if I can weave those threads into fabric.

The discussion of the last week has been about companies and their un/willingness to assist their employees with managing the amount of change that occurs in the workplace. Thanks to Dorothy, Michael, and George for raising some important issues. Dorothy suggested that an organization's success with change would be enhanced if employees are given a voice about impending change as well as a choice. George questioned whether or not this kind of an approach is feasible or even realistic.

Strangely, I worked on an implementation several years ago (1998-99 time frame) where the employees were given the opportunity to vote on software system selection. It was a dead heat between PeopleSoft and Oracle. The controller cast her vote last and it was for Oracle, which was the system this organization implemented. While some of the human resources employees felt that PeopleSoft would have been a better choice for their department, they accepted the direction toward Oracle and set about to make it work for them.

You might think that the employee voting process would lengthen the decision cycle. It didn't. Information about each system, including excerpts of the RFP responses from each company, important features, and functional gaps were made available to employees in advance of the voting. The length of the decision cycle was close to the average for the particular industry.

I think that the voting had an unexpected benefit; these employees looked forward to learning about the new system! They were a delight to train because they were curious, engaged, and eager for knowledge. Did the implementation of the Oracle Financials and HRMS have some bumps? Of course it did. They all have bumps of one sort or another.

The struggle, however, was very low compared to other implementations on which our team had worked.