"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results"...WC Print

In business intelligence projects, assembling the data is large part of the deal as you go about building an independent data warehouse or set one up in Business Intelligence reporting software itself.

The Pareto theory to focuses on 20% of effort to get 80% of the value does not work in business intelligence projects. You need to get 100% of the data right and cleaned up before it can be mapped and reported consistently.

Even cutting corners by doing a departmental business intelligence may work for a while. But in the end if it is not linked to the published finance results it will be soon be undermined and will eventually end in the scrap bin of good ideas that did not fly; along with those who attempted to fly them.

Using an enterprise level business Intelligence project as a focus to clean up data in itself is a great way to go. The benefits are most often immediate. In fact to get those jobs done any other way almost never happens as the business continues to struggle on with hybrid decision processes that hinder progress.

Building a consistent data-warehouse in fact is the real job in setting up business intelligence reporting. The problem there is cleaning up is often costly and the perception is by most that there is no problem or cleaning adds no value, so it gets left out of the value discussion.

As a Finance or IT manager how often have you heard, “We already have a good data warehouse and all we need is a Business intelligence tool to do our reporting from it.”

As one who lives in both worlds and in my case as a consultant too it actually tells me to beware to do much more proving work on the business case. And do more project due diligence work before locking in on contracts. 

In the case of the CFO or Business Vice President  championing the work, this should also be done before seeking the budget and letting procurement loose to go find a vendor and a competent consultant. Finding the bad data story after the fact, when the installed team and software is on deck, is far too late. No-one cares by then as they know you are between a rock and a hard place with little or no way out.

And if the business is performing well and the goal is for faster decisions information to maintain momentum, then  time to delivery as goal is seen as the most critical project driver. Then things like consistency are automatically assumed to be there or must be dealt with regardless of other change impact considerations.  But of course in this type of case given performance is relative in terms of these constraints, problems that most often show up are on the enterprise’s source systems themselves. So then the paradigm shift as a goal is stalled and the project, which may get off to a great start, quickly falters as these issues surface.

So it actually does take a great deal of resolve, process change management and team work to agree consistent business rules at all levels to solve the issues. That is at the heart of it all. And it is what can trip you up if you don’t stay focused and get it under control. The rest of the work is really just technical and is quite straight forward with limited risk.

Hence in well thought through projects where the value of cleaning is recognized and the correct value focus is brought to bear, it can pay for the project many times over. In such cases this should be recognized as a business benefit to be targeted and not just left as a by-the-way or left out as a buyer beware tactic to get unknown issues solved and cost savings on the cheap.

And in the end who cares what BI tool we use. The truth is if you don’t use one you are foolish as the disciplines they bring alone are worth the money, I should quickly add that this only applies if they are setup by people who actually do know what they are doing. I have seen too many IT selves with software still its shrink packed box never opened. Or when it does it is badly used by installation novices. As one of my software vendor contemporaries said to me recently

“if you don’t have a competent data management team included in your BI project, then I hope you don’t choose my software as I don’t need the reputation”

As too often we aim for the utopian state to exploit what comes only after the hidden work is done. getting there is often actually where the value is as your conversations across the business sort-out the issues in a more natural way. So seeing it as a burden and a delay to project is folly. Doing this will invariably cause frustration and loss of focus and may cause it to even falter and/or fail.

More to the point business leaders who provide budgets for this work, who may also have been part of the evolution that unknowingly or otherwise create the issues, invariable underestimate what it will takes to fix them. They must understand it takes momentum and motivation to get the tough and dirty job of cleaning done. And that business intelligence is about their future and not just some fancy reporting process that sends emails on delinquent performance and helps cuts the costs of doing things in spreadsheets.

As sponsors entitled to see more visible progress to the end game solution that they approved the budget for, they  should call to account project managers to bring to attention any value that gets the money back earlier than expected. By simply enforcing standards and making data process improvements before the project is even completed will delver this.

Hence the value is in the understanding the secondary benefit of cleaning up data and continually selling the value of the process it takes to get that work done is vital.

It is not just all about setting up dashboards and dials to help focus and understand the data but also about having consistent data that has universal acceptance and integrity.  This combination in turns allow business intelligence to be used to create an intelligent business

For many of us doing this do we really need to rethink our mission and how we manage.

 

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In a related post Failing-address-data-quality-and-consistency here are some very key points

Don’t fall into these traps. Don’t assume anything about the state of the data. The areas where data quality and inconsistency problems lurk:

• Data quality within systems-of-record applications may be “masked” by corrections made within reports or spreadsheets created from this data. The people who told you the data is fine might not even be aware of these “adjustments.”
• Data does not age well. Although data quality may be fine now, there’s always the chance that you’ll have problems or inconsistencies with the historical data. The problems can also arise when applications like predicative analytics need to use historical data.
• Data quality may be fine within each systems-of-record application, but may be very inconsistent across applications. Many companies have master data inconsistency problems with product, customer and other dimensions that will not be apparent until the data is loaded into the enterprise Data warehouse.

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It has been said that the best business brains are the inquisitive ones. But is it possible that this inquisitiveness will lead to its own demise as the leapfrogging emergence of global commercial processing power accelerates and unprecedented information ready to hand takes even greater control. With so much pre-programmed reactions being built in, will the human brain become redundant as a force driving humanity itself?

