Forward Momentum: Delivering Results

by Kathy Martucci, PMP

Editor’s note: This is the fourth and final post in a series about implementing PeopleSoft projects. The other posts in this series are; Choosing PeopleSoft – Is it Right for Your Organization?, Initial Considerations of a PeopleSoft Project and Planning for Your Organization’s PeopleSoft Implementation.

Finally, the project is coming to a close and the team is conducting the lessons learned sessions.  With any project, especially one as complex as implementing a suite from the PeopleSoft cadre of products, learning from someone else’s mistakes may be the difference between a successful implementation and a disaster.  Let’s take a look.

All through the project, you take a “silo” approach allowing accountants (or worse yet, the implementers) to configure the General Ledger and Accounts Payable staff to configure Accounts Payables.  Neither group knows what the other has done and why.

Lesson Learned: Never underestimate the effects and the power behind configuration. Take the time to learn how configuration settings “ripple” through PeopleSoft functionality.  Force your integrator to explain these ramifications to you over and over again if necessary. Never stop thinking about tightly integrated modules.

Way-back-when it was too great an operational sacrifice to pull more than one person from a functional area to lend business savvy, re-engineer business processes, test the system, develop functional manuals and train others. Now there is a grand total of four subject matter experts to train and support 500 end users.

Lesson Learned: Cultivate multiple subject matter experts from the start of the project. No matter how much it hurts, plan a deeper bench from the very beginning. Do what it takes to make this happen. If you don’t make this sacrifice early, more work and pressure is heaped on a single pair of shoulders.  As the project progresses, a single point starts to become a bottleneck that the organization cannot afford.  And in the last few weeks before Go-Live, there is no time to bring new people up to speed to relieve that pressure.

All through the project, functional users have the expectation that any requirement spoken aloud translates to system functionality even if the requirement causes a costly software modification. When the system is delivered, their satisfaction level is directly proportional to the number of their requirements that have NOT been delivered.

Lesson Learned: Establish, communicate and religiously follow a process for requirements management and the software development life cycle.  In it, clarify that all requirements are discussed and verified with the functional team and, once accepted as a project necessity, they are documented and reviewed with the technical team who respond with a technical solution and a time frame for delivery.

It is too much work to keep the regional offices involved, so once a month they get a status update at a general meeting which includes several other agenda items.  As testing and training begin, none of the end users in the regions can participate nor do they understand how to do their jobs when the new system is implemented.

Lesson Learned: Over-communicate to and involve every stakeholder.  A Communications Management Plan (which includes stakeholder identification and management), carefully considered and actively implemented, is essential to ensure people-readiness as the organization implements its new system.

Some team members have been attending status meetings and receive most project communications, but the lion’s share of the work is done by a handful of people (those four subject matter experts mentioned above, most likely). Now these less involved members must be pressed into service during crunch time, but they protest to the point where their management allows them to avoid the work necessary to reach Go-Live.

Lesson Learned: Ensure team members understand and embrace their roles and responsibilities from the very start of the project.  Before the Kick-off meeting, document these roles and responsibilities and establish them as unbreakable ground rules. Communicate them verbally and in writing to the team and monitor the team’s involvement during the project so that members who are not actively participating may be considered for removal from the project.

And now, turn these valuable lessons learned over to the other project managers in your organization.  Keep the tradition alive to contribute to project success.

What are some of the key lessons you have learned to ensure a successful implementation?

By Vicki Wrona, PMP

I was watching Oprah’s Master Class with Morgan Freeman and in the show he said something I thought was profound. He said, “Is listening important? I can’t think of a single walk of like where it wouldn’t be.” I agree. The question is how do we apply this to our work and lives?

He said that as an actor, to get ahead in life, or in any area, you must be watching and listening carefully. In the show, he said, “I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere in life if you don’t listen, and certainly not as an actor.” When prepping for his role as Nelson Mandela in Invictus, he spent time with Nelson Mandela and observed all the little tics and mannerisms that made the man who he is. That is what a good actor brings to a role.

