PeopleSoft Projects 2.0: Less Risk, Lower Cost, Why Not?
There are “Heavy” projects and there are “Lite” projects. We all recognize the “Heavy” projects when we see them. These projects are high in cost , elevated in stress, and often include stifling bureaucracies that choke progress. “Lite” projects usually lack big name integrators, include team members chosen for their experience and competency, cost less by several orders of magnitude, and get done without leaving internal stakeholders in a high state of distress.
UW System computer project sees delays, more costs.
”MADISON, Wis. – A second attempt by the University of Wisconsin System to install a new computer payroll program is millions of dollars over budget and a year behind schedule. “
I am working with a local business person – she is in the project management business – pushing a new concept of projects, Projects 2.0. The basic message is that structuring your project in an innovative way can be less risky and less costly than the standard alternative of outsourcing everything to a single large vendor. A key part of that innovation is finding highly competent and experienced people to keep your project on the right track and keep vendor costs from escalating. Why pay an outside integrator six, ten, twelve million dollars or more when the project can get done “Lite” and right for a fraction of that amount?
”The system’s top budget official, Tom Anderes, told the Board of Regents this month that planning for the project alone is now expected to cost $12 million. A year ago, officials had said planning would cost $1.6 million and implementation would begin that fall. In February, they raised the planning budget to $8 million and said it would last through this summer.“
How do you create your own PeopleSoft project 2.0? Here are a few suggestions on where to start:
- Seek the best people- Even in this poor economy almost all organizations hire and promote people on a regular basis. The vast majority of businesses have onboarding processes geared toward getting the best people for the best price. These well established processes could be used to assemble the best available project teams from deep pools of inside and outside talent?
- Use Web 2.0- The new yet well established networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Ryne, Dice, CareerJet, Indeed and others have consummate search and communications tools. If ordinary people in Iran can use these sites to organize large and forceful protests then your organization should be able to use the same tools to assemble a competent and efficient project team.
- Don’t shun easy savings- Demand to know where your contracting dollars are going. Let’s say the rate is $100 per hour. How much per hour is each project team member being paid? How much of your money is going to travel, contract paperwork, higher-up compensation, off-site meetings and other administrative overhead. Want to save money? There is a large pot of money at the end this rainbow.
- Let yourself take control- Too often organizations sign away control when they sign the contract. Decreasing your control of the project may sound good and easy but may actually be a disastrous course of action. Who knows your organization best? An outsider? I doubt that. The more control you can exert on the finished product the more likely you are to be successful. One way to take control is to build your own project team whose loyalty is to one and only one organization, Yours.
Looking for adventure at the Mid-Atlantic RUG
Get your motor runnin’. Head out on the highway. Looking for adventure…
Richmond, Virginia, was just up the road a bit. The Mid-Atlantic RUG was held in Capital One’s beautiful town center conference facility. Before I list my professional thoughts I just want to say that lunch was amazing.
My ORACLE Support 3.1 is coming this Fall. Metalink 3. We hardly got to know you and soon you will be gone. I looked through the crowd but I did not see a single tear shed. Here are some highlights from the presentation by Joshua Byford:
- Daily checkups- ORACLE would like to check your system’s health every 24 hours.
- My Dashboard – Your own iGoogle like home page wth SR’s, Health Check results, Breaking news, and more
- Online Communities – Many miss the limited user forums in old PeopleSoft support site. These new communities will be based on the Web 2,0 technologies that have made Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and other social networking sites so popular.
- We are Number 1 – The PeopleSoft community will be the first group to use the My Oracle support site. The phrase “seemless transition” was used more than once. No new userids. No new passwords. All you need is the Flash download and you should be good to go.
HCM 9.1 may be coming this Fall, also. J.F. Gullo gave his insights on the new release:
- Could there be a convergence happening? Oracle Fusion applications & PeopleTools 8.5.
- Watch for the coming of the Talent Wheel. This slide (subtitled: Improving the Talent Management Lifecycle) looks a little like the wheel of life from The Lion King but the HCM 9.1 wheel has Global core profiles and objectives at the center.