In pondering this, I chanced on the SAGE business brain training site which made me look at it this in more practical detail. It has some great insights into the types of business skills needed by successful people. The site, which runs Business Brain Training a quiz, also points out to me what people in business and young people learning should developed to be successful.

So in a debate with myself taking the side to argue in favor of brain keeping the power I concluded that it is actually even more critical to build management skills to ensure systems that run most of our lives don’t die.

Each of the items in the following quotes bare definitions I got from the SAGE site. I am not sure where they got them from but they are excellent food for thought. It was a fun to work thru hence I am posting it here. Perhaps someone may like to take the opposite view.

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It is been put that with much of the worlds commercial and logistics now being connected by intelligent systems, the human brain can soon be replaced.

Here are 6 reasons why that will never happen.

Foresight by analytical system only helps predict futures but to spot opportunities takes more.

Foresight is the quality that will help you identify what success looks like for you. Good foresight is the sign of a great decision-maker, and someone who is equally strong at spotting opportunities that can lead them down their own path to success

Logic is at the heart of the heart of all systems. But even the most sophisticated NASA computers and commercial aero planes still need highly skilled people to tactically interpret information and react quickly to make critical decisions.

Logical thinking links up well with foresight. It’s the ability to recognize the order of events necessary to achieve success. The logical thinker’s strength is in identifying and processing patterns and seeing how they could work advantageously. Individuals with good logic skills are good at creating a practical order of a series of facts or events.

Concentration and sustaining focus on the right things is something systems can only support.

In a fast-moving business environment, people are faced with many different challenges, often in quick succession and sometimes all at once. Concentration is the ability to provide the necessary level of focus for each challenge, so that an individual can identify the key actions needed to achieve a solution.

Responsivness can be programmed but without human intervention disaster is inevitable.

This is the ability to work well under pressure and to adapt to a constantly changing environment. Individuals who excel in rapid response skills tend to be good all-rounders who can call on a range of skills when they need them. They can balance the adrenaline-fuelled thought process that is created by high-pressure situations with the calmness and control needed for intelligent decision making.

Memory just cannot be replaced by systems. System don’t remember anything they just store and process information.

It’s rare that all of the information you need to overcome a challenge will be readily available to you when you need it. The ability to retain key facts and carry forward lessons learnt from previous experience is vital to effective problem-solving. The knowledge stored by an individual gives them the power to continually improve the efficiency of business processes.

Numeracy is about joining the dots and not only about being able to calculate and understand numbers. It’s about understanding what is at the heart of the critical numbers and how they may change dynamically. Numeracy is also about understanding and reacting to what caused the numbers not in numerical terns but in the human activity terms that created them. 

Success in business cannot be measured by profit alone. However, the ability to operate at a reasonably high level (and deliver profit) is an essential factor in determining long-term success. An agile numerical brain is a key part of making the right decisions to make a business profitable.

In conclusion it is easy to observe that good use of information systems and applications extensively improve intuition in the human brain of those who use and understand them well. And the human brain because of that improves the systems. Therefore these six highly important human abilities can never be replaced by synthetic brain power. 

I rest my case.

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Disclaimer / Acknowledgment

For those interested SAGE is one of the words large application technology companies with an impressive track record for quality business management products.

At the time publishing this post I can say with impurity that I have no association with SAGE at all nor am i aware do any of my affiliates. The information on their site referred to here is acknowledged as their material posted under international copyright and is used here for the purpose of debating arguments it poses.

Any inference or presumption that I or any of the contributors to this post represent SAGE or its views by association is denied. I do however acknowledge the excellent value of the material they posted and I recommended it.

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As a consultant most is know that much of our work is detailed and exploratory. Making change means we need to study and discuss the gaps in the “what is” position so you can have a discussion about changing that state. This takes planning thought and collaborative skill to get people to dig in to the detail and then go a new way to fix the problems we find. That process can be both continuous and radical.

Either way it happens best if the process is fun so people enjoy engaging to get detail information and explore looking for solutions and best practices.

I read something recently about teaching, and it seemed to me the parallels with consulting are similar. The article about teaching in an Asian culture pointed to quite different approaches needed to what we see in the so-called traditional west. A British teacher posted this in the Naked Farang entitled Working teaching Thais

In it he reinforces to be a successful teacher, the best advice is to steer away from boring lectures, long explanations and tests. Like we find also in consulting workshops, making your classes interactive and fun works best. Then not only do students enjoy the classes, but they also learn from them by being involved. The post goes on to explore some great examples that are thought provoking for every culture. It well worth a read.

We have to take all of this into consideration when we decide how we are going to manage change too, In addition to human cultural difference there always different business cultures which vary from business to business too. The common thread however is that people everywhere like to have fun, even at work. The corollary truism to this makes sense. “If you are not having fun it is very hard get things done”

In a work place it important, like it is with most students to win them over early. If they think that learning about change is going to be too serious, people involved will mentally switch off, turn up late or skip sessions and make minimal progress. The flip side is people will be more motivated to be productive and learn effectively if they enjoy the work and have a rapport with the leader.

This is deeply ingrained into Asian cultures more so than the west as following is more encouraged rather than making direct contributions at the risk offending or losing face. In fact, why should we want to change it? We should be flexible enough to adapt the way we teach or engage with people in any cultural styles.

In a workplace these cultural differences can be used to advantage as people who work in silos have fun with to joining the dots when you get them together.

