Achieving a common goal creating a center of excellence e roske in-sync10 oracle epm track

Achieving a Common Goal:

Hyperion Center of Excellence

Edward Roske, interRel Consulting

About interRel

• 2008 Oracle Titan Award winner - EPM Solution of the year

• 18 presentations at Collaborate 2009, 14 presentations at

Kaleidoscope, 6 at OpenWorld 2008

• 2008 Oracle Excellence Award winner with Pearson Education

• One of the fastest growing companies in the world (Inc. Mag., ’08)

• We have two of the three Hyperion Oracle ACE Directors in the

world

• Founding Hyperion Platinum Partner; now Oracle Certified Partner

• Focused exclusively on Oracle Hyperion EPM software

– Consulting

– Training

– Infrastructure and Installation

– Support

– Software sales

• 5 Hyperion Books Available:

– Essbase (7): Complete Guide

– Essbase System 9: Complete Guide

– Essbase System 9: End User Guide

– Smart View 11: End User Guide

– Essbase 11: Admin Guide

• Coming Soon

– Hyperion Planning for Admins

– Hyperion Planning for End Users

• To order, check out www.lulu.com

Copyright © 2007, Hyperion. All rights reserved.3

http://www.lulu.com/

Disclaimer

• These slides represent the work and opinions of the presenter and do not

constitute official positions of Oracle or any other organization.

• This material has not been peer reviewed and is presented here with the

permission of the presenter.

• This material should not be reproduced without the written permission of

interRel Consulting.

Do you have one or more of the following

problems?

• Inexperienced resources (new-to-the-product)?

• Experienced resources spread too thin?

• Application and/or technical knowledge in the head of one developer

who just left the company?

• Reinventing the wheel in Hyperion implementations?

• Inconsistent applications, dimensionality, processes, and more?

• Paying consultants to maintain your production environment?

Business Need

• Most companies, there are Hyperion products spread throughout various

departments

• Finance may control Hyperion Financial Management, the budgeting

department owns Hyperion Planning, and IT controls Essbase

• In many cases, several different departments all have expertise in the same

product (Essbase, commonly)

• Wouldn’t it be better to bring all of these groups together under one

common umbrella that can share best practices, dimensions, data, and

most importantly, experience?

What is a Center of Excellence?

In General

Center of Excellence

• For all of the cool kids… CoE

• New trend in organizations today

• Central source for:

– Standardized products

– Expertise

– Best Practices

• Used for designing, testing, deploying and tuning new applications

• Optimizes application quality and performance

• Continually improve IT operations

Why Do We Need a Center of Excellence?

We need better information faster

Systems are complex

Many products, many applications

Limited resources

Global teams, often times with outsourcing

Shrinking budgets

Wh

y C

oE

?

Benefits of a CoE

• More efficient delivery of applications

• Improved application implementations

– Better quality applications

– Reduced implementation time

– Shared data/hierarchies between applications

• Align business goals with IT priorities

• Better end user services

Typical CoE Functions

Build competence

Career path

Skill assessments

Training

Standards, tools

Continuous Improvement

Consult to Project Teams

Coach and mentor

Team build

Facilitate sessions

Consult to Executives

Feasibility studies

Business case development

Strategic goals/metrics

Focus on project results

Project audits

Quality assurance and standards

Business benefits


Applied CoE for Hyperion

Pain Points for Hyperion Implementations

• Requirements are ambiguous and/or inadequate

• Too many projects competing for resources

• Alignment of project with business strategy unclear

• Decentralized, duplicative development and administration

• Limited training

• Duplication in maintenance

• Poor application quality, inconsistent application design

• Unhappy users

Scenario 1

• Silo’d development and management of Planning and Essbase

applications

• Limited communication

• Inconsistent dimensionality

• Inconsistent reporting and analysis

• Duplicative development and maintenance efforts

Essbase development and

maintenance

Planning development and

maintenance

Report development and

maintenance

Report development and

maintenance

Planning and Essbase

Administration are completed by 2 different groups who don’t talk to

each other

Scenario 2

• Silo’d development and management of Hyperion applications across

divisions

• Different instances from an infrastructure perspective

• Multiple versions

• Limited communication




Essbase Division 1

(v 7x)

Essbase Division 3

(v 11x)

Planning Division 2

(System 9)

Many instances of Hyperion implementations (Essbase, Planning and/or FM) on different

versions with completely different infrastructures across the enterprise.

Scenario 3

• Competing priorities and objectives

• Structured to limit collaboration and communication




Essbase – Rolls up to IT

Planning – Rolls up to Finance

Different priorities, different objectives because the ownership differs


• Leverage buying power /

licenses

• Single infrastructure / version

• Central Shared Services;

distributed security management

Division 2 / Project Team 2

Consulting

(internal)

Infrastructure

Support Training

Standards




Single Workspace

Shared expertise

Common training

Common support

Hyperion CoE Functions

Hyperion CoE Functions

SupportTrainingInfrastructureConsultingStandards

Standard

products

Standard

processes and

methodologies

- Design

- Tuning

- Testing

- Production

Migration

- Security

Common

terminology

INTERNALConsulting

Provide Expertise

Business Analysis

Requirements

Design

Prototype

Develop

Test

Production Migration

Centrally managed infrastructure environment

Training for implementation team

Training for end users

Standard support processes for end users

CoE Team

Consulting Infrastructure

Support Training

Standards

Hardware /

OS Support

DBA

Support

Web Server

Support

Trainer

Business Analysts

Project Management

Solution Architects

Developers

Testing Coordinator

Standards Coordinator

Support Team

Vendors and consultants too

The Team

• Passion and love of working in a challenging, collaborative, environment

• Knowledge, skills, and experience

• Don’t overstaff

CoE Team - Standards Coordinator(s)