- More integrations. The big one is the MS Outlook interface. Interview scheduling and other like activities will be shifting to Outlook.
- More ORACLE add-ons. Talent Prospector. Talent Pooling Oracle Workforce Scheduling. Related analytics. Configurable BI Dashboards.
PeopleSoft Web 2.0 – A Sneak Preview
I recently stumbled across a sneak preview of the new PeopleTools 8.5 release. This demo is definitely worth a look.
Some of the new features are:
- Independent portal pagelet refreshes
- Partial page refreshes (AJAX)
- Popup window searches (..keeping original page always in sight)
- Hover invoked information popups (..no need to click the question mark)
- Related information frames including brand new web 2.0 features:
- Blogs & Forum discussions
- Tagging and tag searches
- External web page display
- Wiki creation and update
- RSS feeds
Please let me know if you like what you see.
The 16% Solution: Good News or Bad News?
Over 16% of mature workers (a.k.a over 50) say they will never retire according to Pew Research’s latest study on the The Threshold Generation. Is this good news? Is this bad news?
Overall, 37% of full-time employed adults of all ages say they have thought in the past year about postponing their eventual retirement. This proportion swells to 52% among fulltime workers 50 to 64. Members of this so-called “Threshold Generation” are twice as likely as younger workers to say they never plan to retire (16% vs. 8%).
I am sure that for many workers whose problems are purely financial this is bad news. For other workers this may be a lifestyle choice. They are motivated to work. They are engaged. They are good for individual businesses. They are good for the economy. Here are some findings from a study conducted for The Concurs Group, a global consultancy to senior executives, by Harris Interactive.
“Companies have to wake up to the fact that their young workers – their managers and skilled professionals of tomorrow – are the most dissatisfied and least engaged workers today,” said Tamara Erickson, executive officer of the Concours Group. “At the same time, workers approaching retirement are the most energetic, focused and loyal. The question companies need to answer as we approach a skilled labor shortage is, ‘How do we better engage the younger workers while retaining the older workers, or at least postponing their retirement?’ ”
Coming attractions in PeopleSoft Enterprise
Could a new PeopleSoft release be coming soon to theatre near you? Well, maybe not a theatre. Terminator Salvation or Star Trek they are not but these new releases may be very important to your future. In recent weeks Oracle has made available new release value propositions (RVP) for:
- PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM 9.1
- PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1
- PeopleTools 8.50.
Could the actual GA releases be far behind? My pure conjecture is no.
The PeopleTools Technology Blog provides links to the PeopleTools 8.50 and Portal 9.1 RVP. Here is a similar link to the HCM 9.1 RVP.
I can tell you without equivocation that the developers at ORACLE have been busy, busy, busy. I have perused these documents and I think there is a lot to love from new web 2.0 features such as wikis, blogging, and tagging to distinct functional improvements such as online pre-screening of applicants. And a lot more in between. Not everyone will be pleased with everything but Oracle cannot be faulted for its effort. As I look a deeper I will as a matter of course share what I discover. Stay tuned for more…coming attractions.
Mature talent can be a thing of beauty
I confess! This is my first posting in several weeks. On May 1st I departed on a two week trip to Greece and Turkey. My blogging intentions were good. I even took my laptop. Nevertheless, the combination of a seven time zone gap, a series of great experiences, and a touch of Ouzo drained all my blogging will power. It is time to start writing again.
Now, I am back in the States and have only my memory and a few pictures (several hundred in fact) to remind me of my travels. One of the pictures I just reviewed is the one above of my Turkish carpet salesman. I would make an attribution if only I could remember his name. Nevertheless, I do remember with great respect the competent manner in which this mature and talented veteran went about the art of selling Turkish carpets.
First, I need to tell you that I walked through the Turkish Bazaar and was accosted by a host of sales people. They were brash. They were rude. They were immature. They were unsuccessful.
