Plato's Revenge

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) - mutual benefits requires mutual trust and responsibilities

2012-01-14T10:39:00.001+11:00

BYOD is all about the mutual benefits (WIIFM) for the organisation on the one hand and the employee on the other hand.We change from personal computing to personalised computing.

Companies have started implementations of a BYOD strategy. There are a variety of reasons why you would want to do this:

Young people have grown up with personal computing at school and at home. They expect their new employer to be flexible in that respect and meet their individual demands. A corporate provided device might not be as powerful and up to date as what employees have at home and expect to be available at work. In order to attract skilled Gen-Y employees, you just need to meet their demands. For example, I was explained that one organisation setup a new office in Asia and BYOD was the basis for the provisioning of PC's for that office. Specifically if you start fresh, you have the option to create the corporate culture and define the type of employees you want to attract.
On the other hand, employees like to use the extra capabilities that mobile devices bring while this is not strictly a requirement of the employer. For example, I like to have my work and private calendar integrated on my smart phone so I always have a complete overview of my appointments when away from my desk. I also like to check in the morning what the day has in store for me before I go to work. Linking my personal phone to the corporate network allows me to do this without carrying multiple devices around. It is the reversal of the coprorate issued device that also can be used for private use.
Strongly related to this is that employees and business managers feel more and more that they should decide what technology (including type, brand, make and model) is best suited to perform a certain task and that this should not be driven by the IT department.
The ability to reduce the number of devices that people use and carry around as a response to the increased number of devices that are available such as smart phone, tablet, notebook or PC while providing a single point for private and business use.
Another reason is that there are more and more devices and all in different variations. Besides that people have preferences for the make, model and type, the different devices also have there strengths for different business purposes. Managing all those different types of devices makes it expensive for the IT department to support.
BYOD inherently increases the mobility of the work force and also has the side effect that the IT department will be able to provide coprorate issued mobile devices easier because much of the technical procedures and infrastructure will be in place.
BYOD is sometimes also seen as a business opportunity to reduce costs. However I am not really clear whether this can or should be a driver of the strategy. BYOD is all about "what's in it for me" (WIIFM). If the company tells employees to use their own device for business purposes, employees will be quickly to respond with the question for the company to sponsor the device. WIIFM in this case goes both ways. As an organisation you look into the benefits why you would support BYOD and employees will chase their own benefits.


Photo and skin design by Claire Sambrook

IT departments have long resisted employees to bring their own technology. One of the reasons is that they can expect in the end that they will need to support technology with which they have limited skills and knowledge and have no arrangements in place with suppliers with respect to support and spare parts. Another reason has been the security of corporate data and the risk that virusses and other malware could infect the corporate network via the device that is not under control of the IT department. And finally the business risk that information is leaked or compromised.

However, these days BYOD is more opportune, considering that:

people are getting more savvy with respect to the management of these devices (young people have been responsible for their laptop since high school);
the stability of the operating systems has increased signficantly over time;
devices have a shortened lifespan;
the recplacement cost is relatively low compared to maintenance costs which means if there are hardware issues, very quickly a full replacement is the most cost effective strategy (have you ever had a hardware issue with your iPhone? - Apple will not try to fix it and simply gives you a new one);
advancements in mobile device management technologies allows the IT department to excert sufficient control over the device to protect corporate data and distribute required business applications (the app store concept is a popular for this);
advancements in remote access technologies, virtualisation technologies and security technologies make access to business data and business systems possible via any device anywhere and in a controllable and secure way,

Taking the above points into consideration, it means that in certain circumstances it makes sense to use personal devices for business use.

Mutual benefits brings also mutual responsibilities. The company can expect the employee to ascertain that the device will work according to predefined requirements and that this will become an integral part of the employees responsibility to perform his job. The company will be responsible for assuring that the technical environment facilitates this and that for example the employee's privacy and control over the device is warranted. Though there is much to do around the technology for BYOD, it is foremost about policies and procedures.

The employee is expected to assure that the company's data, operation and reputation is not at risk, but the company must basically assure the same with respect to the employee's private data. If I allow my employer to install mobile device management software on my device, how will the company give confidence it will not access my private emails and that it will not erase my data on the device without my permission?

The key to all this is a mutual agreement between employee and employer about the use. Policies in combination with signed agreements will control the implementation of BYOD. The agreement supported by policies between employee and employer will cover:

for whom and when BYOD will apply (you will have different rules to allow people to connect their smart phone to access email and calender compared to the use of a personal laptop instead of a coporate provided PC);
the employee will be responsible to assure that he has a device available according to certain specifications that operates correctly so he will be able to perform his job - the specification should not say exactly what brand, make or model but more about its capability (e.g. ability to run MS Office 2010, memory capacity, speed, etc.);
how the original device is funded (you consider that the employer pays for the original device such as a laptop but that ownership is with the employee - if the employee leaves the origanisation within say 3 years, the employee will pay the employer a pro rata fee - the employer funds to a maximum value but the employee can of course contribute as well to buy something more advanced or powerful than strictly would be required for the job);
how hardware issues are resolved (e.g. employee needs to take the device to the original store) and how a replacement device is funded (e.g. employer could contribute a first time within a certain time period such as 3 years and in all subsequent cases the employee is fully responsible);
the employee agrees that specified software is installed on the device and that the employer can control at least that corporate software, data and connectivity with the network;
the employer agrees that the personal data remains private and won't be accessed by the employer.

The above is more specifically written towards a device that is required to perform the duties of the job. In other cases, the own device is just an "extra" device such as in the example I gave earlier. Though I can do my job very well without a smart phone where I have personal and company calender integrated, I personally feel it makes my life easier and therefore feel that I function better with this solution.

If you expect employees to use their own device for business purposes, you can expect you will need to pay for this. And since there are also new technology controls that you need to put in place, cost savings might not always directly be achieved. On the one hand, you avoid buying a personal and corporate device so between employee and employer, money is saved. On the other hand you will introduce additional devices. While in the past you provided the employee only with a PC, now you will provide a smart phone, a tablet and whatever the future has in store for us.

There are a few items you need to look into specifically such as software licenses.The device will come with its own operating system, but other software such as MS Office software require a bit more thought. Does your license agreement allow you to install your licensed software on a device not owned by your company?

Another item to consider is the support process. For what issues can the employee call the IT support desk and what issues would they need to resolve themselves? What if the device is not working? Will you provide the employee with a temporary replacement device?

There are different levels and ways to implement a BYOD:

as a replacement strategy for the necessary corporate device such as the PC or laptop where the employee will own the device instead of the company;
as an additional device that assists with mobility where this is not strictly required (e.g. a smart phone or tablet);
the employee picks the brand, make and model but the company still owns the device (not strictly BYOD);

Technically, you can implement the BYOD in a variety of ways and they will also depend on the type of device and what it is used for. In reality you will find that you will need to provide a mix of the various solutions.

For example for a laptop, you can use an installed virtual environment that comprises the full business environment. The advantage is that the virutalisation technology hides the acutal hardware from the corporate SOE and therefore you can still provide the SOE to the employee. In addition to the virtualisation technology such as from Citrix, you might need additional software to remotely manage this installed virtual environment on that device. The benefit of this whole solution is that the virtual installed environment is a blob on the device and is fully secured and isolated from the normal private use. Since you can always set the virtual environment to always go to sleep, starting this environment can go extremely fast and therefore not impact the user experience. Within the virtual environment, a VPN connection can be made to the corporate network. To certain extend, this solution is more secure than an employer provided laptop that is also used for private use.

The benefit of an installed virtual environment compared to remotely accessing Citrix with installed desktops and installed applications, is that you can also use it when you don't have an Internet connection and you avoid potential problems due to slow Internet speeds. But depending on the intensity and the requirements, standard remote access to a Citrix environment can be the or be part of the solution. The benefit in that case is that not data is stored on the device.

For other devices such as smart phones and tablets, other mobile device management solutions are required. In many cases the use of business data is limited to email, calendar and contact data and then the issue is limited to assuring that this happens in a secure way, enforce pass code to use the device and to assure the company has the option to wipe out the corporate data in case the device is lost. In a large number of scenarios we talk about the "additional device". However the technology and solution would in essence be the same when the device is a coprorate provided device. In the latter case the question is than if the device can also be used for private use. In order to control the corporate interest, mobile device management software can be used.

Similarly to the laptop with the virutalisation solution as described before, you would like to segment the private and corporate use on the mobile device and assure that unauthorised access to this is blocked and that corporate data does not leave the corporate segment. It will depend on the device and the mobile device management solution that you use and how this will be done. Technically you can consider (this won't be an exhaustive list):

Controlling the network connections (e.g. to which Wifi and Bluetooth networks you can connect and how)
Use of separate (Wifi) networks for private and corporate devices
Encrypting data transmission
Encryption of corporate stored data on the device
Enforcement of pass codes and controlling the complexity of those
Virus protection
Considering if you allow the native email client to be used for private and corporate use or enforce the use of separate email clients
Similarly for other applications: use different applications for corporaate and private use
Segmentation of data stores for corporate and private files/data
Controlling which apps can be installed, how, when and by whom
Block untrused devices such as jailbroken devices from the network
Remote wiping of the whole device versus wiping the corporate data only
Remote backup of the device or treating the device as a consumption device only (does not contain newly created data in any significant way)
Enforce user authentication for applications that connect to the business systems each time that these are activated
For iPads and iPhones: on which computer iTunes runs (corporate or home)

The IT department ideally replicates what they can do with the Blackberry and its BES server where IT has full control over the mobile device. In that sense, the Blackberry is the ideal corporate issued mobile device. However for BYOD you need to give up some of the control in order not to negate the benefits of BYOD and accept a certain level of responsibility of the employee. Technically it also will become more and more difficult to control everything. The IT department is in that sense not much different than governments trying to control the Internet. Due to the fast technical changes and use of the technologies, technical control is always running behind. The solution must primarily sought in rules and regulations.

Another typical issue is that Apple made consumer devices and made them purposely simple. It means that there much you cannot do with respect to configuration. This is core to the success of Apple's products. But this is exactly why IT departments found it difficult to control security for the devices. Andoids are again the opposite and very open technically. This allows for more options to create technical solutions to control the device, but on the flip side the nature of the device is much less secure. While IT vendors are resolving the issue for Apple's products, other technologies will emerge for which you won't have an answer.

The new technology for mobile device management is all brand new and companies only now start using it and building up experience while vendors still need to address teething problems. With the speed of the developments and the fact that many companies have started to look into BYOD, I think that vendors will soon have resolved these teething problems and that organisations will have developed mature strategies and managemet models.

The consequence is that IT for organisations will have radically changed and that we have shifted from personal computing to personalised computing.

Microsoft, ultrabooks, BYOD and the battle for the business-consumer devices market

2011-12-04T20:47:00.000+11:00

Apple has gained much market share with its iPads. People enjoy the power of a light and easy to carry device and have the power of the web at hand without the size limitations of the smart phones.

However a key criticism for many is that though it is good for information consumption and communication, it is not well suited for data entry and information processing. The new ultrabooks with which also Apple set the trend with its MacBook Air, are a good alternative. A laptop that is easy to use and easy to carry around.

I expect that the big thing for the future will be a powerful tablet that you use as the tablet as you do now, but to which you can add a lid as keyboard to turn it into a laptop.The ultrabook that you then have created has the benefit of making a data connection over the air (3G or 4G) where current ultrabooks only support Wifi. And when you connect it to your docking station and the larger monitor it has turned into a desktop.

Photo by intelfreepress

It will have some limitations with respect to data storage and devices such as CD drives. CD's are on their way out. Data will be available in the cloud or on separate storage devices at home or in the office. Besides the weight and size for data storage will continue to become smaller.

The only thing we need is something physical with dimensions in order to read or enter data. The question is whether we need to carry processing capacity with us or if that would move into the cloud as well.

A single device that transforms itself depending on how it will be used requires an operating system that adjusts itself to this context. I think that Microsoft is following the right direction and if they do this well, they might become a fierce competitor of Apple again in the smart phone and tablet market. Though the concept of an OS that either allows entry via a touch screen as with a tablet or entry via a mouse and keyboard and an OS that targets both consumer and business users is a concept that all manufacturers will have thought of by now, so they should not wait too long. Because people start merging business and private use, you see that Microsoft is slowly losing ground in the business space.

The benefit is that they have a strong foundation in the business space so if they can deliver the same or better experience as the iPad delivers without compromising capabilities for office use and provide all the integration required for business use, they might come back very strong.

Though we might not respect Apple always for its production practices, Steve Jobs and friends did us a great favour to push this consumerisation of technology ahead. A benefit of all these changes is that the operating system finally is becoming a good end-user tool (see also post "Why everyone should get a degree in IT"). We have exciting times ahead and every year we will have some great new toys for under the Christmas tree. What about the new Kindle Fire? The prices are just getting better.

