In part one we identified some of the main reasons large PeopleSoft projects fail.  Now let’s discuss how we mitigate these risks and implement for our clients successfully.

Risk: The solution is not tied to the business objectives.

• As outlined in previous blogs, one of the first activities we conduct is the BluePrint Workshop. The workshop identifies all of the project objectives, classifies them as strategic or tactical, prioritizes all of the objectives, identifies how we are able to measure each objective (after all, if you can’t measure it, it is challenging to determine if it was met).  Finally we attach project success criteria to the objectives.  These objectives are a part of the project charter which is expected to be signed off by the executive sponsor.

Risk: Scope is not managed.

• Every project has a well defined scope change management plan with appropriate escalations and approvals.  Preferable is the approach that any change to scope once the fit/gap is completed requires a change order whether it is the smallest seemingly insignificant change or a very large change.  All changes have must be approved by project management and executive sponsorship to be fully approved for the project.

Risk: Organization is not prepared for change.

•  A full time organizational change management lead who is experienced with preparing organizations for change associated with PeopleSoft engagements should be deployed on the project.  Organizational change preparedness is so much more than simply communication in that is requires its own discipline, expertise and dedicated skillsets.

Risk: Project team skills are not appropriate and unavailable.

• During the BluePrint Workshop we identify the required resources required from both the client and MIPRO.  For each client resource we identify the very specific role and responsibilities along with the percentage of time they are required for the project.  This information again becomes part of the project charter.  Additionally, as outlined in the charter, these are the resources required to achieve the objectives of the project and be on time and on budget.  We conduct a sanity check of resources against project objectives.  We expect the executive sponsor to support the project and ensure the identified resources are available for the anticipated timeframe.

Risk: Executive Sponsorship is not strong and not visible.

• The role of the executive sponsor begins immediately with the BluePrint Workshop where the executive sponsor outlines why the project is important to the organization and identified corporate level objectives (that we then tie to the project objectives).  The executive sponsor signs off on the project charter along with his/her expected role.  We put the executive sponsor into the change process, issue escalation process and organizational change process.

Risk: The system is not sustainable by the client.

• Knowledge transfer is the cornerstone of our SD3 implementation methodology.  Not only do we staff with the best and brightest, but we align resources directly to the appropriate client counterparts.  Our design allows for the MIPRO team to understand the client business and for the client to understand PeopleSoft.  By the end of the project we expect our clients to know as much as we do about PeopleSoft so they can sustain the system.  Additionally we ensure shortcuts are not taken on testing and training.  This is achieved if we plan appropriately upfront and execute well.

Risk: End users are not trained

• There are multiple factors used to ensure end user training.  The first is a training strategy developed up front, early in the project.  We also recommend a training lead to develop and lead the training efforts. UPK is a very valuable tool to help ensure end users are trained.  We time end user training to coincide as close to go live as possible.  As noted prior, with the proper planning we do not find ourselves in situations where the timeline is crunched and the project is looking for ways to cut corners (which usually results in training being reduced).  Having the right staffing, dedication to training and planning allows us to ensure end users are trained appropriately.

When titling this post, I reminded myself of the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”  Actually, what we strive for at MIPRO are uninteresting implementations and upgrades.  So, that said, before beginning a project, one should always review the following:

MURPHY’S LAWS OF COMPUTING

1. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.
2. To err is human… to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human; in fact it is downright natural.
3. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.
4. If at first you don’t succeed, blame your computer.
5. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.
6. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.
7. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want it to do.
8. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.
9. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it’s probably obsolete.
10. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.
11. When the going gets tough, upgrade.
12. When you need to send an email quick, that’s when the modem wireless router won’t connect!

So, how does one avoid as many of these real – though humorous – problems and maximize success?  One word:  planning.  Throughout the rest of this post, you will see numerous examples of platitudes, conventional wisdom, and corny advice – all of it real and all of it worth emphasizing.

So, plan your work and work your plan.  Sound reasonable?  You’d be surprised how many projects fall into the ready, fire, aim category.  In fact, if you don’t have time to do it right, how are you going to find time to do it over?

Projects should be planned.  In fact, the planning phase of a project should consume 10-15% of the total cost and effort of the entire project.  I’m sure your momma once told you that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Or, as the Cheshire Cat told Alice, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

So plan already.  In fact, if you plan well enough, you can probably find someone else to do the work (just kidding!).  But, laying out the plan well, and then measuring how your project conforms to the plan, is the surest method to ensure success.  In fact, if you are serious about planning and measuring, this is one time that no good deed goes unpunished will probably not come to fruition.