One knows a professional veteran when one sees one. I have worked at times in my career with this rare breed. This Turkish carpet salesman reminded me of those people. In my mind his techniques rose almost to the level of performance art. He knew his stuff, every minor aspect involved in creating hand-made carpets, and even more importantly he “knew” people. Knowing about people is an acquired skill. His competence was not bought in a sales seminar but gained thorough thousands of interactions over tens of years. It is the difference between knowing and thinking. He knew.
Did I buy a carpet? Yes, I did. Perhaps you have a project, a difficult but important undertaking that needs someone who can sell to the top, smooth out the development process, and meld the efforts of your stakeholders into a successful result. If so, maybe you should be looking for someone like my Turkish carpet salesman.
I know you are dying to ask: Did I pay too much? I think that is the wrong question. The question is: Did I enjoy the experience and did I end up with something valuable, a thing of beauty? I believe I did.
PeopleSoft Upgrade Insights: Fit/Gap (Part 2) – Be the Maestro
The room is set. The stakeholders have all taken their seats. The computers are booted. The logon ids and passwords have been entered. The projectors are working and the projected images are readable even in the back of the room. The lights are dimmed, but not too low because you don’t want anybody nodding off. You are all set. What do you do now?
- Start with why everybody is here- People like to know what the results are going to look like before they begin the process. A detailed list of issues will be produced. These issues may be gaps of various shapes & sizes, existing modifications to be reapplied, or new processes to be implemented. Solutions will be found for each item but not necessarily in the sessions. Some amount of research and analysis may be needed to determine the best solutions for particularly sticky issues.
- Set the ground rules- As much as some may like a free flowing stream of consciousness a saner approach will produce better results. So set some ground rules before starting:
- All participants must take ownership
- All participants must respect others thoughts
- All participants are expected to be candid
- All electronic devices (except possibly for pacemakers) must be turned off or to vibrate
- Time is limited. The goal is to find issues, not necessarily solutions.
- Follow your scripts- Fit/Gap (Part 1) described the step-by-step detailed scripts you will need to guide your sessions. Pass these scripts out. They will help your stakeholders follow along. Stick to your guides as much as possible. Update the scripts as you navigate indicating fits, gaps, or items needing further research. If an issue arises and you need to jump to a different part of the system feel free do so. Your script will allow you to return easily to the place where you left off.
- Make sure results get recorded- If it doesn’t get recorded it didn’t happen. Pick someone reliable to record any gaps or other issues that arise. And make sure that person is diligent. Get the “whip” out. Don’t be afraid to look over that person’s shoulder. Periodically, stop the proceedings for a minute to dictate an issue. Check the issue log at breaks. Have the person publish the issues at the end of the day.
- Answer questions- There are two types of questions. Those you know the answer to and those you don’t. What do you do if you are not sure of your answer? Often, I will you say, “Let’s go and take a quick look at how that works.” A participant asks a question about the difference between job profiles and job families. You can go that part of the system and check it out. However, if you have no idea what the person is asking and/or no idea what the answer should be then fall back on the fact that you, as everyone else, is just human. Do not make something up. Promise you will research the topic and return with an answer at a set time.
In Part 3 of this series I will discuss how to transform the data from sessions into Fit/Gap results that will jumpstart the development phase of your upgrade project.
Downskilling: The dangers of getting less
Outsourcing. Downsizing. Offshoring. Nearshoring. Where did all these terms come from? I may not know the exact sources but I do know one thing. They all came from people. A person or persons coined each one of these phrases. Now I would like to create one of my own: Downskilling©. What is downskilling you many ask? Well, let us start with a wiki-like definition:
Downskilling© refers to a process of reducing the talent or skill level of a position, job, or vocation primarily for the purpose of decreasing short-term cost.
Sound familiar? Let me give you an example. A person has developed a skill or talent through study, hard work, and many years of specific practice. Unforeseen problems have cropped up and this person has solved them. Non-obvious opportunities for greater revenues, lower costs, or increased efficiency have arisen and this person has not only recognized them but applied them competently to the organization. Now, this person is replaced at a lower per hour cost by someone who, at best, can maintain the status quo for a while. That is downskilling. That is paying less to get less, a talent management approach rife with dangerous consequences.