There will always be room for a differentiation between pure consumer products and business products. But we don't want to walk around with two devices. Those people that would need to manage information for business use and like to be productive while away from their desk, they will want a device that can be used for work and privately. As is normal practice now, some people will get a device from work. However, personal preferences will need to be considered (see also post "Forget governance, I want iPhone"). But of those who do not necessarily need one and the company will not provide one, there will still be a group who want to be able to access business data while away from their desk or travelling. BYOD (bring your own device) is becoming a key strategy for businesses to implement.

Why IT Managers are getting tired of "the Cloud"

2011-11-01T10:41:00.000+11:00

I noticed recently that CIO's and IT professionals will roll their eyes when you mention the word "cloud" as if they had enough of the term and the hype around it.

Though most of us all acknowledge that these new technologies and services provide great opportunities, in general most feel that the term is overused and that in many cases reality is not as simple as vendors seem to make it be.

What the CIO's and IT professionals see is that the world goes around in circles and that they need to explain the hidden complexities of the reality of cloud computing. And this is not easy.

How foggy is the cloud?
The term cloud is used almost for everything and there are many definitions going around. First of all we see it being referred to as the Software as a Service solution such as Google Apps or Salesforce. But on the other extreme I heard it to being referred to as your internal virtualisation of your own servers in the context as private cloud.

Gartner defines "Cloud Computing" as "A style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to customers using Internet technologies."

And it defines "Private Cloud" as "a form of cloud computing where service access is limited or the customer has some control/ownership of the service implementation."

How generic are those definitions? "Using Internet technologies"? Yes, I can use Intenet technologies on my standalone computer network at home and have it disconnected from anything else in the world. Are we going to call that cloud computing or private cloud?

For example I have been explained that one organisation wanted to have a cloud solution but wanted to keep the data within its own walls. The vendor therefore placed it's own servers with the application in the datacenter of it's client and managed the application remotely. Isn't that just a managed service? What's so cloudy about this?

Another definiton can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

Personally, my opinion is that many of the cloud options are simply variations to the traditional outsourcing that probably already existed since the first computer was created. I remember when I just started at Uni in the 80's that the mainframes we did our programming exercises on were owned and managed by the Academic Hospital across the road. SaaS was probably also introduced immediately with the inception of the Internet.

What I call a pure cloud service is when you access it over the public Internet, that everything you provide is standardised and, except for configuration, it is all exactly the same for other customers. As soon as you start customising the standard offering, your service moves into a different category.

The question remains than what it is that you buy in the cloud: data center, servers, operating system, application, managed support services, development services?

So what is the issue with the cloud?
So far so good. We introduced a new term for something that existed already for a while. But why do IT people get this tired look in their eyes when you mention the cloud?

One of the main challenges IT professionals within end-user organisations face, is the expectations of the business and executives have of the cloud. They see and hear the great stories of the vendors and see how easy it is to use Google Apps or Gmail. They hear about success stories of organisations who put all their email and and document management in the cloud. So why can't we do this? Then they have the experience with some offerings for example with the HR or Payroll systems where the application was easily implemented, hosted and supported by the vendor. So why can't we put the ERP system in the cloud? Or not all our infrastructure?

It is not about the legal issues and in which jurisdiction the data resides. Though these are issues IT managers will need to chase up, in the end it is considered to be a legal issue that the business needs to resolve.

Security is of course another concern. But let's assume that those issues can be overcome.

Payroll is for many organisations a standard process. The system, except for some configuration, does not require customisation and in fact the whole business process for Payroll can often easily be outsourced. But for the other business systems it is not that easy. Yes, Oracle would like to take ownership of your ERP system and they can provide services for that. But your ERP hardly ever stands alone and you will always have customisations. Handing over your ERP system to a vendor is not per se about where the system resides, but it is all about the managed services.

Due to the size of many ERP installations, a shared infrastructure does usually not apply and if you would do this, it would probably require a signficant modification to your system to accomodate for that. What you are left with is a shared data center.

Due to the customisations, a shared software installation of the ERP system would not be feasible and much of the real cloud benefits cannot be achieved.

Due to the size, complexity, customisations and integration with other systems, the vendor would need to setup almost a dedicated team to provide the support and development services for you.

What you are left with is still a dedicated system, hosted in another location and with a dedicated team to provide the services. In the end you need to evaluate all options against its merits which is not much different as we've been doing over the many years.

Another key issue is, and that is more of a concern to me, is that if you put a of variety systems in the cloud, you suddenly have a large series of vendors to manage. And you might expect that these systems one way or the other integrate. But what do you do when vendor A wants to upgrade their system and the solution managed by vendor B then also needs to change? It means all the iniatives of the various vendors need to be synchronised. You'll need quite a team to manage all this regardless of all the contractual issues to be addressed.

And what will you do with a custom built solution that tightly integrates with your ERP system? Say, you put your ERP in the cloud and it will be located somewhere at the other side of the world. Your bespoke solution requires each time to request data with twice the latency across the globe which will signficantly impact the performance of the bespoke system. Besides, if this access needs to happen over the public Internet, you will run into some reliability issues.

Besides the many problems technically, I also see that it over time it might financially not turn out to be optimal.

So why were they rolling their eyes again?
The problem that CIO's and IT managers face is trying to explain the complexities to the business without being seen as too protective and too resistant to change. They expect the world to go around in circles again. We've seen it with the client-server technologies. First everything was centralised, then decentralised and now centralised again. We probably start working with many different cloud providers. This then becomes inefficient and we then need to bring that together again.

Is it all that bad?
A good option of the cloud offerings are is that many business managers can put the serves in place without support of IT. This can really empower the business and make businesses much more agile. The flip side of this, is that organisations will have many contracts with vendors and that the left hand will not know what the right hand is doing. It might lead to a messy situation and subsequently over time a more centrally managed approach will be required.

But I do see a lot of good coming from the cloud services that emerge everywhere. First of all small and medium business have now access to solutions they otherwise would not be able to afford. I expect many niche solutions being developed and provided, that otherwise would not be marketable. For example when there is by itself a large enough group of customers but they are dispersed around the globe and in the traditionally way, it would not be profitable enough to market to them, they can now easily find you via an app in the iStore and viral promotion via social networks.

But also the services provided to larger organisations will benefit from this because in the end the existing offerings will become more efficient and cheaper. There will be economies of scale and there will be many standardised SaaS offerings that also large organisations can easily benefit from.

What will this lead to?
As a consequence, IT within organisations will change face (see also the article "The IT Jobs that Cloud Computing Will Create"). Technology itself will become more and more a utility and it will be much more about the business process, the feature or challenge that you want to resolve. The focus will be initially on managing the wild growth of various vendors and their services and to assure that these technologies will work in unison. I foresee changes in the IT roles required to manage all this.

Besides changing roles, I do foresee less technical roles within end-user organisations (I don't know whether the total number of IT staff will reduce, probably it will), a growth of roles with the service providers but this also will probably come with a concentration of those jobs in specific geographical locations.

For the techies amongst us there might be some hope that over time we will have so many mobile devices that the sheer amount of these might confuse the users and that they will need assistance with the use and configuration of those even if we can trust our vendors to improve the simplicity of it all. I just upgraded my OS on my iPhone but that process did not go that smooth and a less technical person probably would have given up or would have panicked. And the information that Apple provides at first hand about their iCloud offering is far from sufficient for me to decide whether I want to use it. I needed to go through some forums and blogs to get better insight.

How I promoted agile and the cloud a long time ago

2011-10-04T10:22:00.001+11:00

The other day I ran into an old article that I wrote in 1997 for the magazine "Informatie" in the Netherlands and for some reason, I also had an English translated version. The contents is still actual today, so I thought I publish this article here. The magazine does not exist anymore, so I hope that the publisher doesn't mind since it is now over 10 years old.

The first thing you will notice is that my English has improved over the years (I hope so!).This English version was never published and it seems to be more like a draft, but I left it as I found it even though it is a bit long winded. I promise you that the Dutch version was much better! A professional editor reviewed it anyway :-)

Click to enlarge

Secondly, the article is written in a period that many organisations still did not believe in the Internet or they wanted to do something but had no clue what. It was also a period that many people did not understand web technology.

The key thing what I promote here is what we call these days an agile development or project management methodology. Though for the purists it is better called an evolutionary or iterative approach. Central to the story is the pilot project which lays the foundation for the solution but is not complete and it might be clumsy with respect to features, commercial offering and technical implementation. But once you've gone live, you will have to gradually improve it through iterations where the IT team needs to work closely with the business team to progressively improve the system. I have limited myself to write this story for online systems but the agile vision tells us that the approach could just as well be taken for any application.

There is much criticism on the traditional waterfall methodology. I don't understand this. You need to use a methodology that is most appropriate for the situation and there are situations that the straightforward waterfall methodology works very well. Each iteration as I describe here goes through its own mini waterfall process.

Regardless how development will be done, I really prefer to have a very sold grasp on the scope of the project before I begin and that means ideally a full set of requirements. Though requirements can change during the project, it really helps to have a solid set of requirements to define which architecture you require and to give some expectations of time and budget. As we all know how it goes with budgets, once you mention one number, that is going to be it.

In her blog, Julie Zimmerman gives some good points regarding agile projects: http://projectmomblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-is-agile-not-agile.html

Over time, I have been successful running projects with an agile approach. But I must say that the success depends on the people you have and I am grateful to the fantastic people that I had in my projects. It all comes down to working well in a multi disciplinary team having developers, BA's and end-users working very closely together. In an agile project, they run the project much more than you as project manager.

Coming back to my article: Via an explanation of the technology infrastructure, I already promote the cloud as an option to consider. At least according to one of the many variations of the definition of "the cloud". I used the old fashioned term outsourcing for it.

It is funny to see how some things have changed (e.g. the uptake of Internet and Mobile technology) and other things not that much (e.g. we're still debating the cloud and agile; and definitely we too often do our first implementation in a clumsy way).

PS: If you don't want to read the whole article, you still might want to scroll down for the larger version of the diagram as depicted above.

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The growing pains of Web-projects

Contents

Introduction

Characterizing Web-systems

Why does a Web-project differ from a client/server-project?

How many Internet-projects started

The forces that act upon and within the project

You have to go Live on the Net with the pilot!

The overall project structure

The pilot project

The system architecture

Outsourcing the project (or rather not?)

Conclusion

Introduction

Internet projects differ from projects that develop internal information systems in a few aspects. Generally they are just system development projects for systems with a constant exposure to (potential) clients. This last element introduces the specific flavor. The Web-site should constantly be attractive and change. Also the business goals and gains are not clear. In this article we discuss the development method for Internet systems that need a database and a Web-application to accesses the database. Internet-sites that serve only static pages or Intranets are excluded. Intranets don’t have the constant exposure to clients outside the company. An Intranet project resembles more to a ‘normal’ client/server project. The same thing counts for Extranets, but everything depends on how much more diverse and big the user group is and the impact on the organization and the business. Basically it covers projects for electronic commerce on the Internet.

This article treats some experiences with starting an Internet project for the first time and what problems and obstacles can be expected. I hope to show that you have to face these problems and should not take an defensive attitude towards Internet activities, but take the time to find your place in cyberspace. You’ve got to play the game if you want to win.

Characterizing Web-systems

Information systems using Web-technology can be divided according to some characteristics. A primary distinction can be made between public and private systems. Intranets and Extranets serve a limited and known group of users. You do not have to attract people to your site by adding new features and changing contents all the time. Intranets serve an inter-organization task and people need to use it according to their work-tasks. For Extranets this counts just as well, but when it serves clients it needs more attention. With an (open) Internet application however, you serve the whole Internet community. People are not forced to access your site and therefore you need to attract people constantly.

A second important distinction has to be made between sites that just display static HTML and images and the ones where data from a database is accessed. The typical Home-pages of companies are in general based upon static HTML-pages with images. It can be characterized as a form of advertising. It is general accessible on the Internet, the data is not based upon a database and it does not serve transactions. A search-engine or a Yellow Pages Web-site is on the other hand based upon structured data in a database and serves a combination of advertising (adverts of companies) and publishing (publishing the directory).

A third distinction is the distinction between just retrieving data from a database (e.g. the Yellow Pages) and supporting transactions. An example of the latter one is a Web-site where people can actually order physical products (Pizza’s, CD’s).

A fourth distinction can be made based upon the amount of data that can be accessed. Choices for investments and technology can differ a lot for cases where you have a large database or a small database. You get quite a different project when you want to make a product-ordering system for a company that sells 150 different products, then when you build a system for a publisher that wants to publish it’s 100 terabyte database with articles and books via the Web.

A last distinction can be made between advertising and actual publishing, although the difference might not always be clear. Most Home-pages can be seen as a form of advert (who are we, what are we doing, how can you reach us). When you start placing complete articles, magazines or books on the net, it will become some kind of publishing.

The method that is discussed here serves public and database driven Web-projects.

Why does a Web-project differ from a client/server-project?