As an example an Asia culture with students and what westerners regard as cheating in class can be of great value, In Asia this is almost pathological. As left to their own devices Asian students will typically gather round to just copy their answers. The counter-productiveness of this has absolutely no logic but you can do nothing about it.

Knowing this means at work however getting people to work things out as a group can be used to great advantage when they are given a problem to study and naturally relax under the protection of group discussions.

Another aspect of leading for results I have found useful, being foreigner is to set the scene in the common language of English then allow it to debated out in the native tongue. This can be very effective in facilitated workshops if it is allowed to run under this protection. By contrast to large passive participation in lecture style workshops, allowing time for discussion in the native tongue sees the noise levels and participation very high from all levels with occasional so called clarification feedback so you can keep it on track. That can be a tough call if your local language skill is not good. But other signals and natural group dynamics tell most of the stories as you just watch while people get comfortable and to the point. It is far from boring with the challenge to get agreement to move to the next steps.

The spoken language too is not the only tool. As we all know speaking is based on not only being cohesive with words and body language but also on the history in local cultures that have much deeper meaning. So unless you are stupid and use a Shakespearian style straight forward English is common use and widely accepted as the written structure format. Most Asians in business now have better understanding of written English even more so than a locally expressive document. Hence we often find people at all levels ask for a document before they ever ask for an explanation. The trick then, as with everyone, is it walk them thru it and allow learning process to take its course.

Another wonderful example of understanding rote learning is in the Naked Farang post.

He says, “When I was in high school in England, one of my favorite subjects was history because I enjoyed hearing about how important events and people changed the course of history.  We would analyze these lessons to see what we had learned and how they affected the present. It was, to me, fascinating and stimulating. In contrast, I hated maths because it just seemed too inflexible and boring.

For Thai students, history is one of the least favorite subjects simply because of the way it is taught. The students are simply expected to memories names and dates without actually attaching any significance to them. There is no wonder they find this boring. In contrast, moths is a popular subject. Why is maths so popular? Well, instead of rote learning names, words or dates, maths offers the students a relative degree of academic freedom because they can learn formulas and experiment with them. In an environment where everything else is so rigid, this is their chance to express themselves.

In our business world of consulting to identify problems and find solutions is always a challenge. But as always the biggest challenge is implementing in diverse cultures that by nature don’t really want to change. The process of learning how to do this is constant and ever stimulating to me

I am always fascinated reading and taking to others about their insights and experience. If you feel inclined please share your experience. I would love to hear about it.

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Few things are as critical to CFO’s and finance professionals as our systems.  Core accounting and budgeting platforms to back office infrastructure and client relationship management systems are all moving online, into the "cloud", and an entirely new business model called “Software as a Service”. This represents the largest change in technology for the Finance profession since the internet began. (Sungard)

The responsibilities that come with this change are a paradigm shift as systems control moves more to the finance roles. Quite ready too are many of the new breed of finance executives who have emerged in the last decade. This has seen them develop from being passive Information Technology users, to being savvy technology thinkers and change agent leaders, who can relate Information management to the business process and understand how to exploit it to get business value.

As cloud benefits mature and become more and more obvious, the questions being asked now are not what is it but:

• How can finance people start understanding the dynamics and plan change?  
• How can they take advantage of Software as a Service to change the business model  and / or generate new revenue?
• Why are Finance Executives now in high demand to lead this change and why should they embrace it?

Some of the answers to these questions lie in understanding the provider models and how they will shake out.  A few weeks ago in this series I wrote about an internet cloud based shift in Information Technology with the focus on shrinking corporate IT management  From the market perspective, an excellent  “Greg Papadopoulos” post sent to me since, talks about controlling dynamics of the cloud which make this subject even more compelling when we consider who will be controlling our daily lives in the future.

It was written last year when he was at SUN, a platform and infrastructure services giant who were then being taken over by another giant database software services company, namely ORACLE. In his research he also provides good explanations of how the Internet Cloud is  emerging with distinctions on various layers being infrastructure, platform and software.

In summary, the Intercloud as Papadopoulos calls it has the words  “as a Service” as the key. With emphasis on the big “S” and not on the web infrastructure it is delivered across. Then, by adding prefixes such as “P” for platform, “S” for software “I” for infrastructure it starts to make sense. That is to say cloud services comprise more than one thing. Thus the abstraction layer cake of SaaS on PaaS on IaaS).

Make no mistake, he says, I have no doubt that cloud (nee network, grid) computing will become the organizing principle for public and private infrastructure. The production question is what the balance will be.  Which cloud approach will ultimately win?  Will it be big public utility-like things, or more purpose-built private enterprise ones?

The answer: yes. There will be no more of a consolidation to a single cloud than there is to a single network

And, yes, I know I’ve said that the there will be only about five gigantic public clouds I still think that is correct, but also as suggested by that post, it will look a lot like the energy business, with dozens, or hundreds, of national and regional companies.

Papadopoulos concluded on behalf of SUN last year,  “We should expect and work towards nothing less in cloud computing.”

“Platforms” to run the “Infrastructure” to run “Software” applications, all as a service are now being built into a totally services based managed web environment. This in turn is now seeing multiple third party service providers solutions being seamlessly delivered strategically and at much lower overall costs. Understanding the mix of how these all work and where the cost and value can be exploited is where the CFO needs to be getting involved.