For those of us with some engineering background, remembering the 2^nd law of thermodynamics is always critical:  increasing entropy, or while the quantity of something may remain the same, the quality of it deteriorates gradually over time.

Projects are like this, in spades.

Without a good plan (and good measurements against that plan), and serious scope control, projects tend to drift, slow down, get more expensive, take too long, and generally offend the sensitivities of the very stakeholders who are paying for – and should be receiving the benefits of – the project.  In fact, most projects end up living up to this maxim:  all’s well that ends.

So, if we know that everyone’s enthusiasm will wane (definitely a 2^nd law truism) and management will become impatient (you know that the frequency and severity of system crashes are in direct proportion to the importance of the audience), being able to demonstrate and document where the project is (and where it will be in X days) will mitigate against our bosses saying about our project, ‘After all is said and done, a heck of a lot more was said than done.’

It’s interesting that in my legal world, we are ethically bound when taking a case that we must (a) be knowledgeable about the subject matter, or (b) study up to become knowledgeable fast enough not to prejudice our client, or (c) associate in some other lawyer who is knowledgeable.

How does this apply to our enterprise IT projects?

Well, how often does your organization actually do a project like this?  If it’s an upgrade, when was the last time you successfully performed the upgrade on your own?  If it’s a new system – financials, human resources, payroll, maintenance management, etc. – when was the last time you successfully implemented a complex software system that affected all or a large portion of your organization?  Are you knowledgeable enough about the subject matter?  Can you do the project with OJT fast enough?  Or will you require assistance from someone who is knowledgeable?

It first comes down to planning:  what you want to do, when you want to do it, what resources it will take, how long will it take, and, last but certainly not least, how much will it cost.  For sure, unless you have both the plan and the expertise to work that plan, you should re-read the Murphy’s Laws at the beginning of this post.  Remember, if there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.  And the corollary adds the word “first” to the end of the sentence.

In conclusion, plan, measure, plan, measure, and make sure you took plenty of time to plan.  I planned for this article to run two pages as I draft it here in Word.  Ahh, I can change the font size to ensure that it’s two pages:  if I declare “success” loud enough, my project is a success!  With proper preparation, YOUR project can also be a success.  Remember, Murphy was an optimist….

Questions, comments or feedback about this? Don’t be afraid to email me.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

OVERVIEW

PeopleSoft Forms and Approval Builder is part of Common Components 9.1, therefore available for use throughout all of the PeopleSoft HCM and FMS modules.  It allows a business analyst or other non-developer PeopleSoft application expert to create simple forms and establish an approval for the content.

HOW-TO

Begin with creating the form using the Design Form Wizard.

Navigation:  Main Menu > Enterprise Components > Forms > Design a Form

1. Basic Information – enter information about the form, including effective date and a description.
2. Instructions – enter instructions that will be available for users accessing the form.
3. Form Fields – enter the fields that will be available for users accessing the form.  Fields of a variety of data types are displayed in one or two columns.  You can enter a short and long label, indicate if a field is required, designate a prompt record, and define a prompt control for the field against an existing field and record.
4. Attachments – indicate if any attachments should be made available to users accessing the form, for example a policy or template document.
5. Publish to a Menu – designate where the form should be accessed on the PeopleSoft menu.
6. Approval Process – designate the chain of approval the form should go through, if needed, and if the fields on the form should be locked down after submission, approval, or not at all.

After creating the form, it can be previewed in design mode, prior to activation onto the PeopleSoft menu.  Activate the form to make it available to users on the menu as designated.

When a user accesses a form, three tabs are available.

1. Form
2. Instructions – displays the instructions entered during form creation.
3. Attachments – provides access to any attachments assigned during form creation and allows the user to upload a form as well.

As an added bonus, you can connect data collected on a form to one or more component interfaces in an effort to eliminate redundant data entry.  (Example:  new vendor request form can feed into adding a vendor.)

Note, this feature intended only for the creation of new records through a simple single page front end, not maintaining them.

I hope you have found this introduction to Forms Builder helpful.  I believe this is a powerful, yet simple feature you can leverage to either remove custom pages or automate currently manual processes to stretch your PeopleSoft investment even further. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m always happy to chat.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

Prior to jumping into the world of PeopleSoft consulting, I spent many years implementing accounting solutions, as well as conducting instructor-led training for those applications.  In my years, I had some great classes, and I had some that just plain left me scratching my head.  Was it me?  Probably not: nobody except the lead developer knew the software better than me.  Was it my delivery?  I didn’t think so: I resonated with people and their survey forms said so.  Was it the material?  Okay, maybe….sometimes accounting software doesn’t compare with the world news, or the latest celebrity gossip.