As soon you make an application on the Web that is accessible to anyone in the world, you need to change it continuously without being off-line. Just as with the Intranets and Extranets, the first step is a small project that in only a very short time results in a first prototype. Often this prototype is then placed on the Net. From that moment, you started doing ‘business’ on the Net and so you can’t take it off-line anymore. The fact that it is a prototype and therefore has a limited functionality, means that you need to improve it quickly. This needs to be done with small pieces each time. You are doing maintenance and upgrades almost right from the beginning. And you do it in a business environment where the goals and gains are not clear. Therefor you need to follow a true evolutionary way of developing. This situation creates a specific project structure. For such a project you need a new methodology and a different way of working.

There are already a couple of methods that describe the evolutionary way of developing. Because they are general development methods, it leaves you also with a lot of questions. Which modeling techniques do I use for Web-pages with frames and Java-applets? How do I control the project planning when priority for new functionality and requirements change every week? And, how do I transform this quickly built prototype into a professional system that can support our business? It is quite a challenge to manage and control the project, that is constantly changing in a constantly changing environment.

How many Internet-projects started

Somewhere around 1995 the Internet started to become the new technology in the IT-world. At least everyone talked about it and in 1997 most bigger companies had their Web-presence with an own domain. But still, for most managers, including IT-managers, it was not clear what you should really do on the Web. The Web and Web-technology evolved in an incredible speed. Although most managers had the feeling that they should get on board of this fast moving train, they did not have a clear idea what to do on the Web and how it would influence their business. Often it was the sales and marketing people who found the first practical uses for it. It was sometimes referred to by them, that this was finally a new technology for which they did not need the IT-department. The first Web-sites of companies were therefore often built by sales and marketing people with some whiz kids. The IT-department was only partly involved.

But as soon the Web-site became a success, it needed a continuation. This meant more hardware and software investments and the playground had to become a project of the IT-department. And now the trouble started. IT-personnel had to learn new technology and had to respond more quickly to the demands of the marketing people. Where before the difficult demands of the users within the organization could be fended off with arguments like the budgets and the ‘choices of the management’. Now serious demands came that needed to be realized instantaneously, because the Web-site influenced directly clients and thus business results.

Although the situation described here is not exactly true for all companies and Web-projects it is true that the takers of the initiative of the Web-site usually have to start with a limited budget and have to show in a very short time what they have in mind. And indeed, with modern technology you can create a Web-application in a few weeks that sometimes leads to completely new businesses or companies. But the drawback is that this pilot system is often not fit for maintenance and forthcoming functionality. When new changes and developments come not as quickly as the first successes, the clients and the company directors get easily disappointed. However, it is a fact of life you have to deal with as a taker of the initiative. Unless you know exactly what is needed and get all the budget straight from the beginning. But as it happens a lot in the field of information system development, “users only know what they want when they see it”. The pilot system has to evolve gradually, although you would rather rebuild it completely. But you won’t get the time for it and you can’t take the system off line anymore. And more problematic, you don’t know exactly in advance what technology you need and what development effort is involved. So you can not make a reasonable estimate of the project costs.

The forces that act upon and within the project

Besides the fact that you have to find out how to use the new medium for your existing business, the Internet makes it also possible to get into new sorts of business activities. The Internet reduces physical distances and makes it possible, not only to acquire new clients, but also to let them browse through your products and services and let them actually order the product or services and even perform the complete (business) transaction including the payment. This changes the way of doing business radically. Also the Internet reduces differences between business activities. For example the differences between advertising and publishing is reduced.

These fast changing and unclear markets do not make it easier for the company’s management-team to define their new position. For the Web, companies need to redefine their ‘core activities’. What should you do and what should you not do on the Internet. How important is it now and how important will it be in 5 years? How is the world going to be in 5 years?

This unclear business-context of the project makes it, that the management is very reluctant in providing the necessary financial means (this is generally more true in Europe than in the North America). The Web-team needs to make the necessary investments while it might take some years before the Web-site becomes profitable. And there are surely no guarantees!

Because you go live quickly with the pilot, you get besides positive reactions from clients negative reactions because the application does not work as perfect as they might have hoped. You must take account of the fact that your Web-application will be more off-line than you think you can afford. The technology is very new and changes every day. A Web-application uses different sorts of software of different suppliers. The Internet-software industry is the most unpredictable and booming industry of the moment. Suppliers will release software that is not as robust and tested (more bugs then ever before!), just to beat the competition. The project-team does not get the time to build a well defined, tested and modeled application; sales and marketing will have continuously new demands and wishes. It does not get the right means; too small computers, not enough people and not the right software. As far as you make a nice time and resource plan, you will find that it needs to be changed almost every day. You do not deliver the new functionality in time and you will find yourself spending more time in keeping your pilot-application alive, then spending it in rebuilding the system with a better concept and architecture. Although you have learned from the mistakes, you find that you don’t have the time and the means to rebuild the system with your new insights.

You have to go Live onthe Net with the pilot!

All together there are different forces working upon and within the Web-project. You can expect a lot of problems. This foresight might make you come to the conclusion that you better wait with the Web-project or do the pilot but not make it accessible on the Internet. But the contrary is advised. You need to do the pilot. And you need to make it live on the Net. This is the only way to evaluate and learn what kind of business you have to do on the Web. What technology you need, how the technology works and what kind of project-organization you need. If you keep it only local, for example on the Intranet, you will never experience what a real Internet exposure means. And you want to experience and evaluate this. The Web is changing business and markets dramatically. As sure as there are many threats, there are even more opportunities.

The key factor here is to do some experience with the pilot on the Internet, but you need to have the discipline to introduce a break in the whole process and invest the time and means to rebuild the application according to the new insights. The IT-people as well as the marketing-people in the Web-team must realize that this is really necessary. If you are capable of getting the two disciplines in line even though there are so many uncertain factors, you will find that you get into a challenging market where your personal ideas and actions can have great influence on the companies well being.

The alternative, not doing the Web-project is probably no alternative at all. In that case you will not get the right experience and you will be too late to acquire the right position on the Internet-marketplace.

The overall project structure

Because with the Internet most companies step into a new world and because they have to use new technology and start doing business in a new way, it is wise to find out what is involved and get some experience with it. If it is not for this reason, it is for the earlier mentioned reasons that the Internet project starts in the form of a pilot. The pilot that actually is placed on the Net and that is being accessed by Internet users, is no pilot anymore. It is a live system. From that moment all new developments are in fact maintenance. The ‘owners’ of the system (most often product or marketing managers; from now on they are referred to as the product manager) are demanding new features and changes continuously. It is “not done” to keep a Web-site completely unchanged for a longer period. At least the visual look and feel should change every once in a while. To be able to serve all these requests, you need to treat each request as a little project. The system evolves in a real evolutionary way.

The requests are evaluated and processed by the project manager (the Information Architect). With his knowledge of the technology and the business needs, he can see how and when the requests can be realized. Together with the product manager he analyzes the request. When needed, he asks assistance of project members who can add their specific skills. To realize some requests, new IT-means have to be acquired. When he has a clear idea about all that is involved in realizing the new functionality, he sees which project members can do the job, acquires the optional needed hardware and software, defines a plan for executing the request and adapts the project plan.

The project plan will be changed constantly. For each new request it is decided what priority it has. New high priority request delay other requests. You can expect that there are times that the plan is changed every week.

The pilot project

The first initiative for the Web-application will usually be in the form of a pilot project that has to result into a pilot system. The goal of the pilot is to find out more precisely what functionality is needed, to find out what kind of user interface (layout, look and feel) is appropriate and to get acquainted with the technology.

The pilot will give the product manager an idea how the system will work and look like and gives an opportunity to get some practical experience and input from end-users or clients. Also some experience has to be obtained with merging editorial elements within the application and Web-site. The editorial elements are the ‘static’ text and graphical elements that completes the Web-application. Within a Web-site there will be places that give information that is not obtained from the database per se. This is for example some advertisements, some ‘hot news’ or some articles. They are added, changed and removed by hand by the editor of the Web-site.

An important goal of the pilot is to get acquainted with the technology. Because the technology is very new (and it will always stay new because it changes so quickly) you need to get some experience with it. You have to find out what components (hardware and software) are needed and what actually is involved. Sometimes you need to acquire new hardware systems with which you do not have any experience yet and you might want to obtain a new database management system and programming tools. Also you have to find out how you want to protect your Web-system and your corporate systems from the outside world. All these things will become more clear after the pilot.

You might want to put the pilot system live on the Internet and actually use it commercially. You can do this for various reasons, like being the first on the Net with this kind of service or application. As mentioned before, this has some implications. The system is probably not optimal. The code is probably not very clean, due to the fact that the programmers needed to learn the new programming language and tools and had to build the application as quick as possible. The developers might have lots of problems on maintaining the system. You also might have come to the conclusion that the chosen technology was not the best and maybe you want to use other hardware or software for the next releases of the system. This can mean that in spite of the fact that the pilot was developed in a very short time, improving the system and making a second release will take much more time then first expected. From a technical point of view it is sometimes best to redo just everything. From a product marketing point of view it might be really necessary to spend all the efforts in creating new features and add-ons to the pilot system. The trick is to find a good balance between the two forces and putting all arguments into the right perspective.

The system architecture

The pilot system was build with some technology of which you did not know if it would be the right one. Also the architecture (components; how they are put together; installation and parameters of the hardware and software; database structure; program structures; etc.) of the system is probably not optimal. Most companies do not know in advance what the benefits of the Web-site will be. Usually you will have an idea that it is important or that it will become important in the future, but you do not know exactly what it actually will mean in financial terms. Therefore you start the pilot with a limited budget.

The project starts with the minimal number of components that is needed. But what is minimally required? You need a connection to the Internet. This is usually a rented line with a modem of some kind of some network provider (for example a telephone company). Second you need a router that performs the network switching service. But you can also let your provider perform this task. Besides the router, you need a Domain Name Server (DNS) that translates logical names of nodes in the Internet (like www.antares.nl) to IP-numbers (like 123.456.23.2). The IP-numbers are the actual identifications of computers within the Internet. Then you need at least the Web-server itself. Your Web-application is located on the Web-server. But when you publish a great amount of data on the net, you might need to place all this data on a separate machine: the database-server. And also you need a Mail-server. It is required because your network provider and the domain name registry need to be able to contact you (at least this is the case in the Netherlands). However, all these server-functions can be merged into one single computer. But it very much depends on your specific situation if this is advisable. Altogether you might need to invest in more than one computer.

Then you need some software. The router has its own particular software. The Web-server needs a program that supports HTTP, the protocol for the Web. Then you need some system to manage your application data. For this, it is best to use a commercial available relational database management systems. And at last, you need a programming tool with which you make the application that can be run via the Web and that can perform transactions on the database.

Most often you want to have your Web-application perform on a selection of your corporate data. And you want data obtained by the Web-application to be available for your corporate application (for example to send invoices). But because you don't want to expose your corporate system to the outside world, you will have to secure it. This can be done by a firewall. This means that the Web-application is not completely integrated in your corporate system. It has to be done by a secure interface. The configuration that results will look something like what is shown in the next figure.

Your Web-server, Internet Mail-server and domain name server (DNS) are located in a section outside the secure area (demilitarized zone). The outside world has read and controlled write access to these machines. Behind the firewall is the corporate local network. The firewall protects the corporate network form all access by the outside world. But from within the secure area, you are able to access the Internet. You can send Email to everybody on the Internet and you can access the World Wide Web. You can of course also access your own Web-server.

By means of the Web-application on the Web-server, you can give your colleagues access to the data that is obtained from the outside world. A part of all the functionality that you need on this data can be done with the Web-application. Another part needs an actual integration with your corporate system. For example, orders placed by clients have to be processed by your financial and stock management systems. This can usually be done in the safest way by regular downloads of data from the Web-server to the corporate database inside the firewall.

Another issue to be dealt with, is the fact that you want your Web-server 24 hours up and running. This means that you cannot afford any downtime. Therefore you need to make your Web-server failsave by doubling components. But it is also wise to have a (almost) complete mirror of the system. When you have to perform some maintenance tasks on the Web-server, you can quickly replace it by the mirror system. This mirror system can be the development machine on which you place a copy of the database of the Web-server on a regular basis. Even better is to have a separate test and backup server for this purpose.
In cases where your Web-database contains large amounts of data and you need to update this data on a regular basis, you might get into the situation that you cannot perform these updates on the same database that is accessed by the surfers on the Web. In these situations is the corporate database available for such updates outside the office hours. But because the Web-system is used 24 hours a day, this is not possible. A second server can be used to achieve a 24 hours availability for large databases with large updates. There are different technical solutions to do this. One is to do all the updates on the second machine and to do a backup and restore action to move the database to the Web-server. The Web-application is in that case not available for a short period of time. Another solution is, to perform the updates on the ‘disconnected’ database, then to switch the Internet access to this server and disconnect the not yet updated database. Then you perform the same updates on this database.

Making your Web-site have a good performance is a delicate matter. There are many aspects and components to consider when you want to improve the performance. First of all, there is the experienced performance by the people on the Web. But this is influenced by the performance of the Internet itself.