For the Finance and other Business Executives and key operational end users, it is more critical  to understand what this move to market driven service models cover and how to exploit them. With zero latency now part of our business time to decision mindset, it is now much more than having more efficient end to end components that traditionally could only exist on a grid based system.

What some people don’t see as they struggle with the confusion of terms, is  what is actually driving all this. The X Factor here is the race to control of the cloud by the large vendors with cost benefit leadership being the uppermost prize. The value of this to the eventual winners will be infinite. Like energy companies who have controlled oil supply for so long, the stakes on information management control are equally huge. To get there and get a consumption based model established early is vital for the big guys.Equally so mid range players and well placed early adopter firms are now moving in to get a foothold too. This is the classic model that has made so many in past rich as they cashed in on exit strategies as acquisitions and consolidations come on down the track.

Even just two years ago it was all seemed so visionary,  but now cloud based solutions are a reality as they are fast replacing in-house managed network grids. The intense IT and business integration management that goes with this is destined to disappear too.  And as costs tumble and the value of supply and demand take on new meanings, Information Technology as we know it is being redefined  with developers also getting new life and opportunities.

Evidence of impetus that is building in the finance professionals community is also showing up in regularly surveys of CFO forums. One this week forums asked its members to consider how maturing cloud services can now provide options in strategic thinking and operational processes. In this there a list of vendors already offering these services including. Adaptive Planning, Amazon, Citrix, Google, Host Analytics, HP, Intacct, IBM, Microsoft, NetSuite.

The survey also asked questions about the lower-cost alternatives to “on-premise” systems such as:

• accounting / ERP
• applications to Consolidate accounting
• planning/CRM across borders, currencies, and offer improved collaboration,
• Reduce company’s IT CAPEX and operating expenses
• Provide scalability without infrastructure build-up
• Reduce company’s operating risk
• Reduce  company’s downtime
• facilitate compliance with  company’s internal policies or external regulation

Microsoft, Google and Amazon are perhaps the most well know household names with Salesforce.com perhaps one of the most well know long time providers with  its CRM services extensively used for nearly a decade.

This week INFOR another giant of the mid ranged accounting systems (ERP) and performance management (PM) software systems. announced plans to run its product as a service on Microsoft’s Azure cloud stack. This adds further momentum to the shift away from licensing on-premises ERP vendor software to a service based model.

So the bottom line for the finance and business strategists is to understand where the investment by vendors is heading and what changes are going on in the development world as the legacy systems become less important to them to support.

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Unfortunately when we talk about Information Technology the language disintegrates quickly into acronym based tech talk .The issue then is we have trouble understanding it all. But for the technically savvy take a look at some rated posts here.

• Infor embrace Microsoft’s azure-cloud  – Author IT World Exchange

• The Intercloud – Author Greg Papadopoulos

• Proformative Member Survey on Cloud Computing & SaaS – Author Proformative

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Here is something to ponder. The Corporate Executive Board Company, says five years ago, less than 25% of business leaders rated their IT function’s effective to deliver the capabilities they needed. They go on to say in 2010 the number has not changed.

IT functions have strived tirelessly to understand demand, set priorities, deliver effectively, and capture value, yet the results still disappoint. Business and IT leaders alike feel they should be getting more—more efficiency, more innovation, and more value—from technology.

In their recently published study of the IT role its findings cover  5 levels of shift.

1. Shift 1: Information Over Process

2. Shift 2: IT Embedded in Business Services

3. Shift 3: Externalized Service Delivery

4. Shift 4: Greater Business Partner Responsibility

5. Shift 5: Diminished Standalone IT Role

At a practical level, in my work in business intelligence and information, I find so many business enabling discussions these days hinge on good information. This invariably leads to a discussion on the capability or lack thereof of IT, as the traditional owners, to deliver it. 

Being in the business end of business intelligence, I also observe the shift in the tasks to set up and coordinate information. As an activity that is now largely falling to the end user business functions like finance, marketing and operations with software vendors and specialist implementers working with them to make it all happen.

Like process applications that have long since been commoditized with highly advanced process packages, management information is now being delivered the same way. In large generalized database applications with configurable end users web tools for both administration and end user use now to deliver the information. There in is the issue for IT as they have become just environment managers with limited skill to be involved in the business strategically.

In many organizations I see significant investments that have occurred on complex systems, are, aside from being in use in the core process, scarcely understood technically by IT. The fact that IT defers the information based deployment task to market system vendors means they also devolve a once hallowed territory of process change management with it. So the argued best placed leaders on joining all the dots of the business processes, being IT, is now scarcely even aware.  

Among all the talk of engagement, alignment, and “being part of the business,” one assumption is never challenged—that for information technology to grow in strategic importance, so must the IT function.

But what if this is not the case?

What if a dedicated, standalone IT function is no longer the best option and the function’s resources and responsibilities were better located elsewhere?

What has occurred is vendors have become de-facto managers of change and are more often than the resident experts in inner workings of their client’s organizations. As cost pressures increase they have also becoming less tolerant and less willing to withstand the continuing conservative commodity based thinking of now quite limited in-house IT functions who try to hold onto power with things like the control of security. For this they are still needed to manage things networking and authentication although even that is changing. There is so much more to IT of course including redundancy standards and communications but the relentless shift continues to vendor services for IT and to cloud based computing for delivery of infrastructure management. With this being cut away from IT it is fast moving the direct control of the business functions who will naturally rely on end to end serviced IT models more and more.