We must do the same thing as a project manager or a manager of people. When meeting with stakeholders on a project, we must watch and listen for their real requirements, the real needs behind what they say they want, the real concerns behind their reluctance. What is their real problem? What can we produce that will solve their real problem and not just a symptom? What do they really want and how do they want it? Why do they want it?

When managing people, we need to listen to their needs as well. Why are they doing the job they are doing? What motivates them? What are their goals? Everyone is motivated by different things, and each person brings their own priorities to the workplace. How can we best lead this person so that we get the quality work we need from them while appealing to their needs and goals? Both parties need each other. How can we best satisfy those needs?

The bottom line is that we have to remember to listen. It takes an effort. We all know we need to do it and yet we often fall into our old habits. I personally have worked on this. I have gotten better about talking less and listening more. But when I am tired or not thinking or stressed or frustrated, I revert back to old habits. This is a lifelong skill we have to work to develop.

What do you do to listen more?

By Rob Zell

How is learning delivered in your organization? Would you say it’s “pushed” (often used with “down” or “out”) or does it follow a “pull” model in which team members access it at will? Either way, your learning department is working hard to make sure that training is available as needed to support the business, and that’s a good thing. Furthermore, the best in class organizations are doing both, providing just in time training to meet immediate needs and optional offerings to advance knowledge and skills.

Organizations that follow a “push” only model are going to rapidly fall behind the curve and will soon find themselves lagging behind the competition. In the current business environment, companies need to have innovative, forward thinking leaders and requires a culture that fosters experimentation, exploration and critical thinking. Your organization can certainly hire for those skills but it’s an expensive model to support and you might be better served growing talent from within the organization.

Compliance often drives a “push” model of learning. In organizations with a high need for safety, security, internal accountability and regulatory compliance, training reflects the need to ensure that employees are certified for legal reasons. Historically, this follows a traditional model of education. Primary and secondary schools modeled the factory model of the industrial revolution, demanding homogenized groups and standardized levels.

Instead, I propose to maximize the effectiveness of learning in your organization you should be looking at three categories of training:

1.  Compliance Training. We’ll call this “Mission Critical”, training that meets regulatory compliance or is necessary to keep the wheels on the bus. In my experience, things like food safety, OSHA training, information security, Patriot Act and, for front line employees, training required for cash management, point of sale, and inventory management. In some organizations, ethics courses and diversity training fall into this category based on the culture. These types of courses fit well into the “push” model and are considered ticket to entry into the organization.

2.  Development Training. Let’s call this “Nuts and Bolts” training. This set of courseware advances the knowledge and skills of the organization in various functions. Content areas in this curriculum cover topics like leadership, project management, merchandising, human resources management, real estate development, logistics and customer relations. These courses can be developed in house or outsourced and may be linked to university or certification programs for transferable credits. By delivering this content you raise the knowledge and skill level of your people which increases the bench strength and long term survivability of your team. These courses fall into both “push” and “pull” categories. Learners engage the content as needed for their own development and growth in the organization but managers can always prescribe a course of learning to help move employees along or ensure accurate execution.

3.  Personal Training. This is the “Bells and Whistles” content. This is my catch all bucket for anything else that people want for their own learning plan. These courses support personal development and fill in the gaps to improve personal performance. Courses on time management, communication and organizational skills or experiences and roles that provide experience through trial and error. These should be primarily “pull” programs; employees self-identify areas of improvement and seek out learning opportunities to enhance their performance. In some cases, managers may prescribe specific courses or experiences based on need.

A solid learning program should have all three kinds of content, delivered via various modalities. Some sessions are best served through classroom sessions (in person or virtual classes) while others might be online courses, self-study documents, or peer sharing networks. Having a menu of content and delivery options provides access to the necessary training for success.

How is training structured in your organization? Is all training served up through a “push” model, a “pull model” or a combination of both? What do you find to be the most effective way to ensure employees are receiving the content they need, when they need it?

By Darrell G. Stiffler, PMP

Note: This is part 2 on PMI vs. ITIL. Read part 1 PMI vs. ITIL:  How Are They Different Part 1 here.