Second, you need to investigate what type of system you have. Is it a large database through which the Web-surfers browse but do not insert or update data? Or is it a system where people continuously perform database-updates. For example, in the case where people place orders to buy your products. And of course, the most important thing is to use the right hardware. Investing money in hardware is always cheaper then investing it in people (hours). Sometimes installing some extra memory, disk-space or buying a faster computer is the easiest and smartest thing to do. Also you need to configure your operating system and database management system the right way. All efforts have no use when this is not done properly. And then you have of course the application and data structure. With a good designed application and database, one can improve the performance enormously. It is very important to analyze the properties of the database management system and the programming language. Every SQL implementation is different, so study the effect of your queries and indexes. Also study how data manipulation (insert, update, delete) transactions with respect to locking mechanism is organized. When exploiting large databases, one can learn from theories in the field of Data Warehouses. In a Data Warehouse you introduce data redundancy to improve the queries. Because the data in a Data Warehouse is quite static, the extra costs during updates are accepted.

All this analysis must be done with respect to the number of page requests per minute that are performed on the server. Each page view can result into multiple database queries or transactions. What is acceptable in terms of milliseconds that are needed to generate the page, depends very much on the number of requests that are expected on your server. Is your goal to serve the whole Internet community like the popular search-engines such as Alta Vista and Yahoo, then executing a page request must be served more quickly then in the case when you expect about 10 visitors per hour. In the last case, you must place the page generation speed in perspective of the overall Internet performance. In the first case, you must make sure that each page request is dealt with within a fraction of a second, to be able to serve as much requests parallel as possible.

When your server gets bombed with requests, you can duplicate the system and distribute the requests equally over the servers. For really complex Web-sites that server different applications and tasks, it is wise to use dedicated server for each tasks. An advanced implementation of these kinds of Web-sites are called Web farms. A Web lets a corporation use all of its Web-sites as though they were part of a single system while at the same time letting each individual Web-site stay under the control of its local owner (from “Harvest profits from Web farms”, in: Datamation, march 1997).

Outsourcing or insourcing?

Besides new technology, you might be faced with new working hours and aspects in the field of human resources. Due to the fact that the Web-applications have to be up and running outside office hours, you need your system manager and web-master to do work on any time of the day. This means changing labor agreements.

All the new aspects on technology and organization together, make companies feel that they should outsource the technical part of the Internet activities. There are two aspects to this. First, is the outsourcing of the hardware, software and the Internet connectivity. Internet providers seem to be the most appropriate parties for this. This might be very well the best choice if you have a simple Web-application and easily to standardize services like email and newsgroups. When the focus lies on a complex Web-application you must be aware of the fact that the system management of the hardware and software are very intertwined with application development. And application development is again intertwined with business activities. These things have always been the case, but for Web-applications this is even more true. You cannot deny that business on the Internet is very much IT-driven.

An alternative is, to outsource the Internet activities to consultancy companies. They have traditionally focused on application development and business analysis. They can more easily support your specific business needs.

Outsourcing might be a very good option. However, if you do this in an early stage, your organization misses the experience of all that is involved. You get too easily in the situation that your partner needs to spend more money and time to serve you, than you think is necessary. And when you want to change your requirements constantly the partner will protest because it does not fit in the agreement. As long as you do not have your Internet activities well defined, you should be careful with outsourcing it. Insourcing, to get the right expertise in house for the moment, is a better option for the initial phase. If you do want to outsource, make sure that you do not lose your flexibility.

Conclusion

The Web is becoming the new medium for exploiting your business for the near future. Although the Internet is still slow, the necessary bandwidth will become available soon. This means that people and organizations will be surfing the Net daily. You have to prepare yourself now and get the right experience for electronic commerce on the Web. The challenge is to learn to manage the new technology and in the same time to find out what business activities you need to exploit on the Web and how to do this. Because there are too many variable and uncertain factors, you have to accept the growing pains that follow Internet projects. You have to learn while doing. This means that you have to go live with a pilot application on the Web of which you know that is far from optimal and that will raise expectations that you cannot meet. Most often, you can achieve in the beginning great results in a very short time. But the trick is to manage the phases that follow the initial pilot project. You will be faced with more and more investments in hardware, software and people, while the profits of your Web-application are almost zero. A clear view on a strategic level for the companies business on the Web is necessary, but is very hard to achieve because the Web is only there for a short while and nobody exactly knows what it will be and what it will do in a few years time. You need to organize your projects in a flexible and adaptable way. The technical and marketing people have to learn to work together, even though they might feel that they are frustrated in their work every now and then. A good understanding of the technical concepts of Web-applications is essential to be successful. Keep in mind that your business depends more and more on information technology. The (Informix) slogan “If you can imagine IT, you can manage IT” has basically been valid already for the last decades.

The author

Drs. H.D.Bouman RI is a consultant of Antares Informatisering B.V. in the Netherlands. He was and is involved as a project manager in different Web-projects, where amongst the Dutch Yellow Pages (www.goudengids.nl).

References

1. Bouman, H.D., OTIF - Een ontwerptechniek voor informatiefuncties in een 4GL-omgeving. Antares Informatisering B.V., Nieuwegein, 1996.

2. Tolido, R.J.H., IAD - Het evolutionair ontwikkelen van informatiesystemen. Academic Service, Schoonhoven, 1996.

3. Eskrow, D.,Harvest profits from Web farms. Datamation, martch 1997.

4. Bordeware Firewall - http://www.kaon.co.nz/border/border.html

Marketing for the management of IT

2011-09-01T08:41:00.002+10:00

In this blog post I will outline briefly how the management of IT can benefit from applying concepts used in marketing. Though many concepts are already used in one way or the other, it makes you think differently and address your challenges from a different angle.

One of the key challenges of managing IT for an organisation is the alignment with the business and achieving a satisfactory evaluation by the internal customer. In the past we used to say that we needed to do our own internal marketing when we felt undervalued. The big mistake we made then (as many do), is to equate marketing with promotion.

Many IT teams have taken it upon themselves to promote the reasons why they have to do things and to promote their achievements. However marketing is more than promotion and by studying the complete marketing processes, there are certain aspects that can help making IT more successful in an organisation. Though I must say, some challenges will remain since there are some specific aspects to IT management that are not easily addressed from the marketing lessons due to the fact that you are simply an internal department of the organisation. Your customer is also your boss.

As a reference relating to marketing, I will use the book “Marketing – an introduction” by Gary Armstrong and Philip Kotler published by Pearson and this defines marketing as follows:

Marketing is the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return. For your IT organisation you would need to substitute “companies” with “the IT department”.

This definition raises some issues. “Create value” is easily understood but in essence the objective of marketing is to create “customer delight”, “build customer relationships” and “customer equity”, meaning that you should go beyond just satisfying the customer. The customer really should like your services but not only that, your customer should actually like engaging with you and even wants to invest in you. Just look at the loyal fans of Apple. They really like the products, not merely for its technical capabilities but also for its brand and to express to the rest of the world that they are an Apple user, and they enjoy engaging with the company and promote the products and the company to others.

If you look into the marketing processes, you will see that there is much overlap with IT management processes. The overarching marketing process as defined by Armstrong and Kotler is as follows:

I will briefly go through each process and how this can be applied to IT management.

Understanding the marketplace and customer needs and wants
The first step is to understand the customer needs and wants. And here it already gets difficult. Sure, we can go around the organisation and identify what they would need or want. The problem becomes more difficult with the fact that you can’t give each user or each department exactly what they want. From the top you will have been given directions to reduce or at least control cost. Besides this, each department and user will look at their individual needs and will not look at the overarching organisational requirement. You would want to avoid a hotchpotch of technologies to be managed. The C-level managers will have different requirements and objectives than the individual users of the systems. The discrepancy is quite often not one that is part of IT but is present within the business. The question is then what you can or should do about that as a CIO, IT manager or IT department.

Life is always easier if you have a single business owner for a specific system – for a specific need. It becomes more difficult if you can’t really identify a single business owner, for example as you have with a CRM system or the more abstract need of something like “security”.

Sometimes the needs and wants seem to be irrational. When the iPhones first came on the market, the CEO was the first to demand an iPhone. But the IT department had issues with iPhones to be connected to the network and in the end it is also the CEO who is responsible to assure that security of critical data of the company and the continuity of the business is warranted. The trick is to find the logic behind the requirement and to find the right balance in the service to be provided. And part of this service is assessing the risk and informing the CEO of the associated risks.

But in general, there is much similarity between marketing and IT with respect to this first step. IT has various processes in place to understand the needs and wants of the customer and the level to which this happens will vary per organisation. For example, when we commence a project, we will come with a vision document and perform a business requirements analysis. But outside the initiated projects, are we always proactively researching the business needs or do we wait until the business comes to us with a request?

One aspect of this is also “understanding the marketplace”. Sometimes the IT department gets caught out with new developments in the marketplace while the customer has already picked up on it and is ready to use it while the IT department is not ready for it yet. It happened when the Internet emerged and now with social media we see a similar thing. We see more and more that the business is bypassing the internal IT department and shops for IT services themselves. The question is then whether this is a bad thing or not. And this comes than down to what the role is of the IT department is. In marketing terms: “what product do you provide and which customers do you serve”?

Marketers spend quite some time to understand customer buying behaviour and dive into the psychology of their target market. They have models for consumers and for business customers. Maybe we should research better what makes our internal customers tick so we understand their drivers better.

Design a customer driven marketing strategy
This is the process that should give the answers to many questions. The marketer asks himself for this the following two questions which is all about market segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning:
1. What customers will we serve?
2. How can we serve these customers best?

At first sight, you might think that the first question does not really apply for the IT department. But you should put that in the context of specific systems and services you might provide.
For example, a clinical research department might need some specialised equipment that also comes with relevant specialised computer systems. In many cases the vendor will provide a complete set of managed services for the equipment and computer systems. There is not much use for the IT department to get too deeply involved in this. If these systems are rather isolated, you see in reality that the respective business unit will maintain the relationship with the vendor and IT only needs to provide some infrastructure services.

Another example could be payroll. A payroll system and its support are in many cases outsourced and in many cases also a big part of the business process is outsourced while this is all managed by the HR or Finance department.

With the emergency of more and more business systems being offered as Software as a Service (SaaS) in the Cloud, we see that there are more and more situations where the business can organise their own IT needs via vendors without too much involvement of the internal IT department. So as an internal IT department you definitely have choices of services you will provide and to which customers in the organisation. And with the emergence of the Cloud, the IT department will have to rethink its strategy. What role do you play?

Though I don’t see any issues with the business units engaging Cloud providers themselves for those utility solutions that really can be obtained “off-the-shelf”, the risk is that over time the organisation will have a hotchpotch of various cloud solutions and that information will not flow between the systems. As a consequence, data needs to be manually re-entered in the various systems with the risk of all the errors that we have known for so many years. The IT department has for this a marketing opportunity to provide consultancy and integration services.

In many cases, the IT department will have systems in place that everyone in the organisation must use. The customer is given a choice for one product only. In marketing terms, the IT department uses a “selling concept”. You have a product and now you are trying to convince the customer to use this one product. Marketers in contrast prefer to use the “marketing concept”, which means you look at the needs and wants of the customer and adjust your offering accordingly.

This is not always easy. To keep costs low, you like to standardise. For example, your email client will preferably be standardised across the organisation. The same applies for your CRM system. You might have invested already in an enterprise license of a certain product which means you can service other business units cost effectively. Leaving the option open can be risky in the sense that you will need to promote the benefits of your offering which can be lower costs and better data integration. Selling lower costs of course only works if the respective manager actually will notice this on his budget.

But giving the people the option will change the way they perceive the value of the option you provide even though you will run into cases where a different choice is made and your warnings of higher costs and other draw-backs are ignored.

It all comes down to choose your value proposition: What is the role of the IT department in the organisation which results in the many discussions around the (changing) role of the CIO. Are you an enabler of technology or are you the strategic partner? And this role could vary for the different customers you have and it can vary per customer over time.

Construct an integrated marketing program that delivers superior value
A marketing program is about the well-known 4 P’s Product, Price, Place and Promotion and the additional 3 P’s People, Process and Physical Evidence. This is pretty much everything that IT processes revolve around. Product and price are obvious items. Place is also extensively discussed. Outsourcing, off-shoring and also the Cloud relating to the physical location of your systems are items that are always intensively being reviewed. We also known that people and processes can make or break your customer experience and the value you provide. I found it always invaluable to have support staff and service delivery managers on the floor with the customer. The direct face to face interaction and the ability to sit down together behind a monitor cannot easily be replaced by over the phone or email interaction.

Many IT departments work on promoting themselves, but for many others it is an opportunity for improvement. A big part of this will need to start with internal marketing such that IT staff can be promoters of the total offering of the services that are provided. IT staff need to think customer first and that might require some changes to the way the team has been set up. A condition for transforming staff to successful promoters of the products and services is that they need to enjoy working in the team and for the company.

Another consideration is branding. Our outside world competitors and partners have a clear brand. But should we develop a brand as well? The definition of "brand" that I think best suits is "a recognisable and trustworthy badge of origin and also a promise of performance". (From: Feldwick, P (1991), "Defining a Brand," in Understanding Brands, D Cowley, Ed. London:
Kogan Page.) Defining a brand for your IT department, or if you have a large IT department multiple brands, could assist with better positioning your role and services within the organisation.