Typically now applications all have their own infrastructures (servers etc.) with communication and hardware to fit the internet generally. And With major vendors are now spending huge sums investing in cloud infrastructure change is now inevitable and one-way from in-house IT. This totally new world of computing in the next few years will also see business knowledge based IT skills move to the  business to work in service based mode. As is the case with most small to medium sized business now who use low cost and even free service based models the big end of town businesses will also be fully outsourced to the service providers as a demand based service.

As to the timing and transition, the huge cloud based investment vendors like Microsoft and others speaks volumes. In the last three years the massive deployment of resources now sees Microsoft, for example, emerging as a high end hosting company. Of the 40,000 or so Microsoft based developers around the world it is estimated that 90% are currently focused on cloud based applications. This rapid move of the Microsoft business too, from traditional mass markets of desktop and database services to an infrastructure provider, will be seen very soon at all virtual levels

“The IT function of 2015 will bear little resemblance to its current state.  Many activities will devolve to business units, be consolidated with other central functions such as HR and Finance, or be externally sourced.  Fewer than 25% of employees currently within IT will remain, while CIOs face the choice of expanding to lead a business shared service group, or seeing their position shrink to managing technology delivery . . . This study argues that the changes will be rapid, permanent, and radical.  We have advocated for a decade that IT leaders become demand shapers, not order takers.  Similarly, we now recommend that IT leaders devote the time, energy, and resources to actively shape the coming transition.”

The quotes are taken from the paper that you can download here, entitled The Future of Corporate IT . Authors are The Corporate Executive Board, a consulting firm. This provides research and analysis to business executives and professionals around the world. In addition on my recommended reading list is a post by   Irving Wladawsky-Berger called IT in the Age of the Cloud In this he makes balanced comment of these issues.

 

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This week in Melbourne, I had a great lunch with my son. He talked abut his city based vocation as a building construction manager It is not without hazard when it comes to parking he told me. Later he sent me a very funny letter written to the Melbourne City Council about a parking issue written by one of his aggrieved mates.

I send it to my very good friend, Lawrence Berezin for an opinion, being he is Lawyer in New York. He in turn sought  wider views in his regular web publication “New York Parking Ticket”. In this he very kindly added some great publicity about our National Song Waltzing Matilda. Plus he got some great comments from his readers including some nice ones about us Aussies. Here is his post that included my son’s message. He headed it The-Wacky-World-of-Parking-Tickets

In this fun site Larry takes what to most is an emotive subject and makes it not only advisory and educational but practical too. Although about New York City Parking,  it has huge appeal with everyone who parks their car in any city anywhere in the world.  Go and make yourself known to Larry (as he prefers to be called by his mates) and let him know what you think about the things he writes. He always replies so you wont regret it.

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Recently an ulcer in my mouth was quite distressing. I attempted to research it to find some sort of relief. You would think for such a simple thing as an ulcer in the mouth would be easy to find a remedy. But it is not so unless you ask the right questions. 

 Even so I did manage to record a short video about this dilemma. Trade work going on around me filled the air with dust hence the cover sheet hanging behind me to protect the pictures on my wall. 

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Business people, not IT, make technology work to focus the business. The general IT role is more strategic to maintain and improve competitive positions of the business infrastructure to make people’s lives easier, It is not the other way around. Ask any CIO, he knows that. especially when he asks for a sign off on what is installed.

So why when changing a process do people go straight to IT to set up technical processes. When they do IT have no choice to do it their way, Then  they give things names that are either functional, relate to the software or are way too obscure?

There is no way this should happen in the public domain as things like product names and branded access URLs are always cleared by marketing. Then image and branding are so important. But internally that does not happen as all too IT often gets little business help or involvement.

It is like having two standards, one rule for customers and other those who service them. And that make no sense at all. Setting the service delivery culture starts with teaching people the supply chain in not about them but their suppliers and customers. So why do we still insist being too lazy to put some effort into more marketing rather than functional or geeky names.

To paraphrase from another well-known idiom.

If you feed them peanuts they will look like monkeys.

So why not give internal process the same respect you give your customers and suppliers so they will be more likely to perform and respond the way you expect. That of course needs a business person to own and manage the change process. And all too often they are missing or busy.

Most often too as learning is done in the development stage where the die is cast. “A habit of one” it is often called. When you show people something that continues to work for them they may never change even if it is improved the very next day. The process and a systems life is therefore limited by the language and thought we give it when it starts. Never mind people whom may struggle later once the initial support is gone.

http://Image076/ or some such useless ellipsis name embedded in key process URLs is unlikely to move your business forward. So why use language that you don’t understand or is not service related?

As for IT infrastructure and everything upwards it is vital for management to get involved. Once instances are set and business teams take over any plea to start where we want to end up is then forlorn and lost.  It is often too hard and too detailed for managements to consider, especially in the “lets get it done urgency” cultures to have something working and adding value yesterday. So it gets underway without good thought on the impact of a later change.

Using and understanding how to set names and use aliases in not an IT role, It is vital for business managers to break this nexus so the language of technology more natural to focus the business.

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A popular myth in business and life is that it is only money that motivates. Consider why you go to learn to play a piano or join a speech club and why you find so many professionals doing more creatively work for others for free when their employer pays them for the same type of work.