It took me a while to recognize characteristics of the adult learner and how the dynamics of the people in class impacted the whole class.  I can’t remember who shared this with me, but my world became crystal clear when I recognized the three types of learners – explorers, vacationers, and prisoners.

Explorers are there because there is a world waiting for them and they want to know about it.  They hang on every word looking for opportunity to be better, do better, or just make things better.

Vacationers are there because they just want to get out of their day job.  It is an interesting break from the mundane.  Needless to say, their heart is not always invested in what you are trying to say or do.

The last group is the prisoners.  These are people who are forced to be there.  Imagine their reaction when their boss said “I need you to attend this training”.   It should come as no surprise when you catch these people doing everything except what you want them to do.

I share this with you because I am often perplexed about the amount of time spent in today’s world in meetings, conference calls, planning sessions, etc.  The next time you have to run a meeting, maybe you should do a quick inventory of who is in the room and what category they fit into.  Chances are pretty good that the prisoners won’t volunteer (or accept responsibility) for anything, much less grab an idea and run with it, and the vacationers will agree to anything as long as it does not create more work for them.

As a consulting company, we work with many organizations implementing new software.  That often means adopting new systems, implementing new business processes, and challenging the client to see things in a new and different way.  Of the three types of people I have described above, who do you think tends to perform well in these scenarios?  And more importantly, how many of these people are on your project right now?  If the answer is “not enough,” you may have just found who is killing your project.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

A Clear And Present Danger

How often does it happen that an organization moves from an old legacy ERP type system to a new, up-to-date ERP system and it fails to meet expectations and to improve system and business process efficiency?

Too often!

One of the primary reasons is that the project is way underfunded for the scope and somehow management has decided that there is no need for the costs to be what other successful companies have spent and they set forth to “do it on the cheap.”  Major strategic projects, such as a new ERP implementation or major ERP upgrade, which are underfunded, under staffed, and given an unrealistic time frame to complete, almost never work out.

Cutting corners and saving money on such strategic projects, which are a foundation for the company to support how they manage the business,  may not be the best idea.  The ROI is to be realized after a powerful system is implemented successfully and everyone’s expectations are met.  Doing it right means:

• More cost upfront on the project, but also a maximized ROI for the long term, as in 10 to 15 years, every year.
• Significantly higher system performance and business process efficiency realized, every year.
• Smooth transition from the old to the new system.
• Easier Business User buy-in and happier end users from the get-go.
• Much less maintenance and support costs, every year.
• Minimizing the need for customizations and making future upgrades easier and cheaper.

Given that most organizations do have to deal with finite budget limits on such projects, the best strategy is to plan what scope you can do, within the limits, while “doing it right.”

A Best Practice would be not to take or introduce unnecessary risks, which seldom work out.  Most often one cannot do all of the scope that one would like to do in Phase 1 due to the budget and time available.  What you can do to is develop a long-term, phased-in roadmap, based on business priorities, where the key stakeholders will be able to see when their needs will be taken care of.  OK, they may not get the new system functionality this year, but they will be happier to see that it is at least on the list to be done next year, or the year after.

With new technology, it is often said that “You don’t know what you don’t know.”  If you choose to do it on the cheap, you are most likely going to find out what you don’t know the hard way — and sooner, rather than later. What you may save on the front end, you will likely pay the piper for many years to come.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

2012…what’s in store for you this year?

If Santa didn’t leave you an upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.1 under your tree, nor PeopleTools 8.52 in your stocking Christmas morning, you may need to take control of the situation yourself.  Whether you are losing support for your current PeopleSoft applications or you finally have managed to set aside some of your hard-earned budget, this could be the year you pursue making your PeopleSoft applications work even harder for you, and Oracle has provided more than 200 additional features through 9.1, PeopleTools 8.52, and the subsequent feature packs.

A couple of highlights:

Forms and Approval Builder.  This new feature is part of Common Components 9.1, therefore available for use throughout all of the PeopleSoft HCM and FMS modules.  It provides a business analyst or other non-developer PeopleSoft application expert to create simple forms and establish an approval for the content.

Enhanced Search Capability.  PeopleSoft 9.1 allows users to perform global searches across multiple indexes and return the results organized by dynamic facets (segments), then take action based on search results, without having to navigate the menu to do so.  Additionally, the Last Search Results link allows a user to return to the results of a recent search and perform additional actions or to access additional results.  Keyword Search allows for a global search across multiple components throughout the PeopleSoft application, and can be used to review more than the 300 record restriction applied to traditional field based searches.