Physical evidence is an interesting item to consider since much of what IT does is a service. A project can deliver a new system and at times you deliver new hardware. But once systems are in place, your primary product is a service. Strategic advice is also a service. We struggle regularly to quantify the value of IT and we try to make this visible through reports and numbers such as "cost savings" or "reduction in number of service calls".

Build profitable relationships and create customer delight
Profitable in monetary sense is not directly an objective of the IT department. However, if you have a charge back model and your customer is happy to come to you and spend his budget with you, you can consider this profitable. But profits can also be measured in terms of respect and positive evaluation of your services or in clear results of business improvement.

One thing is to put technology in place for the customer. Another thing is the customer to be delighted about it. First of all it means that the technology itself must meet or exceed expectations but secondly it means that the ongoing experience must create this delight. And this is achieved by creating excellent customer support services and relating more deeply and interactively with the customer. Many organisations will have business relationship managers or service delivery managers to maintain this ongoing customer relationship. Their role is to assure that the customers achieve most out of the systems and also identify new needs and wants that you can respond to.
The delivery of the services is something that goes across the whole IT department. Though you will have a designated service desk (helpdesk), we tend to say that everyone in IT is part of the service desk.

At some moment in time, you can assist your business customer strategically and jointly work on business improvements and put a strategic technology solution in place. Over time this solution is just there, it simply works and just requires support. It has become a utility. What initially delighted your customer later became a basic expectation. The Kano model explains how this works.

It means that at one moment in time you can be a strategic partner for a customer while later you have become an enabler. And you will need to adjust your product and service level to the expectations and the needs of the customer. As Lou Ehrlich says in his article, if you ask your stakeholder what's on their mind and they respond with issues around their PC or mobile device, they are probably not ready for you to act as strategic partner.

The concept applies to all features of your products and services. For features of business systems, of your infrastructure such as speed of the network and storage capacity and for features of your services such as speed of addressing service desk calls and internal consultancy services. In order to excite the customer you will have to improve on your features which subsequently will become basic expectations.

One thing that we should not forget is that in order to excite the customer, at least all the basic features must be provided. You can try to be a strategic partner as much as you like, if your systems are not reliable, the customer won't be excited.

Capture value from customers to create profits and customer equity
The end result of your marketing process is to have obtained the respect and positive evaluation of your customer and with the challenge of meeting both the needs of the individual users and the C-level managers. Marketing concepts will not give an answer to all challenges that the CIO or the IT department face. The IT department has a governance role and this can stand square with with a service provider - client approach. But I believe that by looking at your services from slightly different angle can improve the value that you can create for the organisation and the way your customers value your achievements. Customer equity means that customers are loyal, achieve the maximum out of the technology that is provided and will call upon your services effectively that optimally benefits the organisation as a whole.

Be careful with judgements and decisions if you don't know the full picture!

2011-07-17T19:03:00.000+10:00

People often make judgements with only partly information. This is often a necessity and this ability makes the human race going, but sometimes it can make you look very dumb and in other circumstances it can have serious detrimental effects.

For example when you have obtained insufficient information about the capabilities of a new product or about your needs. When buying a new car or house. Or when buying a new ERP system. If you are going to spend the money, you better assure you get the right thing. Strangely enough, people tend to spend proportionally less time analysing the needs and the specifics of a product for major purchases compared to the time they spend considering the purchase of a $5 product in the supermarket.

In many other cases the consequences are less obvious and impact more the social situation.

I usually buy my lunch at the same place and have a given variety of options I pick for my lunch. But I will be served by different people. If someone new comes in to serve and the coincidence is that that person served me twice or three times in a row with the same thing, they tend to think that I always order the same thing. They are really surprised if I order the next time something different. I just smile back.

The other day when we had some issues with one of our systems and had problems identifying the cause, one of our other colleagues listened to what was going on and suddenly spoke out in a loud voice: "Well I am not going to say anything, but if someone would have bothered to look at this report you would get a clear indication of what happened!". In other words, we were dumb and he was smart.

Unfortunately for him, he would have found that if he would have looked closer that the information presented on the report was misleading. You wonder who was the dumbo. But he had a fair point that it is good practice to look at the report even though in this case it did not help much.

Years ago, I was sitting next to a help desk that was servicing external customers. On one of the calls, the customer was requested to put the floppy disk of the software in the computer. It did not help and the conclusion was that the disk was corrupted. A new disk was sent over to no avail. So an engineer went over and he found that the first thing the customer did was punch two holes in the disk to file it in a folder. Pretty dumb huh? We had a good laugh. But if you have never been explained how a disk works and how computers work in general, you might think that the disk is just some carton on which the information was written with invisible ink. In those days many people would not have the slightest notion that a disk could contain information or have the slightest idea what software was.

Many of the help desk calls we receive relate to the users not knowing how to use the system or due to business processes insufficiently been defined. Regardless of the cause, the user can't proceed with his work. This is frustrating and it becomes a technology problem. In a case at hand that I dealt with, I had myself insufficiently informed and advised the customer that this was an unfortunate limitation of the system. Customer far from happy as you can understand. After consulting an expert in my team, I found out that the cause was data related and that another party had failed to enter the relevant data due to lack of knowledge of the system and how the data is used throughout the system. I informed the customer of this but did not want to hear anything of it and did not care who caused it. As long as I would resolve it. Which we did of course. But who had not him or her self properly informed and who was judging or deciding too quickly?

I think this applies to all three people involved and I think all three of us had to sigh deep. As it should be, we kept it all professionlly and this is the requierd mechanism to deal with frustrting situations. But it is easy to see how such a simple thing could have escalated. Specifically if you don't have the option of direct communication and immediate assistance from experts to help out.

It is easy to say that you need to know all the facts. However, how do you know that you don't have all the facts? Unfortunately we can't live without a certain amount of uncertainty and this also creates many of the good things in life.

Computer systems health problems are sometimes not much dissimilar as that of humans

2011-07-01T08:55:00.000+10:00

Treating health problems of computer systems is sometimes not much dissimilar as that of humans.

You probably have experienced yourself a health problem (or if not you will know someone who had a health problem) that didn't want to go away and for which the doctor couldn't find a cause. It could have been a serious problem or it could have been one of those little annoying things that seem to come and go.

Computer systems sometimes have the same problems.

Recently we upgraded our Oracle databases and as a consequence one of the systems that ran for a long time without issues regularly stopped working. We knew that the problems was database related, but what? Log files analysis did not help much. We found also hanging locks in the database but how did they get there? The database itself did not reveal much of it's secrets. We found one hint in some blogs relating to foreign key indexes and created a few of the missing indexes. We asked Oracle whether the specific behaviour could have been caused by the missing indexes. But no clear answer from Oracle.

We expected that it was something like the missing foreign key indexes. Probably we did something that was tolerated by the older releases of the database but not by the new one.

Going back to the old release is not really a good option but this could be necessary if we wouldn't find a solution.

The difficulty with these type of problems is that it can depend on user behaviour. At one moment in time, people need to do a certain series of tasks and if a few people do certain things in parallel, then the problem can occur. But that might happen at one moment in time and before this happens again, it can be weeks or months. This is not much dissimilar as finding out whether a certain health symptom is caused by a food allergy or not.

But at least then you deal with only one person. In our situation it is difficult to go back to all the users and ask them exactly what they did and at exactly what moment in time.

Our problem has not occurred anymore for a little while and we just hope that it was caused by the missing foreign key indexes. Otherwise we can expect it come back again to bite us.

The management secrets of Barcelona Football Club - by Schumpeter (from the Economist)

2011-06-25T18:49:00.000+10:00

Barça’s management style chimes in with the thinking of two admired theorists. Boris Groysberg, of Harvard Business School, has warned that companies are too obsessed with hiring stars rather than developing teams.

Basically I suggest to read this article in the Economist by Schumpter and additionally Great People Are Overrated by Bill Taylor on then Harvard Business Review website.

Are you in it for the ride?

2011-06-08T19:46:00.000+10:00

A long time ago, someone told me the analogy that people in society, a business or a project all sit on a wagon. Most people just sit on the wagon and are there for the ride. However there are a few people that are in front of the wagon and actually pull it forward. And then there are always a few people behind the wagon to slow it down.

Over time I added that there are a few people standing on the wagon shouting and giving directions to the laborers upfront. These are the "important" people.

I think everyone can easily recognise the people that make the world go around. And you probably also know some people that are there just to slow things down without a good reason. You might think those bosses on the wagon shouting the directions would be politicians. Not directly my intention but yes, amongst politicians you will find those people as well. And those 'bosses' do not directly correspond with the bosses in the real world. Bosses are on the wagon, in front of it and also behind it.

Talking about bosses right now, one of the mothers on the football field last Sunday complained about her boss at work; how impossible it was to work with her, how incompetent she was and how she only seems to frustrate things.

I recognise this. In the past I have seen more of those people of whom you think "how on earth did they ever come into that position?". I explain that this is due to the lack of 'weight'. This makes them float to the top. People who are there for the ride and just make a lot of noise.

A little while ago I read an article ("Competence: Is Your Boss Faking It?" by Jeffrey Kluger, Time Magazine, Feb. 11, 2009 ) that people tend to think that people who make the most noise (talk the most) probably will know more. Why not? If you are not certain about something, wouldn't you listen to others instead of speaking up? The psychology of human nature makes them to become the "leaders" while unfortunately (as per article) there is no direct correlation with actual knowledge or skills.

As managers we are expected to have a broad range of skills. Take for example people skills. I am however still surprised that there are so many people in high places who lack any form of people management skills. It is so obvious, how could you have missed it when you appointed the person?

Unless you do a psychometric test, these aspects are always difficult to assess during job interviews. But even more problematic, how do you identify that a manager reporting to you has issues with his team? You might get a team member complaining to you about the manager, but how do you know that this is a valid complaint? Maybe the person is not performing well and this is his way to put the blame on his boss? Other people might not speak up because they're too afraid that this will negatively impact their own position. It is not always that people are incompetent in all aspects of their job and that can make it even more difficult to assess the situation.

The football mum unfortunately will have to deal with her boss for a while.

Make all content on websites editable

2011-05-21T11:44:00.000+10:00

I have now again a few cases at hand where my team had to support a website originally developed and supported by vendors where content updates require software developers to make the changes.

In principle you should build a website so that all text and images, maybe a logo and buttons for submitting a form etc excepted, can be modified by the web authors. If you don't have this, you will rely on the developers to make content modifications to the website. This is far from ideal because this is very costly, requires planning and when you have urgent cases at hand it will just lead to stress between the business and technology team.

Unfortunately this ideal situation requires that you architect the site accordingly and accept the extra effort, time and costs upfront. When you are aware of these issues, you can plan this in but you need to look whether these upfront costs are warranted. If the website is expected to have a limited life span and during this time only certian sections of the site require updates, you can consider to leave the other parts as static HTML or hard coded in software. It will only become a problem if the website will live longer than originally planned or if more sections of the site need to be updated than as originally planned.

When you have outsourced the development, support and maintenance to a vendor, you will not have good insight how they will have built the website. If the vendor also is responsible for making the content changes, you will only see how they have resolved it once you take over the support and maintenance in-house. This can be a shocking experience.

The way around this is to QA the vendor's work regularly, not just at the end or when you get the handover. You can put clauses in the contract but it is far from ideal to involve lawyers when it has gone wrong. And it will. Involving lawyers and going to court will only be a lose-lose result. So you either you need to accept extra upfront costs or accept the risk. And since money is a scarce resource ...

Are CIO's becoming like CFO's or is it the other way around?

2011-05-19T20:13:00.000+10:00

I received an email from one of our team members following an article in Delimiter he read and asked whether the IT managers were becoming more like the Finance manager or the other way around.

The article was about the observation that CIO's at a round table conference were talking more about the business and business issues than about tools and technologies.

My answer to this question would be that IT managers have changed.

CFO's have managed IT and the CIO for decades now and not always that successfully. I don't say that a CIO can't report to a CFO but as we have been able to read now already for years it is important for the CIO to have a good direct relationship with the CEO.

Finance has morphed over the ages from pure number crunchers to general consultants and the CFO has become one of the key figures in any organisation.

IT is a younger profession and is heading the same way. As the article says in Delimiter,"it is a coming of age".

I think that there is too much specialism in both areas that it is important to have on the top leaders coming out of their own specialism. Both areas are critical to successful management of a business and both areas need have good knowledge of the business in order to be successful. CIO's are simply catching up.

But as I wrote before, it depends on the context how you organise this:

http://hein-bouman.blogspot.com/2011/02/it-does-not-always-need-to-be-partner.html
http://hein-bouman.blogspot.com/2010/04/we-should-stop-talking-about-business.html

Kate's wedding dress and why we always will agree with those in power

2011-04-30T11:10:00.000+10:00

The most noticeable comment on TV from the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William was for me the question whether "Kate got it right with her wedding dress". Of course everyone will agree that the dress is stunning, especially on the day. As commentator on TV you are not going to spoil the party by criticising the wedding dress.