End user tools such as Gmail plus backend server tools like Lynx and Apache are some of the world’s highest used technologies. These are examples of things that would have never happened were they not motivated to be created by something other than money.

It may be true that the more money works to get better results when the task being done involves mechanical skills based on a set of rules. Then the more you scale up the pay as the  reward the more likelihood there is for a better result.

However MIT and other studies conclusively find that once a task calls from even rudimentary cognitive skills, the results most often get worse when you use more pay as the incentive to get more results. Profit motive then gets unhinged from purpose and bad things start to happen.

This is discussed in this Royal Society for encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) Animate Video – “Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us”

This calls into question that if you reward something you get more of the behavior you want and if you punish something you get less.

The video that is has had extensive viewing since it was published on you Tube in April 2010.

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and the workplace. www.theRSA.org

It bears no more comment except to say it may the best 10 minutes of essential information you can get to help you understand and pass your next creative leadership challenge.

 

Here also is the live version of Dan Pink’s RSA talk if you prefer to see him in action.

I wonder what others think?

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In my CFO Network Group recently there was a great discussion that gave so many useful ideas and insights about cutting costs.

 There a question was posed by Riyaz Lalani, Business Development Manager, BC at Canadian Traffic Services Group Ltd

Reducing costs? Why is there hesitation to make a change when it impacts the bottom line?

Here is my two bob’s worth:

Reducing costs is one thing which may just mean tightening the belt or asking a supplier to reduce. That is called “running the business, which should always include knowing the potential value of low hanging fruit”.

Change is another thing that is more difficult to make even though change itself is a constant in the day-to-day world of business that must be handled. So combining the two in a continuous improvement culture with transparent feedback support and operational measures in place can let everyone work out how to keep up as a way of life. A great business axiom too is “Plan=Success No Plan=failure”. So making cost cuts does need some thought.

With suppliers and customers included that can take care of a lot of issues and your business will grow organically and often at pace. Efficiency cost reductions too fall into in balance so risk issues and relationships don’t burn you later on.

Making step change for all the same reasons as many people have stated, is actually much more difficult without taking a step. And that takes commitment, resources and often a catalyst to bring it about.

When integrating businesses cultures and/or changing software platforms to re-focus business processes, you will most often see strategic growth as the aim.  Then culling redundant processes will also deliver cost reductions as one of the benefits.

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Its what’s said that inspires,

 

but what’s written transpires.

 

Sometimes we get it mixed up. This post was accidently published under Performance Controller but was intended for a “Humour for all Occasions.

So to keep faith with our theme, we have moved it. But now you see we do have a life after all.

Take a look at it any way. It could be fun, And there may also be some good jokes there that you can use.

 

But just be careful. There are over 300 jokes there sent in by all our mates and they can be a real time waster.  So don’t send this link to your staff or your kids doing homework.  Bookmarks work better anyway or you can always subscribe or use RSS feed.

If you have some good ones to share you can send them to me and I will post them. Roland.F.Chessman@myshercon.com

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I tried an experiment last month with an off the cuff speech about listening. When I played it back I had some harsh realizations where I see I need to improve. Being my own critic however I find is futile so I have decided to make it public. 

This unedited version was as I recorded it straight onto YouTube. I would value others option but more on the content than the delivery. Although I am happy for personal feedback too.

I would also like some views of how people perceive how others see they are being heard,  especially when they try to make an important point.

 

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“The Last Lecture” was Randy Pausch’s December 2007 farewell to the world. It has been viewed over 11 million times on you Tube alone and still gets comments. I watch it frequently for inspiration.

Since I have also followed the University he loved and I subscribe for their updates. This week they sent me this enlightening Bangalore think tank session on inspiring innovation and how it is evolving in India.

There are so many "Gems" buried in this video entitled Carnegie Mellon presents The New Face of Innovation that apply to everyone. I recommend it to students and innovators everywhere. The discussion sees a talented articulate panel in front of a local live audience. 

I just listened to the whole thing right through and it so full of insights. It is 50 minutes long, so I suggest you bookmark it or if you prefer you can down load it and listen to it on your IPOD

And make some notes.

 

 

CarnegieMellonU — March 31, 2010 — On March 10, 2010, Carnegie Mellon brought together a panel of leading experts to discuss business, technology and societal innovation shaping Bangalore and the world. The panel was moderated by Carnegie Mellon University President Jared L. Cohon; panelists were Subrahmanyam Goparaju, Vice President & Head, Software Engineering & Technology Labs, Infosys Technologies; Lalitesh K. Katragadda (CS96,’98), Co-Head Google, Inc.-Bangalore R&D Center; Pradeep K. Khosla (E84,86), Dean, Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering, and Harsh Manglik (TPR76), Chairman-India & Geography, Managing Director, Accenture India.

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There is something not quite right about this video. It has been around for while and collected quite a lot of comments, many not all that flattering.

Larry Ellison in this video reminded me of Dean Martin the comedian, but nowhere near as endearing.  I must admit I did found myself enjoying his lampooning. In the safety of his disciples he also gives Microsoft stick. 

Maybe it is because we see some lighthearted human side of this man whose personal image syncs with the ruthless practices of the Giant Oracle business he started and still heads.