Manager Dashboard.  This feature provides an at-a-glance view of important information to help managers know where they need to focus.  PeopleSoft Administrators designate which pages are available for managers and a user can further personalize the content details and layout.  Highlights of the Manager Dashboard include:

• Alerts and Approvals pagelets indicate what transactions need immediate attention and navigate directly to the transactions through the pagelets.
• The Direct Line Reports pagelet categorizes data for each employee across a variety areas of interest, including Job Details and Compensation, then drilldown as needed into the application for details.
• Pivot Grids enable you to easily analyze, filter, and slice relevant organizational data, including switching between various chart types for more productive analysis.
• Quick Links.  This feature provides easy access to frequently used items without having to navigate the application to access them.

Credit and Collections Workbench.  The new workbench in PeopleSoft 9.1 Receivables provides a one stop shop where receivables users can review action items, analyze customer information, and work to improve their collections-related efficiency by utilizing risk-based scoring.

Approval Framework.  The new Approval Framework, formerly referred to as the Approval Workflow Engine, is available throughout the Financials, Supply Chain, and Human Capital Management applications.  Notification Emails provide links directly into the transactions requiring approval, and approvers have the ability to push transactions back a previous approver, as well as add ad hoc reviewers and approvers as needed.  You can use the Approval Framework as delivered for existing approvals or to build additional approvals needed to support your business needs.

You can find out more about PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1 applications by logging in to My Oracle Support at support.oracle.com.  For a conversation about mapping out your PeopleSoft applications strategy and roadmap for 2012 and beyond, don’t be afraid to contact us.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

Dan Tynan, writing for CIO.com:

For the past decade, ERP has been the poster child for IT projects that overpromise and underdeliver. It was notorious for painfully complex rollouts that took years to implement, required massive customization, and were often only partially realized. Billions of dollars were spent just trying to get ERP systems to work as advertised.

Now ERP is back — and not just for big enterprises looking to refresh legacy systems. According to surveys by Forrester Research, roughly one out of four SMBs and enterprises plans to either upgrade their existing ERP solutions or implement a new one over the next 12 months.

We see this too. Every day.

What’s different? Isn’t ERP’s sometimes-broken promise giving way to the new promise of SaaS and cloud computing? Not just yet — ERP has been around forever, and in that time companies have learned a great deal. They now fully understand what works, what doesn’t and what mistakes to avoid. They’ve gotten their technology down, integrations minimized and streamlined, and they’ve tied smart business processes to their operations.

In short, they’ve grown up. Learned a thing or two.

Our clients tell us that while they’re looking at cloud apps, they have too much tribal wisdom wrapped up into their existing applications and business processes. Many of our clients have just now put in their first real cut at business intelligence and are using that information to make actual, real-world, daily business decisions.

Their ERP systems may be old, and they may not look as shiny as some of the new cloud platforms offered up by Oracle and other vendors, but they work. And organizations understand them completely. That’s why they aren’t afraid of expanding or upgrading their ERP systems — because finally, they’re delivering the promise that they whispered years ago.

In short, they’re finally humming.

It takes a brave soul to scrap something wholesale that is finally working in favor of something that, in essence, represents a great deal of starting over.

What’s your take? Does Tynan’s article sound like you?

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

I came across this article over at CFO.com and couldn’t agree with it more.

It illustrates the importance of collaboration between business stakeholders and IT to any successful technology project — a topic we’ve all heard a dozen times. What’s the big deal?

We all do things with the best of intentions; nobody ever begins a project with the intention of killing it midstream. The thinking goes: We’re smart. We’re experienced. We know what we’re doing. This is especially true on the business side of the house.

But the details go like this: As business types get down the project’s path, we often find there are technical interfaces and integrations we are not equipped to handle on the business side. I know that many business-side stakeholders think we can handle doing it ourselves and in less time than when involving our IT departments. Well, that could wind up being dramatically wrong thinking.

Bottom line: if you are an executive with a DYI technology project underway, I would heed the advice in Susan’s article and learn from the project instead of killing it. Such an easy lesson, but often handled so wrong.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

It’s clear that 2011 was the year of the cloud, with many traditional enterprise vendors accepting that the cloud is something they can no longer denigrate or ignore. The ‘cloud’ buzzword has been (sometimes annoyingly) tossed around for upwards of two years, but last year is when it hit critical mass in terms of action, not just marketing and positioning.