In my opinion most wedding dresses are all the same and most I don't like anyway. I don't even think that how the make-up and hair is done for these formal occasions make a woman the most beautiful, but I have lost these arguments many times. Even with men. I prefer a more natural look. Though for a wedding dress, I think Kate definitely got it right. Go Kate!

However, my opinion about this is not relevant. What I observe is that everyone will always consider the bride stunning and beautiful, definitely in case of a royal wedding. People need the fairytale story and will colour reality in according to their needs. Some don't like the royal family and will protest against the money spent.

A similar process happens when senior management in an organisation come with an initiative and gather the troops to go left or right. Or implement a new system for that matter. If the person in power brings this initiative as fantastic and important, most people will follow that perception and copy the excitement about the initiative. You don't criticise and definitely not in public. We all will happily preach that it is the right thing to do.

But sometimes we actually think that they got it wrong or that they have the wrong leader for the initiative or selected the wrong software or whatever. Are you going to express your concerns when your managers and colleagues are so enthusiastic about the initiative? You could, but it is risky. What are you going to achieve with criticism when everyone else seems to have a different opinion? (But do they?)

Before you start criticising the wedding dress or the project, you need to question yourself if matters that much. Sometime yes. Wrong insights with your leaders and of the masses can in specific cases lead to loss of life. We have seen that with the many disasters lately in the many countries. There were always people that foresaw problems but were not heard (not including those people who always see problems and always are against anything).

On the other hand it is by far always that dramatic. In many cases management just needs to assure that the organisation moves from A to B and it is not always the biggest deal to have it done in the most efficient way. I don't always take the shortest route when driving through Sydney. Quite often I just take the easiest way or just they way that I am most familiar with.

What is technically more efficient does not need to mean that it is more efficient from business management perspective. What makes technical sense does not always make business sense. But when does it become important to see if you can steer the organisation in a different direction? This is not always clear.

But I would say enjoy the wedding and the royals.

The problems that become visible when people leave

2011-04-17T19:15:00.000+10:00

When people leave, it is always painful but there is also a good side to it.

Not only do you lose a lot of knowledge, you also have a disruption to your services and you need to spend time on recruitment for a replacement. The good side is that it brings many practical problems to the surface that this person has been solving without the rest of the team and the manager being too aware of. Though I pride myself that all my systems normally run without interruption, reality is that there are always little glitches that are effectively dealt with by my team. 'Effectively' in the sense that the rest of the team is not always aware of it and that the respective person resolves the issue when it occurs. These type of issues are interruptions and should be resolved with a permanent solution instead of the repeated workaround that the team member or the team is actually hiding for the outside world.

When staff leave these issues become very visible and can become very painful if no handover took place or the person 'forgot' to pass the relevant information on.

It is not always that they leave the problem because they are lazy or incompetent. Sometimes the effort for the permanent solution does not weigh up against the acumulated effort for the repeated workaround.

Though I think it is good that these issues surface and do get resolved. The ongoing interruption remains an interruption no matter how small it is. Systems must be robust and should not rely on a knowledgeable person to keep them running. I have heard of cases where these ongoing manual fixes were maintained but became disastrous when the respective staff left.

When somebody is about to leave the team or already has left, it is a good moment for a stock take of outstanding work and of imperfect solutions to fix it all up.

Regardless of the above described situation, I find it always interesting to see how much people do that you just take for granted. When you sit down with a staff member and make a detailed list of what they do, you realize how much you depend on the unique knowledge and skills of the person.

Sympathy for SharePoint project managers - project recommendations

2011-03-21T13:59:00.000+11:00

I recently interviewed a candidate for a project manager role. One of the questions I had revolved around stakeholder management. We sidetracked a bit and I asked her whether she had experience with steering committees and stakeholders that are driving the project to a failure.

She mentioned that she did not have the experience but had a colleague going mental. Guess what type of project it was?

Yes, a Microsoft SharePoint implementation.

The other type of project could have been a CRM project. Those projects seem to suffer also from too many stakeholders without clear ownership.

My advice for those projects are in summary to my earlier post:

Don't let the steering committee drive requirements or design
They simply do not have the required detail knowledge of the tool and the day to day operational use. Though they might think they know it because in the end they will use it as well, reality is they use these systems only sporadically and are insufficiently in touch with how their people will use it on a day to day basis.

Find the real subject matter experts
Every organization has a few of them. The have a good oversight of the detailed processes in the organization. Realistic people with two feet on the ground. Try to find a small group of those to develop requirements and design.

Don't let consultants take over
They will tell you to use columns in stead of folders. The truth is that the technology is not ready for it and the users will not be able to make this conceptual switch. The users are already confronted with many other changes, so keep things as familiar as possible.

Keep things as vanilla as possible for the first implementation
Over engineered configurations and customizations can only do damage and are difficult to remove. It is always easier to add them afterwards.

Focus on usability
No matter how great demos and pilots were, there are always these features that the vendor did not implement in an easy to use way. For example granting access to sites and files to colleagues in SharePoint 2007 is not something easily picked up by users. And don't give this responsibility to the managers but give it other users in the team who are better available and will use the system intensively. Did you review how to move a file from an MS Outlook attachment into SharePoint? Little practical things that are easily overlooked but are crucial for the day to day usability.

Run a thorough pilot with real end users
At one moment in time, a project team and people intensively involved in the project will pick up the technology easier and quicker. They are motivated and will have a different attitude. It is good to create champions in the organisation, but you need to make sure you pick up feedback from people who will resist more and will not pick up the technology as quickly as champions.

Be ready for the next phase
It won't go smoothly, so prepare for the next phase, upgrade and probably further simplification. SharePoint requires quite a bit of processing, as well on the server side as the PC side. So expect that some investments might need to be done here as well.

Are computers getting smarter than humans?

2011-03-14T13:18:00.000+11:00

Recently our virtual management software that has some intellegent rules decided to be a bit smarter then we had expected. The result was a tempoary reduction in performance for some of our servers. As a consequence one of my colleagues got a bit upset and responded with the email text below.

You wonder who demonstrated more intelligence :)

This is wicked ..like Tron and stuff or 2001 ...DRS is like Hal he ished the commands to doubling down on the vspehere 1 gangstas then there was an evacuation of the tubes..

i love tech man ..(though some of the below sentences sound like my prostate issues)

i love internets ...whoop whoop.

Tech + Beer (non-virtual beer i want the physical stuff) + Pings = NodeloveBieber

Some computers seam to be beat us: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/27297.wss

Business requirements are discretionary

2011-03-07T08:59:00.000+11:00

Business requirements are not set in stone. We know that they can change during a project but quite often they are a personal preference of stakeholders. You would expect that they are logically derived from the business processes. But often the definition of the business processes allow for much freedom while there is much debate about what the right process for the organisation is.

Every employee in every organization will have complained at some stage of their career about inefficiencies in their organisation and asked themselves why "they" could not have designed this better. If you take over a job from someone else, you are bound to do things in a different way than your predecessor. And the same thing applies to managers. When a new manager comes in, he will guaranteed change the operations to improve it.

Business processes change as regular as the weather, wether it be small tweaks or major overhauls of the business.

You hope that changes of the business processes are to be improvements. In essence you still have the same business objectives but you just want to do things better. Every organisation will constantly go through these changes. However, sometimes you wonder whether these are actually improvements and that it is just a change for change sake. Sometimes when there are disagreements, you feel that either way could be right and that it does not really matter.

For example, our organisation has chosen not to use purchase orders. We have some other mechanisms in place to cater for the authorisation of purchases. The consequence is that we have an invoice processing system where we approve the payments of invoices. There are however a few strong proponents for a purchase order system and with such a system we probably would not have needed the invoice processing system. Without going into the details, there are good arguments for either approach. But given that you have made choices in the past, it is difficult to change later.

In the past I was involved in the development of the various incarnations of the website of our consultancy company. Of course there were as many opinions about the design, information architecture and content as there were people in our organization. The ones that were directly involved with the building and writing of the texts got their way most of the time.

When we implemented SharePoint for our document management, there were also as many opinions of how this should be done as there were people involved in the project. Specifically because we as IT people would also be using the system, we considered ourselves subject matter experts and tried to drive the requirements and design as much as possible. We probably should have tried harder.

These examples just indicate that there is not one set of right business requirements and that they often easily can be interchanged. They can easily be changed and they do. And that is why I prefer to look at the the data first before I build new systems.

I was educated to do an information analysis as one of the first tasks to come to a new system.

This does not mean that processes are ignored but it gives a different perspective. Actually, modeling the processes would be the second step before going into requirements. These first two steps are what I call the real business analysis (see this post) and also serve the purpose of looking for ways to improve the business. Doing an information analysis and business process analysis upfront, gives better insight in the data involved and how and when it is used. It however implies that this phase must be driven by the business owner.

These days we usually start with business requirements which will result in a system design and a data model. It means that a overview of the data only comes much later to light in the process of custom development. However before you would come to that, you will have made decisions about off-the-shelf solutions versus custom development. The problem is that business owners usually come with an idea of a solution and you just need to write down the requirements. The consequence is that the broader context is ignored.

The data structures in an organisation are much more stable over time than the processes and the required application functionality. When you can come to a clear definition of the required information and preferably through a single access layer, it is easier to build varying application functionality on top of this.

If you drive your application architectures from individual requirements, you will have a higher risk that this will lead to more fragmented data structures which will mean that it is more complex and expensive to change the requirements later. For example you will be more inclined to come to a series of standalone off-the-shelf applications where there is no data flow between those applications. At first sight it might seem a cost efficient solution but when the requirements change, you might have to build costly integration software or you might have to redo some of the work. And you will probably run into cases that the actual data cannot be linked between the systems.

And then I like to come back to what I mentioned before. You will define your processes depending on the current situation and depending on systems already in place.

That is one of the challenges of IT. When we implement business systems, we have direct influence over the business processes and the business requirements. If you do it right, you can participate in improvement of the business and that can go all the way to assisting with the business strategy. But it is also a cause of conflict and confusion about the role of IT within an organisation.

Meta data versus folders in MS SharePoint

2011-02-24T13:04:00.001+11:00

Somewhere in the 90's when we were building our Intranet, one of my colleagues pushed for the concept of removing folders for the management of documents and to replace this with meta-data. The idea was that folders are one dimensional and have a strict hierarchy, but with meta-data you can create a multi-dimensional structure.

For example you have a folder structure as displayed to the right. With a folder structure you cannot list all documents in all "Analysis" folders. You can do this with only one folder at the time. Using meta-data, you would be able to do this without specifying a value for a project name.

Microsoft implemented this concept in SharePoint in the form of "columns". SharePoint consultants are adamant that folders should not be used anymore (or much less) and should be replaced with meta-data. The concept sounds very appealing but has some limitations (you might want to translate some of them into strengths, but I look at this from the perspective of the lazy end-user):

The concept of multiple dimensions eludes many people. It might be that Gen-Y people over time pick this concept up easier since they have not worked in the strict folder world for that long. However I like to warn against comparing this with the easy uptake of social networking by Gen-Y and the fact that they have replaced email with Facebook, Twitter and SMS. The use there is free and for the moment only. In a business context you need to have more structure and need to keep data for a longer period of time. Note that folders are a concept that we understand from the real life. We have folders in boxes on shelves. When we lose this concept, people are a bit lost in where the document really is. We do not always need to know this. My blog is somewhere in the cloud and I am not too worried about where it physically resides. But I think SharePoint should come with a better user interface for navigation and management to give the users a better sense of control.

In SharePoint users cannot freely create new columns. Where a folder impacts only the folder in which it is created as a sub-folder, a column impacts the whole site.

It requires to have the right permissions. If people can't make their own columns (folders) they will feel too much locked in and will resort to using alternative places to store their documents.

With columns you need to think ahead and define values and the required use beforehand. While many people have a document or a few documents and just want to place it somewhere that makes sense for that moment in time. If it becomes too much work, they will place it on the local C drive. If you could create columns on the fly and as easy as creating a folder and add values to columns on the fly, it might make more sense.

When specifying in which folder and where in the hierarchy you want to create a document, you can do that using mouse-clicks. It works via a drill down mechanism and each time the number of options are limited. With columns, the selection of a value for the first column does not reduce the number of options for the second column.

The way SharePoint works now, it is not easy to navigate using the multi-dimensional features. You need to define views for that.

Though more and more organisations are implementing SharePoint, Microsoft should improve the ease of use in order to improve the uptake. It is disappointing that after more than 10 years, I haven't seen a good easy to use commercially available implementation of the concept.

IT does not always need to be a partner in strategic change

2011-02-15T08:52:00.000+11:00

We have read and wrote enough about the IT-Business divide and that IT should take more initiative in business improvement. I find it difficult to actually drive business improvement pure through IT initiatives, but in cooperation with business teams over the years I have been able to contribute to business improvements.
I don't say that there aren't options to do so. But in the end you need support from upper hand and need to get buy in from your business stakeholders. If you don't get this, you will find resistance and will be told to focus on the tasks given to you.