Disliked or not by non disciples this leader of giants lightheartedly reduces cloud computing to the simplicity of what it is really is:

The cloud is Computers hooked up to Networks, that’s all it is.

He also distinguishes SaaS as a packaged business model for rental of computing services This is not new either past now and the future, so nothing new. 

Taking some advice of a long time journalist mate who says don’t just be mesmerised by a good show, always go for balance. which I did

I found another video by  Marc Benioff CEO of the cloud computing giant, Salesforce.com who lampoons Ellison.

They are each quite short. Enjoy them both !!!

First: Why Larry Ellison hates Cloud computing

 

Then Benioff who will always be Benioff, even sick like he was at this conference.

when asked about the Oracle CEO flip-flop cloud computing strategy, the Salesforce.com CEO and co-founder just couldn’t help ridicule his former mentor,

 

Here is the response in text

Larry Ellison.6 months ago he said its ridiculous and made some very caustic remarks which is not very much like him and then he said something very Zen in a kind of very spiritual or mentor way the key to cloud computing, the key grasshopper to on-demand is on premise.

And the key to on-premise is on-demand. And you can not have on-demand without on-premise, and you can not have on-premise without on-demand.

It was very Zen.

It was like hitting a new level of enlightenment when I heard of it. This guys got it. On-demand is on-premise and yet on-premise is on-demand.

And if you can understand that then you’ll know why cloud computing is what it is.

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A list of Bank SWIFT codes is something you may not think is useful until you need one. I am going one to our resources page for you to book mark for future reference, when you do. 

What are SWIFT codes you may ask and why would you need one?

Today a client asked us for the Swift code so they could pay us. Not having it handy meant the funds transfer was delayed. In a nutshell the SWIFT code is a unique bank code used for all interbank messaging.

If you have need to send money from one bank to another especially for international transfers, a SWIFT code is required. 

Sometimes when you send money, bank staff may look them up for you so you may not be aware.  But if your asking customers to pay you via bank transfer they may request it.

When you send an international SMS. you need a unique country code before you add the area or provider code which is part of the phone number. Sending money to a bank is no different. There you need specific bank and its code, before you include the branch and beneficiary account information so the funds can be sent.

In our case our bank, DBS is in Singapore and our client’s sending bank is in another country. Here is what we gave them, based on a format you can also find on the DBS bank website …..

Account Name: (your name as in bank’s records)
Account Number: (your bank account number)
Bank Name: DBS Bank Ltd
Bank Address: 6 Shenton Way, DBS Building Tower One Singapore 068809 
DBS SWIFT BIC Code: DBSSSGSG

For a more expansive list of the codes go to our resources page : >> SWIFT BIC CODES List

For the technically minded and/or trivial pursuit exponents here is a summary of SWIFT facts.

Read more…

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Do you think you could ever learn to speak in foreign language. Learning at school in Australia 1960’s gave me some limited choices. I chose French rather than Latin as I figured if ever I was in France or a French speaking country I could understand people.

Since I have lived, worked and travelled in many counties. Except for parts of Vietnam, and Canada plus of course France itself, knowing French has had quite limited value.

I do know my limited brain somehow interferes with my ability to learn more languages.  Hence English remains my dominate choice, even though work in Asia where Thai, Indonesian, Cantonese & Mandarin all dominate as the colloquial preferences that surround me.

Even so, believe it or not I can communicate in most and more without ever attend any classes or langauge  school.  And so can you!

For example  I am reading a new book called World Class ITnow that I would recommend. Here is a précis of a book review I was sent recently that in turn I sent on to a Thai colleague.

IT gets boiled down to 5 core principles (Mitch Betts Dec 21, 2009)

There isn’t any flashy writing or trendy technology here. A new book World Class IT (Jossey-Bass, 2009), by consultant Peter A. High, provides solid — dare I say timeless — advice for CIOs trying to manage IT for business success.

The book takes the CIO’s complex world and boils it down to the following core principles (stated here verbatim):

1. Recruit, train and retain world-class IT people.
2. Build and maintain a robust IT infrastructure.
3. Manage projects and portfolios effectively.
4. Ensure partnerships within the IT department and with the business.
5. Develop a collaborative relationship with external partners.

Highsays new CIOs should tackle those issues in the order presented above, starting with people and then moving on to developing a reliable IT infrastructure. High says the journey from ordinary to world-class IT can take several years, and even then you can’t rest on your laurels.

 

To make it easy for my colleague I translated it to Thai by using Google translate.

IT ได้รับต้มลงไป 5 หลักหลักโดย Mitch Betts 21 ธันวาคม 2009 06:00 ET ไม่มีที่เขียนฉูดฉาดหรือเทคโนโลยีอินเทรนด์ที่นี่. หนังสือ World Class ใหม่ IT (Jossey-เบส, 2009) โดยที่ปรึกษา Peter A. สูงให้แข็ง - กล้าฉันกล่าวว่าไม่มีเวลา - คำแนะนำสำหรับ CIOs พยายามจัดการไอทีสำหรับธุรกิจประสบความสำเร็จ. หนังสือนำโลกซับซ้อน CIO และ boils ไว้ต่อไปนี้หลักการ core (ระบุที่นี่ทุกตัวอักษร): รับสมัครรถไฟและรักษาระดับโลกคน IT. สร้างและรักษาโครงสร้างพื้นฐานไอทีที่แข็งแกร่ง. จัดการโครงการและพอร์ตการลงทุนได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ. ให้ความร่วมมือในแผนกไอทีและธุรกิจ. พัฒนาความสัมพันธ์ความร่วมมือกับคู่ค้าภายนอก. สูงกล่าว CIOs ใหม่ควรต่อสู้ปัญหาเหล่านั้นเพื่อนำเสนอข้างต้นเริ่มต้นกับคนแล้วย้ายในการพัฒนาโครงสร้างพื้นฐานไอทีที่น่าเชื่อถือ. สูงกล่าวว่าการเดินทางจากสามัญในระดับโลกอาจใช้เวลาหลายปีและแม้แล้วคุณจะไม่สามารถพักผ่อนใน laurels ของคุณ.