This part of the comparison is about Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). I am told that it is pronounced “idle”, like in “the idle rich” or “my car idles badly.” I personally do not like that pronunciation.  It conjures up a vision of people standing around waiting for the go home whistle to sound (does any company do that anymore?).  I and some other authors I’ve spoken with pronounce it like “I tell.” That makes more visual sense to me. I visualize some leader telling the troops what to do and how to do it. The leaders telling the troops what to do and how to do it is exactly what ITIL is all about. ITIL is a framework of Information Technology Operational Organization Structure.

ITIL is a framework of best practices for quality IT Services Management. IT Service Management is defined as the delivery and support of IT services to meet the business needs of an organization. The recommendations of ITIL were developed in the late 1980s (around the time PMI’s PMBOK® Guide was published). ITIL origination was in the United Kingdom Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) which later merged into the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). ITIL has been adopted and accepted as a global standard for IT service management since the mid 1990s. There were predictions in the late ‘90s that ITIL would sweep the IT industry and by 2005 it would be the core practice of any large organization’s IT world; however, when those predictions were made they didn’t anticipate the crash of 2001 and subsequent bad economics for the next 10 years. Had the economy not crashed, we would all know more about ITIL. The adoption of ITL is expensive in both time and money.

I suspect the seeds of ITIL began when portfolio managers began to complain that the IT department was getting too much of the budget and they weren’t getting the value that they wanted. The structure of ITIL is to set up the IT department as an independent business. One of the first projects, which should be treated as a project with all the PMI rigors, is to publish a Services Catalog. A list of reports, online applications, web sites, etc., which the IT department offers to the company and sometimes even outsiders of the company. The purpose is a statement to the portfolio managers, “if you don’t like our prices, check the competition and you will see that we are competitive.” Of course not all companies, because of proprietary and confidential information, have the luxury to go to a competitor; however, if rates are published there can be some comparison shopping. This can be a real advantage to a portfolio manager if the IT is not proprietary or confidential. It will allow the portfolio managers to consider outsourcing to vendors that can take advantage of shared resources with other companies. This can have a very positive effect on the company’s bottom line.

The heart and soul of ITIL is the service desk. In the good old days we called it help desk, but someone decided to jazz it up and call it a service desk because it really does do more than just take “I broke it” calls. The service desk is a Single Point of Contact for the whole IT organization, whether you are a programmer, network specialist, hardware repair or install specialist, manager, change control specialist, configuration management person or whatever. There are several sophisticated software packages and a heart stopping price to help you manage the service desk.

There were two ITIL versions – v2 and v3. V3 is the latest path and v2 is going away or gone.  ITIL has two paths to certification. Both paths begin with the”v3 Foundations” class. The two paths are Service Support and Service Capability.  Both end with the ITIL Expert and then ITIL Master. The Service Lifecycle is a more technical path where Service Capability is more of a management path. Both paths include multiple courses. As you take and pass the exam course you are awarded points, eventually allowing you to sit for the Expert and then Masters Certification. As with the PMP^® certification you must document your experience, which is necessary for the higher certification. Since this blog is a high level understanding, I won’t go into the listing of classes.

With the similarities in the use of process by both PMI and ITIL one would think they would be joined at the hip. Well, the challenge is that ITIL has its own project management approach called PRojects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE) with the latest version called PRINCE2. The method PRINCE2 is in the public domain, offering non-proprietary best practice guidance on project management. PRINCE2 is a registered trademark of OGC. There are two PRINCE2 qualification levels: PRINCE2 Foundation and PRINCE2 Practitioner. PRINCE2 Foundation level is for those with a requirement to learn the basics and terminology of PRINCE2.

ITIL is a challenge to implement. The scuttlebutt is that you have to try to implement ITIL three times before you might succeed. It takes a great deal of commitment by the organization in time and dollars. There is essentially an organizational chart of roles and responsibilities that must be filled.  These roles and responsibilities are not easy to fill and generally take experienced and expensive employee types; however, with that said, once implemented and maintained well, the organization can be very effective. This gets a little confusing.   For more information the website www.itil.co.uk has been replaced by the Best Management Practice website and the official ITIL website managed by the Best Management Practice partnership.

The third part of my blog will be a summary.

Originally published on Idea.com.