In my previous role as consultant I was able to contribute to strategic initiatives and coming up with ideas to improve the organisation structure and business processes that were implemented successfully.

In the more recent period I have been able to work with our Finance and Procurement teams where we as IT had a direct input in ideas for improvement. As a combined business and IT team we implemented a series of systems to improve operational efficiency and corporate governance. For example, years ago I identified potential improvements in the way we processed our invoices. Once we had the context in terms of systems and processes right, we came to a full automated solution for Invoice Processing. We selected the Basware technology and Basware was effective in implementing their solution. As a result Finance has earlier insight in outstanding payments and improved its cash management.

In another example we were able to transform a set of disparate online learning solutions for our customers into a single global web application. The result so far is that this website won an award for the best online training program by the German trade magazine ‘touristik aktuell’.

And that is where I think the role of IT should be: participating in operational and strategic initiatives and driving as such business improvements. I don’t think, bar some exceptions, that IT really will ever in the position to take the lead.

IT will always respond to possibilities. What we see now for example with strong growth in consumer technology that is being brought into the organisation, that it still is a response to new technology in the market. The business is strongly driving the demand for iPads, iPhones or the use of Twitter or Facebook, simply because they already know it from private use. Even if IT is first on the ball, it is still bringing it as an idea to the business and together with the business teams to define the business case or just to try things out. Even if we talk about all the possibilities in the cloud, we might talk about strategic choices for IT but from business perspective it is much operational efficiency. Only in exceptional cases IT might be able to drive strategic change and we should not want to try too much more.

When I look where our organisation was 5 years ago and where it is now in relation to finance and procurement, I am proud with this silent revolution to which we had a major contribution, not only for the implementation but also for idea development.

This can happen anywhere in the business as long as both parties are open to work together and see each other as equal partners.

Louie Ehrlich, President, Chevron Information Technology Company, and CIO, Chevron Corp might explain it a bit better here. But it comes down to the simple statement that if the business is not ready for IT being a strategic partner, don't try to push it.

The IT Evengalist addresses it from the angle of innovation and states that every innovation within IT (within that organisation) automatically is an innovation for the business. His complaint is the same as mine: " I have lost count of the number of the experts and pundits who are forecasting the demise of every CIO who doesn't "step up" and contribute to if not drive business innovation."

He also postulates that we as IT might be wanting too much to be the strategic partner: "So while IT is waiting for all of those business leaders to read the articles on the "IT organizations of the future," IT can prepare itself for the day the business actually looks to IT to help drive business innovation."

As an enabler for te business, you automatically assist with business innovation and support strategic develoment. In order to be a good enabler, you first of all need to have your house in order and not spend all your time fire fighting. Often the business will come with a new idea that needs to be done yesterday. To avoid that this results in a fire fighting situation, you need to understand where the business is heading to and be ready for the next challenge. It does not mean you will live up to the expectation of having the work done by yesterday. You simply need to accept that there will always be a conflict between expectations and the reality of getting things done.

But that is different than driving strategy or driving innovation.

Who is steering the car? The person behind the wheel or the person on the backseat telling the driver where to go? Does it really matter? As long as you get where you need to be in an efficient way.

The problem is in my opion more that due to the lack of partnering, opportunities are lost and efficiency is compromised. The driver and the passenger need to work together to make sure you get to the right address via the quickest route (and that is definetely true when using a taxi in Sydney!).

Jazz Fusion and complexity of software architectures

2011-02-07T17:37:00.000+11:00

I love Jazz Fusion: Weather Report, Brand X, Return to Forever, Pat Metheney, etc. I know a lot of people think the music is too complex, it makes them nervous or it does not resonate with them. Yes, Jazz Fusion has that extra bit of complexity but if you hear how it all comes together it is not that complex anymore. I cannot sit down and listen to most other music. I need something that keeps the brain stimulated, otherwise it becomes background music. Jazz Fusion with its complexity relaxes me.

Within Jazz Fusion, the bass and drum usually play more an equal role in the whole composition and are not just there to set a rhythm. I simply love how Percy Jones plays his bass. I know that I myself said in the past it is as if all musicians play a solo at the same time.

I have managed over the years various systems of which people at first glance said they were too complex and that simpler alternatives should be sought.

In general I too prefer to look for the Justin Bieber equivalent for a software application. Recently I have been looking for a very simple Business Intelligence reporting tool. The first idea was a simple desktop solution connected directly to the operational database where we expose some data via SQL views. The users should then be able to create their own reports.

However it turned out that this type of solution hardly exists and if so, not easy enough for the user to work with. So we resorted to a server based solution, but still a relatively simple solution. In this case proCube from the Satori Group.

But many of my systems are or were indeed complex. But they need(ed) to be complex because that is what the business needs. Complexity is there for various reasons. One of them is to let the data flow between systems and another is to allow for flexibility and the variable needs over time. For those of us who understand how it all works together, the complexity is part of the beauty of the solution and actually makes life simpler. We know that if you start oversimplifying, it will lead to increased dissatisfaction and more work for IT to facilitate the changing requirements and to facilitate data integration through manual processes. Though the total solution might be constructed through Oracle, Microsoft, Java solutions and what else, it is still an orchestrated symphony; there is harmony.

If an IT infrastructure is well composed and technology is used correctly, it is never complex to manage and to support; even though others might consider it a disharmony (I like the Dutch word Kakofonie much better).

Plato’s Revenge – Part 5: The grand design of the multi-universe - by Hawking and Mlodinow

2011-02-01T13:20:00.000+11:00

In a previous post I wrote about the book “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. I saw the book in the bookshop and thought that since I said something about it, I better read it as well.

It is a relatively easy read and contains no maths. One of the key arguments is that there are most likely other universes that are created and that disappear over time. Since many universes can be created at any moment, in time the lucky situation occurred that a universe was created with exactly the laws and parameters that allows for the creation of solar systems and planets and therefore life as we know it. One of the other arguments is that mathematically there is no need for a God for this creation and they also explain that intelligent life and specifically human life with the freedom of will do not need God for this creation. Due to the complexity and the immense large number of parameters and dependencies involved, we experience freedom of will but it does not necessarily mean that this is the case.

Universes can be created spontaneously and this randomness relies, as far as I understood, on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

The mathematics and the theories we have defined so far are not always that elegant yet and we only have models that seem to work relatively well but part is this is because we have our own limitations with respect to discovering the laws of nature.

A nice explanation is given about the goldfish in the bowl as an alternative to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (see my first post). The goldfish inside the bowl has a distorted view on the world and therefore would come up with rather complex models of the laws of nature for whatever happens outside the bowl.

I think the book is a good read and challenges us to think further. However I see two weaknesses in their arguments:

1) As far as I understood, the spontaneous creation of universes relies on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Since this is one of the great miracles in physics, would it not be very well possible that due to our limitations and our distorted view on reality (being a fish in a bowl), that we see this uncertainty but that in reality something completely different appears behind the scenes?

One of the key things I belief that we humans do not really understand is time. Physicists might be pretty happy with the way they calculate with it, but do we really understand it? We can’t grab time, we can’t go back and forward in it as we can in space. I like their explanation of time to see it as the vertical axis on a circle. When you are on top of the circle, you can move left and right, but there is no downward movement in time. So at the top of the circle time stands still but when you move in space (horizontally) time starts and the further you progress along the circle, time is moving until you come to the bottom of the circle.

2) At one moment time started and at the moment of the big bang, the universe was created out of the singularity. As they explain, we probably can’t apply our normal laws of physics to those very early stages of the creation of the universe. But my question is, where does the singularity come from? Why should there be a creation at all? Why should there be anything at all? Why should Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle apply? The questions that arise are not much different than asking who created God.

The conclusion that this is all explained by the laws of physics is not very well grounded and they skim over this issue too quickly. They very nicely start explaining that we have a distorted view and therefore our theories and models are more or less approximations. But then they don't really apply it to their own reasoning. Then they should not bring their conclusions with this certainty. They should bring it more as if it is just one potential explanation.

Given all this and with all its weaknesses in the arguments, I do not have any problems accepting that different universes can be created or that there are other parallel universes.

In my day to day life, I see that different people live in different universes where different laws apply. Gravity does not seem to apply for babies. At one moment in time they have something in their hands and at another moment it disappears. Then suddenly it appears in their hands again. Over time, the concept of gravity grows into their world. I still see it with my daughter that gravity is not always existent in her world. She can put a glass of water near or halfway the edge of the table. Sometimes the glass suddenly disappears and then there is much emotion. But later the glass will magically appear clean and well again in the cupboard. In my universe, the glass falls on the ground and I can clean up the mess.

In the work context you see that people live in different universes as well. Though there are two major sets of laws of nature that govern the work context (economics and human behaviour) plus some industry specific laws (e.g. biology, physics, etc.), different people live in universes with a different mix of those laws.

The laws of economics are to certain extend straightforward. You produce something for the costs of $5 and sell it for $7 and you have $2 profit. However you do need the laws of human behaviour in order to sell your product and in order to make the people in your organisation achieve the goal of making profit. Human behavior is much more a mystery. (OK, you might want to argue that economics also covers human behavior, but that's not the point here).

In some universes the laws of economics are loosely applied while the laws of human behaviour seem the focus of attention. In most cases cost efficiencies and profitability are then a coincidental side effect. Money seems to appear out of nothing, coming in through a wormhole from another parallel universe.

In other universes, everything is well defined in financial structures but where there are some strange laws about the rules to create certain products or where there are mysterious rules about organisational structures equivalent to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The reason for doing things seem to be rather random.

In effective organisations that sustain growth and profitability over a longer period of time, both sets of laws are well formulated into a single model (M-theory).

Take for example Apple. They created the first i-Phones with the rounded edges. Engineers probably have complained about it, and I may assume that the marketeers demanded this. They understood human behaviour and created something that looked nice and something that people wanted regardless whether this contributes to a technically good product or not. Apple was very successful in creating a hype and this way revolutionised our world even though we might say that there are many practical limitations to their product.

Organisations where these laws are not brought into a unified model can still be created and still can have strong growth and can temporarily experience strong profitability, but if there is no balance over time the organisation will disappear; just as an instable universe will disappear.

The same logic applies between departments within an organisation. The IT department usually is governed by the laws of economics and is strong in thinking in terms of efficiency. In most cases that is their remit, while other departments are more focussed on the laws of human behaviour such as the HR and Marketing departments. And those laws are not always easily reconciled. In order to exist, we need to allow for a certain amount of uncertainty and randomness.

For example, we need to accept that if we commence a project, there is only a certain probability that the project will ever be finished and the resulting system will be used. The better the unified model, the higher the probability. The challenge of coming to a good model is that you sit within your glass bowl and have a distorted view on your own universe and that makes change from within the organisation difficult. We call it the culture of the organisation. Revolutionary insights (e.g. Einstein’s theories) or long term growth towards maturity (people slowly becoming aware of gravity) are required to achieve change.

I also like to make some concluding remarks about the argument relating to the existence of God. Of course that creates quite a hullabaloo around the world and everyone jumping on the subject to say something about it. (Somebody in favour of the argument: http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/09/stephen-hawking-grand-design.html; Wikipedia also gives an overview of the criticism) At least it helps sell the book. The issue of free will is also heavily discussed.

But I did not see anything in the book that really excludes the existence of God. I don't think that the book really needed this argument at all.

I don't like these type arguments in relation to the existence of God in either direction.

I believe in God and therefore Hawking and Mlodinow are wrong.
I do not believe in God and therefore they have a valid argument.

Years ago I watched a show on TV in the Netherlands discussing which city was better. The one camp argued that because they were born in Rotterdam that each time when they arrived back in the city, they felt at home. Therefore Rotterdam was the best city and Amsterdam was nothing. The other camp argued the other way around. What a nonsense!

Integrate MS SharePoint document management features in Windows Explorer

2011-01-26T12:36:00.000+11:00

I think it is time that Microsoft integrates SharePoint document management functionality in Windows Explorer.

SharePoint started as an Intranet/Collaboration tool with document management features. Making it a browser based tool seemed like a good idea at the time and in relation to quite a few features a necessity. However, organisations have started using SharePoint as an enterprise document and records management tool.

Though SharePoint has many limitations for effective document management to replace a shared network drive, one of the hurdles that limits the uptake of SharePoint is the performance. Maybe 10 years ago we thought that the browser would be the replacement of the operating system, but that has not happened yet. Internet Explorer is still just a browser.

When moving documents in and out of SharePoint, users are confronted with many limitations, just to mention a few:

You can't easily attach a document in SharePoint to an email unless you buy a third party tool;
You can't save directly into SharePoint from non-MS Office tools such as Acrobat;
You can't drag and drop files into SharePoint (unless switching to the Windows Explorer view);
IE running Javascript is inherently slow compared to a native Windows application.

Since SharePoint only works within IE and IE only runs on the Windows platform, it only makes sense to ingrate the SharePoint document management features into Windows Explorer.

Microsoft might want to release SharePoint SAAS services that will require a remote browser, but that is not enough reason for me to continue with the current solution for in-house installations.