• Works with other members of the CoE Team to develop standards,

guidelines and methodologies for implementing Hyperion

• Supports projects in ensuring standards are followed

• Focus on continuous improvement

• Must have foundations / experience in Hyperion tools set


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team – Project Manager(s)

• Provides project management mentorship to project managers

• Works with standards coordinator to develop project management

standards and processes

• Must have foundations / experience in Hyperion tools set


Support Training

Standards

Importance of Quality Control

• Standard processes and methodologies

• Quality Baselines

• Knowledge management

• Supported and enforced by Standards Coordinator and Project Manager

CoE Team – Business Analyst

• Builds the bridge between IT and business

• Speaks both IT and business

• Focused on business

• Tie business benefits to strategy

• Critical role

– Most projects fail b/c unclear or inadequate requirements

– Helps the PM plan

– Helps the Solution Architect Design

– Helps the Team implement

• Must have foundations in Hyperion

tools set


Support Training

Standards

Business Analyst - Not Just at the Beginning

Business Analyst Responsibilities

Problem analysis

Solution feasibility, assessment and validation

Business case development

Requirements collection, definition, analysis, and translation

Change management translation

Organization readiness and change management

Benefits measurement

Finding a Business Analyst

• Understands business problems

• Understands technology solution / design requirements

– Not the details but solid foundation

• Communication skills both verbal and written a must

CoE Team - Solution Architect

• Works with standards coordinator to develop technical standards,

guidelines and processes

– Design, tuning, other

• Overall design and architecture of the solution to address the business

requirements

• Follows design through to rollout to ensure best practices and

guidelines are used

• Technical expert / understanding of the Hyperion suite


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team - Developers

• Works with standards coordinator and solution architect to develop

technical standards, guidelines and processes

• Subject matter expert for their product(s)

• Provide guidance to project teams on the implementation details

• Technical expert in a focused area


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team - Developers

• Difficult for one person to know everything in the Hyperion suite

• Required skills:

• SME for each area / tool

• Cross train

• Need to have foundations in each tool

Essbase – BSO Essbase – ASO Relational Databases

Planning Financial Management Strategic Finance

OBIEE Web Analysis Interactive Reporting

Financial Reporting Smart View FDM

DRM ETL Scripting / Programming


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team – Testing Coordinator

• Risk of no / minimal testing

– Poor quality

– Slow performance

– Application outages

• Responsible for full testing process

– Requirements for testing

– Standard test scripts

– Test management

– Test automation

– Defect tracking

• Must have foundations / experience

in Hyperion tools set


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team - Infrastructure

• Common, integrated infrastructure for the enterprise

• Understand the installed and configured components

• Coordinates and manages installations and upgrades

• DBAs

• Hardware support

• O/S support

• Web services

• Security


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team - Trainer

• Training for both users and administrators/developers

• Develop standard training materials / mechanisms

– Internal user group meetings

– Recorded webcasts / training sessions

• Identify courses / outside training

• May serve as “the” trainer for all Hyperion or may provide structure and

guidelines for distributed training

• Benefits

– Common, consistent training

– Communication

– More efficient training development


Support Training

Standards

CoE Team - Support

• Common processes for support of Hyperion applications

• Ensures efficient utilization of support resources

• May serve as help desk or may provide structure and guidelines for

distributed support

• Address both functional and technical questions

– May be different resources

• Consistent, formal support process across Hyperion applications

• Deliver solutions to address end user

questions and issues: Web site,

User manuals, FAQs, Forums/discussions


Support Training

Standards

An Example - What is the Support Process?

• Hyperion CoE Support will define consistent support

processes for the organization

CoE Placement in the Organization

• Shared services unit across the enterprise

• Neither IT nor business

• High level position with authority

• Strategic resource

– Not tactical or administrative

Hyperion CoE Measures of Success

Project benefits

Project time and cost savings

Quality End user

satisfaction

Tied to strategy

Value

How to Get There?

• Start small with minimal costs

• Evolve and scale up resources, services and capabilities

First Assess

People

Skill sets and experience

Technical / functional

Gap Analysis

Process

Standard process for implementation

What works, what doesn’t?

Product

Standard products

Supporting CoE technologies

Next

What are the gaps?

People and processes

Identify the plan to address the gaps

Develop the plan for implementing the CoE

Sell to management

Gain buy-in

Find home in the organization

Next

Assemble the Team

Use existing resources

Train the team

Assign resources to work with more experienced team members to gain real world

experience

Partner with a trusted consulting firm and work hand-in-hand on a first phase

Hire the resources

Next

Prioritize

Define

Communicate

Support

Define the Standards, Guidelines, Best Practices

Remember, like Hyperion implementations, you can’t do everything at once.

Next

Rollout to the organization

Communications

Enabling technologies

Website

Document sharing

Continual improvement

When to Use Consulting

• Use consulting for expertise in new technology or application

• Use of consulting as additional resources to complete projects with specific

timelines

• Always build in time for knowledge transfer with consultants

• Identify clear objectives

• Do your best to work side-by-side with your consultants so you can

implement the future phases

Last Recommendations

• Build to deliver

• Build to last

• Manage expectations

• Avoid pitfalls

– Lack of focus / too many

things

– No authority

– Too much time developing

processes/ tools

– Viewed as an auditor

Consulting

(internal)

Infrastructure

Support Training

Standards

Thank You.

Edward Roske

[email protected]

BLOG: Looksmarter.blogspot.com

WEBSITE: www.interrel.com

TWITTER: ERoske

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.interrel.com/

Achieving a common goal creating a center of excellence e roske in-sync10 oracle epm track

Education

hyperion products

inconsistent applications

admins hyperion planning

hyperion financial management

maintenancereport development

silod development

hyperion oracle ace

hyperion books available