Comments on: Value Drives the Best Tech and User Collaboration

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:48:13 +0000

Sensei- I was hoping that there was something behind that- like an innovative approach to using previously built software. Yes- uniqueness to be competitive is an interesting problem when upgrading packaged software. Most of my experience is working for software vendors so we would be looking for the unique, hopefully broadly appicable, innovations. Usually the “user” types didn’t mind telling us about them, while the IT groups were more aware of their proprietary value.

By: ActiveEngine Sensei

ActiveEngine Sensei — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:29:13 +0000

Actually I made a typo. I meant to say “as the processes specific to company are NOT found in software sitting on a shelf.” In other words, if you have a process that is unique to your company you will have to construct something yourself to implement this process. That is, if your competitive advantage is unique to internal processes, that software will not exist anywhere but at your company. If internal IT resources can build and maintain that software you will keep the competitive advantage proprietary.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:56:56 +0000

Sensei- interesting in that I’m trying to write shorter posts, but it’s hard to do. Your comment length reveals your passion about the subject. We both seem to appreciate improving collaboration and understand between the non-IT and IT groups. Having worked with sales teams throughout my career the phenomenon of directness combined with “latest issue” focus is a constant- I experienced it when attempting to poll many ERP sales groups for software product improvements. Could you elaborate on “as the processes specific to company are found in software sitting on a shelf”? Does this mean that the IT group can play a valuable role in innovatively applying previously built modules?

By: ActiveEngine Sensei

ActiveEngine Sensei — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:43:55 +0000

Wow, my comment was almost as long as your post!! ;)

By: ActiveEngine Sensei

ActiveEngine Sensei — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:43:24 +0000

One of the business groups who can be the best partners for creating the vision for the product, and I am sure I will be taken to task for this, are the sales groups. They tell what is necessary and sufficient and will be brutally direct. The draw back is that some times each sales individual has his or her own problem domain and are not concerned with the others as a whole.

For detail and good understanding of finance processes the accounting groups are the generally the best to work with, as they deal with rules in the daily business with S-Ox, SAPM’s etc.

In the general, the PMO groups are the best driver for coalescing the right enterprise level champions around a large project. They exceed at defining the goals and exit criteria for a project and have good tools for categorizing a prioritizing activities. Also, the PMO folks are really good at spotting common threads of importance that interlace many disparate activities or business functions.

I will date myself with this next statement: Back in the ‘90 (oh my gosh the last century!!) the PMO and IT projects were more tightly coupled. Generally it was the IT guys who used structure charts or data flow diagrams to map business processes with IT vocabulary. Very rare was it when the business community would pull our a chart. Today project management methodologies are more prevalent and the PMO folks do a lot of the domain definition. That’s a good thing. The down side is that IT is considered more of a commodity, and in some cases this is false assumption as the processes specific to company are found in software sitting on a shelf.