Deny your beliefs - develop quick and dirty

2010-12-21T09:50:00.000+11:00

Lately, I have been denying my beliefs.

I have been kicking around with a rugby ball. It bounces everywhere. Hopeless, but that is just the point. The physiotherapist wanted me to do this as part of my rehabilitation of my knee. It's all about the constant sideways movements. At least my son had to laugh. Though he's a little football (soccer) genius (we like to belief so), he kicks around with any type of ball and follows Aussie Rules (AFL) and the rugby codes as well.


image Wikimedia Commons

Because I have been less active, I tried to abstain from my chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag) on bread for breakfast. These are not the horrible tiny bits you get normally in Australia, but the real original Dutch ones. Luckily the supermarket around the corner sells them and that's why I survived for so long here in Australia. General health advise is not to have something sweet for breakfast. So I thought it might be time for me to listen to good advice.

But even worse, lately I have been toying with the thought that quick and dirty development of websites and applications might be a good strategy as long as you have the discipline to use this only for throw away solutions.

Specifically in these day and age where technology platforms and devices come and ago with rapid speed, you need to redo you work for the different platform within no time. If you have to throw it away anyway, why bother to put proper architectures and designs in place?

Today it is the iPhone, tomorrow the iPad and next with will be iDroidBerry(*) or whatever it is that integrates with the latest social networking service. You need to respond quickly not to miss the boat.

The problem with this is that if you don't throw the solution away within a year or so, you end up doing maintenance on the solution which then becomes expensive. I found that usually you hardly put a solution aside within a year. And if you do, usually you do this only partly.

For the cases that I ever ran into these temporary intended solutions, it always turned out that we needed to maintain and enhance it for at least a few years. Some of those were done quick and dirty or we inherited those from others. But we always regretted the quick and dirty approach.

We found also quite often that when development was outsourced the vendor tried to do this within the given time frames sacrificing sound design and architecture. In order to beat competition they quoted low but that meant they could only stay profitable by doing it quick and dirty. Ongoing support usually then became expensive. (One of the reasons, you should be very careful when outsourcing development).

Now when I think about it, quick and dirty might not be such a good solution and I better stick to my belief to deliver well thought through and well designed solutions.

Once my rehabilitation is over I will put the rugby ball to the side and use a proper ball again. This morning I had my hagelslag for breakfast.

(*) Soon to be trade marked by Shane O' Neill.

Green IT does not exist

2010-12-12T11:17:00.000+11:00

Though we can do our best to reduce unnecessary use of energy in our data centers, I don't belief that "green IT" exists.

Each time when I hear the term "green IT", I see around me simply more consumption of IT equipment, gadgets and more energy consumption. I just bought a refill pack for soap and had to pour it in the bottle. The idea around those refill packs is that it saves on packaging material. But I wonder how much greener this all actually is. When I was pouring the soap into the bottle I was a bit clumsy and the first lot did not really go into the bottle. That was wasted soap. Then you have the situation that it is difficult to squeeze all of the last bit of the soap out of the refill pack. In total there was quite a bit of waste of the soap. Quite often I feel that packing is made such that it is difficult to get the last bit of material out, resulting in waste but increased sales for the manufacturer.

With IT it is not much different. Buying MS Windows forces you to buy more software such as anti virus software. And you need to upgrade to the latest versions which make your computer run slower which in return will stimulate you to buy a new computer.

I work here on a 10 year old computer. With this I am pretty green, I think. I haven't participated in the race of ongoing production of new computers. When I bought this one, I picked the most powerful that I could find at that time. Over time I did need to upgrade a bit and downgrade some of the software. Turn off and uninstall some unwanted features and software and use it for its original purpose. It means that I don't use it for gaming.

To resolve the gaming needs for my kids, I bought a dedicated game console. Now we have two machines turned on the whole day consuming energy. So how green am I really?

In the corporate environment it is not much different. We are a bit late on replacing PC's in our office. You could say that saves on computer consumption. But because it takes more time to boot your computer in the morning, nearly everybody leaves the computer on overnight.

Our constant need for more IT exceeds any of our attempts to reduce energy consumption and make more energy efficient technology. Our "green" awareness has its limits. When the annual Earth Hour is on, our kids are very energy aware. But a few days later, I have to chase them to turn off the lights in their bedroom before they go to school. The same applies to us as employees. We all think Earth Hour and reduction of energy consumption is good, but as long as it does not mean that we need to turn our computer off a the end of the day.

Saving energy is the responsibility of the guys in the data centre and we don't want to be held responsible for turning off the lights at the end of the day either.

We better be damned good in improving energy efficient technology, because I don't think we have reached our hunger for more technology yet. To be green, we have to replace old technology with modern more energy efficient technology. So we need to produce more and buy more; at least good news for the manufacturers.

And then there is the other side of the production of IT equipment. Key components are created with tantalum which is produced from coltan. And the problem here is with the mining of coltan. Most of this comes from legitimate mining locations around the world but some can come from Congo funding the civil war and threatening the habitat of gorillas. It is not that the IT industry wants to be part of it, but it remains important for us all to be aware such that manufacturers and their suppliers are stimulated to work down the supply chain to stop flow of the material from Congo. It seems difficult to do something about this. Maybe sponsor the World Wildlife Fund.

Plato's Revenge, Part 4: Are we really directing our team?

2010-12-06T10:00:00.001+11:00

In many cases we think that we manage and control our teams, but in reality quite often the team manages itself.

I learned that Stephen Hawking wrote a new book "The Grand Design", co written with Leonard Mlodinow. I haven't read it, but I understand that it says that there is not one single reality and that the universe (actually multiple universes) were created spontanously. In other words, no Grand Design. No God. Reality depends on the theoretical model you use. Not much different as I learned long time ago about the paradigm shifts by Thomas Kuhn. Or in other words, our perception of reality depends on the observer and the model he uses to interpret it. And we're back to Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the title of my blog.

Photo by Nasa HQ

I saw on TV a few years ago a documentary about Stephen Hawking. His disease had progressed so far, that communication was sheer impossible for him. Direct writing his thoughts was not possible anymore and he needed to communicate via the tiniest gestures. His assistant who was charged with writing down Stephen's thoughts and theories basically had go guess what he was trying to say. Much trial and error and waiting for confirmation from Stephen on what he had written down was what Stephen intended to say.

In that sense and without knowing too much about the process of how this book came to existence, I have my doubts who is the more important author of the book. I bet that Stephen in his mind for a big part just had to accept all the variations to his intentions and just had to settle for someting that is just "good enough" in order to get the main message across.

Not much different to how we manage our teams.

I have accused our executives often of "managing with their back to the organisation". Their job is pretty much in the outside world and therefore spend limited time with the team in the office. This means that they do not have much control over the day to day operations of the organisation. Or in other words, much of the steering of the organisation is done by the people themselves and the question remains whether we all go in the same direction.

Often I feel that I myself suffer from the same disease. Too often I ask people in my team to do something specific. For example I ask a DBA or developer to document something. Or I have given some clear directions (I think they were clear). But before you know the engineer has been sidetracked because of the many interuptions or the preference to spend the time on the major project he is also working on. It would then be for me to follow up. But I have the same issues: being sidetracked by other urgent matters and subjects that require full attention.

Quite often I realise that my directions have not been implemented exactly as I had in mind or sometimes not implemented at all. In many cases you just have to accept that good is good enough. For certain aspects of our work, it is practically impossible to get things done exactly according to your ideas or style of working. What you do is set the direction but the details are filled in by the team.

Take programming as an example. I have some very specific ideas about programming and system development. But a practical issue is already that I don't have much hands on experience with modern programming languages as Java or C#. I am definitely not going to audit the code the developers create, so I need to rely on my own developers to assure it is done according to best practices. In some cases you might even have arguments with them, but in the end you need to settle for a result. In the end the business outcome is more important and to get the project finished.

But sometimes I can get annoyed. For example, specifically Java developers can be horrible when it comes down to querying databases. One of my team members just improved some search logic from minutes down to seconds. Somebody in the past had decided to retrieve a whole bunch of data that was not really needed. When we built the system years ago, I was already aware of a series of these problems. But in order to get the system delivered on time for critical business deadlines, you are not going delay this with some performance issues (within acceptable range obviously) while you know that the business is going to be extremely happy with what they will get.

When it comes down to programming, I think I fare as blind as Stephen Hawking must have been writing this book. You can postulate some high level directions and then just hope that your team, assistant or co-author will interpret this as you intended. And even if you see that in certain areas this is not the case, to come to a result you need to accept that the team drives itself. And this is normal. You are a manager and you will have many specialists in the team who need to make decisions within their area of expertise. You don't need to do this all. I am always proud of my team (and myself to achieve this), that when I come back from holiday that things usually have progressed as expected and that any issues were dealt with effectively. At least it is not that when I come back, I am suddenly confronted with dramas.

Sometimes we are just fooling ourselves and make ourselves belief how important we are. Governments and politicians quite often think they have much control over the economy and can direct this, but in reality governments only have minimal influence.

There is good and bad in all this. The bad is that there is the risk of chaos if there is a complete lack of control. The good thing is that this allows for the team to come up with ideas and be more creative. In the end, they are hired to think for themselves. You will have more spontanous creation without a grand design.

According to the Design Thinking, by Roger Martin the mix of design and spontaneous creation is ideal for organisations.

Maybe Stephen Hawking needs to allow for a model that allows for the Grand Design as one of the realities. This reality, this universe, will then be a good place for those who belief that God created and designed the world and as such that actually God created that world, that universe, that reality. And a world where I am in full control over what happens in my team and where I can trust our executives to be in full control and where we all work in alignment without our strategy. If I would go on, this world would be an Utopia. A world where you plan your project and it works exactly according to plan. You design your system and it is the most perfect system that your business ever wanted. Maybe it actually exists in one of the parallel realities.

Know your licenses - Oracle e-business suite licensing hell

2010-11-27T09:08:00.004+11:00

As a customer you often need to know the vendor's software licensing rules and constructions better than anyone from the vendor.

Take for example Oracle's E-Business Suite. When you buy the EBS, you get in theory the Internet Application Server and the database (DBMS) for 'free' as part of the package. This is the theory. In reality you need to buy a full license for them.

We are faced with the challenge of upgrading from release 11 to release 12. There is the option to buy extended support so we would be able to delay the upgrade with a year or two. To evaluate this option, I asked Oracle what the extended support costs for us would be. We have only one signle installation of the Oracle EBS, so it would be all or nothing. However when you ask the question whether you need to buy extended support for the database and the application server as well, you are directed to others within Oarcle. Nobody within Oracle will have a full and holistic understanding of the licensing. However, you as client are required to know it all.

Image: Creative Commons

So far, it sounds that extended support for the database is not required for the database as long as you make sure the version is on a supported level. From what I gather, the same applies to the application server.

However Oracle writes in its "Oracle Information Driven Support document - Oracle Lifetime Support Policy - Oracle Applications" document:

Extended Support for Release 11.5.10 requires the minimum baseline patches defined in My Oracle Support Document 883202.1. Customers running Oracle Fusion Middleware 10gR2 and 10gR3 in the Oracle E-Business Suite version 12 internal technology stack will remain supported for the duration of the support period for Oracle E-Business Suite 12. All Release 12.0 patches and Critical Patch Updates (CPUs) will only be provided for Release 12.0.4 and above

So if version 12 will be supported till the end of its life on the 10gR2 version, would the same not apply to version 11 of the E-Business Suite? What I recall from the Insync10 sessions, it was said that IAS 10g would still be supported with the EBS 11i. When talking to Oracle, I find that hardly anyone really understands the question and noone can give an answer.

The EBS comes with the Application Server and the database shrink-wrapped for free. Oracle explained very clearly that they do not have any customers who do not have any form of customisation and therefore you always need to buy the database and the application server as well. If Oracle states that IAS 10g will be supported with EBS 11i, then you can assume that your customisations to certain extend will also be supported?

Extended support is 20% of the normal license support fee (which is 20% of the original purchase price of the license).

As part of our license contracts we are licensed for a module that we don't use. Removing this module from the contract would mean that the contract would be opened up and in the end would cost us more than just paying for the module as part of the current contract.
The question arises whether we would need to buy extended support for this module or not. And to answer this you need to know whether it forms part of any of the other Product Families we have:

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&id=883202.1&type=NOT (this link requieres a login to Oracle Support)
Extended Support is available on a product family by product family basis. What this means is Customer can choose to patch one Applications Product Family area, but not another. This allows a Customer to leave areas of the code that might be extensively customized at their current levels, but gives that same Customer the option to receive Extended Support on other modules that are eligible.

And it seems that Oarcle itself has a hard time identifying this ...

http://blogs.oracle.com/stevenChan/2009/04/products_and_families_and_vers.html
Steven Chang explaining about Product Families and Versions.
As far as I'm aware, there is no straightforward means of taking a specific product and traversing "up the tree" to figure out which product family it belongs to. I agree that this would be useful, and will ask internally whether we have information we can publish on this.