Chris Kanaracus, writing for IDG News, highlights a few enterprise trends we’re seeing and hearing in everyday conversations. These give real heft to the notion that the cloud is something everyone should be thinking about and/or planning around. It might not be happening right now, and it might not be top priority for you, but ignore this medium- to long-term direction at your peril.

Here’s one that struck us:

SAP buys SuccessFactors, Oracle buys RightNow, both accept cloud reality

Collectively, SAP and Oracle spent nearly US$5 billion this year to acquire software vendors based in the cloud.

Each sought different types of technologies, with SAP’s purchase of SuccessFactors boosting its human-resources software offerings as well as general cloud know-how, and Oracle’s RightNow buy giving it an array of customer-support capabilities.

But the deals have a common thread, marking a sea change for the traditional on-premise software world, said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research. “[It] signals the realization that cloud deployment will be the predominant approach.”

We do a massive amount of Oracle work, and what we’re hearing from Oracle and our customers is very real and perfectly synchonized: the cloud is real, it’s mature, and it’s time to start figuring out how it can help enterprise IT. It’s not just for early adopters or skunkwork labs anymore.

Along similar lines, you can’t ignore perhaps the biggest story out of Oracle, one that’s sure to mold future IT decisions for a long, long time:

Oracle delivers Fusion Applications

It took a while, but Oracle finally managed to deliver the first wave of its next-generation Fusion Applications, and its launch strategy also showed how cloud computing has influenced the enterprise software market.

The company has taken pains to stress that Fusion Applications can be deployed in a highly modular fashion, with no need to remove existing systems, and at a time of customers’ choosing. Users will also be able to run the software both on-premises and in cloud form, although some of the details of the latter remain to be made public.

Oracle’s strategy is partly a nod to reality, since few customers will rush to rip and replace their core ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems with new software, and Oracle also wants to ensure early users are successful. But its message of easier, more flexible consumption for Fusion is straight from the cloud-vendor playbook.

Now more than ever we are being asked by our clients to come in and help them simply assess: put executive/organizational expectations on a piece of paper somewhere (harder than it sounds, trust us), inventory current systems and capabilities, and plan roadmaps. Such basic blocking and tackling, but given the churn and change in what ‘enterprise IT’ will mean in three years, so important. We offer clients two very powerful planning workshops: our BluePrint Project Services and PeopleSoft Architecture Assessment, both of which are popular. Lately, we’ve been doing a lot of our BluePrint workshops, largely because of the reasons discussed a few hundred words ago: things are changing, and smart planning has never been more important.

Questions? Don’t be afraid to drop us a line. Always happy to have conversations.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

Talk about an undersold feature. Dave Bain over at Oracle’s PeopleSoft Technology Blog has the scoop on something Oracle should be talking about more:

One of the real gems in the PeopleTools 8.52 release is the certification of PeopleSoft applications running in the Safari Browser on an iPad.  It is nice that PeopleSoft is not constrained by technology like Adobe Flex/Flash, so announcements like this “Adobe drops plans for mobile Flash support“ do not limit our mobile solution to custom mobile development.

There are parts of PeopleSoft applications that operate better on iPads than others.  One of the best is Workcenters.  Workcenters were new to PeopleTools 8.51 and we are starting to see more and more adoption of them.  Workcenters are roll based landing pages that eliminate difficult navigation by providing access to most links, pages, and reports a user in a role needs.  One of the nicest I’ve seen is the Supply Manager Workspace.  Here are some links to screenshots of what a WorkCenter looks like on an iPad:

• Here’s the standard PeopleSoft Login Page
• The Supply Manager Workspace looks great full screen on an iPad
• iPad has a great user interface to zoom, here’s a screenshot of an upclose view of an analytic.
• Touch one of the analytics and it drills into the details.

Go ahead and give it a try.  WorkCenters and Dashboards are starting to show up across applications.  For a quick one to try, navigate to the PeopleTools->Integration Broker->Integration Network WorkCenter.  It’s new in PeopleTools 8.52.

As iPads penetrate the enterprise, you’re going to see more software certified for Safari, the iPad’s browser. It’s an incredibly competent browser today, and it only gets more so with every iOS upgrade. We’re excited to see Oracle/PeopleSoft recognize this.

Likewise, we have a lot of clients interested in getting help with upgrading their PeopleTools deployments. If this sounds like you — or you just want to chat about it — we’ll be happy to discuss with you whether our PeopleTools Upgrade packaged service is right for you. Just drop us a line. No pressure, no BS.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.