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Part 1: What is Corporate Profiling?
An Introduction to “Stop Blaming the Software – Corporate Profiling for IT Project Success”
Stephen Manes, commenting on the changes he has observed over the past 25 years. Full Disclosure, Stephen Manes, PCWorld, December 2008.
“Public relations people seem better than ever at helping to hide massively screwed-up corporate and governmental programming projects from stockholders and citizens.”
1. Visibility of an organization’s key elements is vital to the profiling process and can only be achieved once an organization has been unbundled or dissected
What is Corporate Profiling?
Corporate Profiling is a simple yet comprehensive process that delivers an in-depth blueprint of the organizational structure, its technology, people, processes, up-stream and down-stream customers and their relationships.Ref: Wikipedia
“While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple” Gerald W. Grumet
2. Profiling promotes Collaboration on all strategic decisions to ensure that unbiased quality decisions are arrived at, consensus is achieved, and decisions are fully supported. Collaboration is also a prerequisite for requirements gathering
What is Corporate Profiling?“A good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem” Author unknown
Corporate Profiling is a simple yet comprehensive process that delivers an in-depth blueprint of the organizational structure, its technology, people, processes, up-stream and down-stream customers and their relationships.Ref: Wikipedia
3. Accountability empowers employees to drive change and to feel involved rather than becoming cynical or resistant to change. Accountability is also a critical factor for ensuring quality input into strategic project decisions
“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems – not people; to focus your energies on answers – not excuses” William Arthur Ward
What is Corporate Profiling?
Corporate Profiling is a simple yet comprehensive process that delivers an in-depth blueprint of the organizational structure, its technology, people, processes, up-stream and down-stream customers and their relationships.Ref: Wikipedia
Step B: Profile Core Processes• To identify the points of process integration, an organization needs to
determine what its current processes and systems are, how they envision them to be, and what needs to be done to achieve the desired outcomes
• Using the profiling information from “Profiling Information for an Organization” as the starting point, they can begin to profile their core processes
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them” Henry Ford
By unbundling the pre-implementation process we are able to break down each step into specific disciplines.
These disciplines all require strategic decisions at the project’s outset so they can be successfully established, managed, and adopted by the organization throughout the project’s life cycle.
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity” Albert Einstein
Step D: Profiling the External Value Chain• Irrespective of what strategy an organization pursues or what benefits the
new IT system will deliver, the organization needs to identify how and where its customers and suppliers will either impact or be affected by the new system and processes.
• If an organization is pursuing a strategy to catapult it into the status of “Industry Leader,” it will most certainly need a stronger alliance and tighter integration with its upstream or downstream customer processes.
“The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed” Lloyd Jones
Some of the common reasons for investing are: • A changing business or external environment• The incumbent system is out of date and cannot handle new
requirements• The vendor no longer supports the incumbent system • IT budget deadlines to spend before the end of the tax or financial
year• To gain competitive advantage• An emergent or disruptive technology• Change of strategy• Increased efficiencies• Reduced operating costs• To meet customer demands.
Decision MakingThe world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress” Charles Kettering
• Who is the project sponsor? (The person in the organization who proposed the IT system and will be accountable for it until the project’s conclusion.)
• Who in the organization made the IT investment decision?
• Who is driving the decision to invest?
• Is the Project Sponsor also the decision driver?
• If this is not the same person, what are the specific reasons for that person being the Project Sponsor?
• Do all of the relevant senior executives support the investment decision? (Note that even indirectly affected executives need to be included in answering this question.)
• What are their reasons for agreeing with and supporting the investment decision?
• What reasons were given for disagreeing with the decision?
Profiling the Who of the Decision(sample profiling questions)
“Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results” Scott Adams
“Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss” Lee Iacocca
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