This literally took seconds using the free Google translate tool, which has most written Languages. To do this I just copied and pasted the text to a html page and Google did the rest.

The practical implications of this are that language in business is no longer a barrier as we can communicate with literally anyone. Yes it is that simple and these days even my french has improved.

From my stats I know readers of our my blog come from many non English speaking counties. So I am quite sure they already know well about translation tools. But for most English based countries readers there, I would ventured to say, would not see the value of subscribing to and translating to, say a Russian website.

I do and  I am often pleasantly surprised by some of the high quality and leadership information I get when I translate some of these sites.

Give it a try and perhaps see if you can find new opportunities to link up and grow.

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A company with online best practice will likely be leveraging Web 2.0 tools and processes to create an engaging online community of customers and partners including collaborative capabilities.

This will include discussion forums, wikis with high customer participation and designated community experts tasked with moderation and administration.

To quote from the PWC benchmarking page on their web site under Global Best Practices^®:

Best practices are simply the best way to perform activities within a business process.

They are the means by which leading companies achieve excellence in cost, quality, and time and provide goals for other companies to achieve.

Best practices are not, however, the definitive answer to a business problem.

Instead, they are a source of creative insight–a proven way to improve performance, which you can adapt to meet the specific needs of your business.

According to TSIA awards criteria, a company with online community programs such as mufti US 2009 services and best practice Star awards Winner: Cisco Systems, Inc., will have demonstrated quality programs in the following areas:

Online discussion boards.

• Enables customers to post questions & answers to an online discussion board or forum.
• Online discussion boards fit into our overall web self-service strategy, and use cases for the forums (peer to peer support, customization questions, beta trials, etc.).

Collaborative content creation.

• Involve customers in the content creation process, by collecting input on documentation and product best practices via emails and enhancement requests,
• Leverage a Web 2.0 Wiki. Allowing transparency of examples of how customers contribute to or make suggestions about existing knowledgebase for others to link to this as self-service content.

Reputation model.

• The reputation model must be in place for the community, including the various levels (for example ‘Novice,’ ‘Intermediate,’ ‘Expert’), And have a scoring methodology for moving from level to level,
• A high percentage of the community members should get to Expert level within a year.

Usage and effectiveness metrics.

• Information is readily available on the size and activity level of the community It will be in pace such as number of page views, posts or other activity on a daily or weekly basis, average length of time for questions to be answered.
• In the discussion forum blog readership, etc will be measured.

Customer moderation.

• Customers have part the moderation responsibilities of the community, specifically the discussion forums. Internal supplement this to moderate as resolution resources are required Customer experts recruited, recognized and rewarded with reciprocal consulting services.

Launch/promotion.

• Training and self help web based campaigns familiarize customers with the online community and what activities were executed to encourage adoption.
• Community launches are timed to be lead in conjunction with sales and/or marketing?

Customer Impacts.

• Customer Satisfaction data is collated to illustrates customer experience with the online community.
• Indicators on overall customer satisfaction and/or loyalty are acknowledged to increases links to encourage the introduction of customer community programs.

Business Impacts.

• Actual business impacts of all cases are documented, including metrics illustrating actual cost savings or efficiency gains such as incident deflection, or call/incident avoidance.
• Other financial impacts, such as savings due to customer authored content or online collaboration are maintained and shared with customers to plan improvement plans.

How do you measure up?

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Here is Something to enjoy. I found this on Clair Hanbury’s site. She is proactively focusing on a project with Unesco to find best policy and practice on pre-service teacher training on HIV and Aids. Check her out if you are interested to know more.

In the meantime here is a Louis Armstrong version of  “What a Wonderful World” from performer Raymond Crowe.

 

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In the competency stakes there are several stages to achieving mastery. To understand this is to understand your value and what you must do to maintain it. As you become more capable the ground will likely shift as you realize what it means.

Consider the cobbler starting as an apprentice. When he begins his indentures, even the smallest task needs someone to teach him the skills. He is understandably quite unaware of how to even approach competency, let alone what it may look like.

You might say he is unconsciously incompetent. But his next stage, not surprisingly, is being conscious of his incompetence as he accepts, on faith, what his mentor and teachers say he still needs to know.

Once he develops skills he moves to an unconscious state once again as he makes it. But it still takes time and effort for it to sink in that he is is actually there. Consciousness does not return until the next emancipating stage clicks in, which may well be the point that sees him graduating as a qualified craftsman.

But what of the final stage to achieve mastery?

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It’s time again for the annual ‘Stella Awards’! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald’s in New Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That’s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S.  You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.

            Here are the Stella’s finalists for the past year:

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