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College is concerned about the erosion of proper skills, including experience levels, in the officer ranks. The SSI study entitled Towards a U.S. Army Officer Corps Strategy for Success: A Proposed Human Capital Model Focused upon Talent suggests that current strategies that undervalue talent in general and the proper placement of talent in particular seriously jeopardize the country’s ability to meet future defense obligations.
We find compelling evidence that the U.S. Army’s Officer Corps will be unequal to future demands unless substantive management changes are made. Perhaps the most obvious risk indicator is the Army’s persistent and substantial gap in mid-career officers.
Can the United States afford for its armed forces to be downskilled? The obvious answer is no. Can the United States afford for its key public and private organizations to be downskilled as well? The answer is no. Look for more postings on this subject in the near future.
… to achieve the right breadth and depth of officer competencies to meet evolving requirements–”the right talent in the right job at the right time.” To realize this vision, however, the Army must develop a strategy that commits ample resources, incorporates appropriate policy, and reevaluates existing organizational designs. Failure to do so may result in a U.S. Army unequal to its share of the security challenges confronting the United States and its allies.
PeopleSoft Upgrade Insights: Fit/Gap (Part 1) – Preparing your show and tell
One of the least understood benefits of the Fit/Gap process is show and tell. We all remember having to bring something to class and having to talk about it. Why did the teacher make us do it? Because people will tend to play more attention more to what they see rather than to what they hear. The Fit/Gap is your greatest opportunity to educate your stakeholders about the new release. These show and tell sessions may well be their first exposure to new features and functions. Make the most of them. Your clients will be learning in the best way possible way…from you!
How can you best prepare for these interactive Fit/Gap sessions with key users and other stakeholders? Here is some advice:
- Pre-schedule your sessions and topics- People like to know what they will be doing and when they will be doing it. Be specific. If your plan is to cover Benefits Administration setup at 1:00PM on Thursday then make sure it is on the schedule as such. If you are a little early or a little late you will be forgiven. I promise. Be sure to schedule at least half a day at the tail end for review and analysis of all identified gaps. This will put your group on notice that just sitting and watching is an unacceptable behavior. There will be quiz.
- Know your stuff- Study. Study. Study. The more you know at the time you are conducting the session the better your results will be. There really isn’t any excuse these days for not being prepared. An enormous amount of PeopleSoft documentation is at your fingertips. On the other hand no one knows everything all time. If a subject arises and you are unsure of your knowledge say so. Promise you will research the topic and return with an answer at a set time. Your client will appreciate this approach far more than making something up that later turns out to be inaccurate.
- Script it- Produce step-by-step guides for your navigation through the new release. If you allow a helter skelter approach you will lose your audience and almost certainly miss something important. Your guide should organized in a logical manner (e.g. apply, hire, pay) and include informational columns such as: Navigation path, page name, item name, short description, fit or gap, comments, alternatives.
- Show the old system- Display the old system side by side with the new system. The best way to accomplish this is by having two computers and two projectors. Entice one of your stakeholders to navigate the old system. It is like a magician asking for a volunteer from the audience.
- Make sure it gets recorded- Don’t rely on anyone’s memory about anything discovered in the Fit/Gap. If it doesn’t get recorded it didn’t happen. Create a central repository into which all gaps and other issues can be recorded.
- Prepare ground rules- It is critical that participants understand what is expected of them and it is much more than turning their cell phones to vibrate. For instance, they are there to identify and describe gaps, not to determine solutions. Solutions can take significant amounts of research and discussion….and, of course, time. Up front set a time limit on the discussion of alternative solutions pertaining to a particular issue. After 10 minutes park it and move on.
In my next posting in this series I will be covering how to survive and even thrive in your fit/gap sessions, and, of course, get the results you need to move forward with your project.
Are local PeopleSoft veterans far less risky…
…than PeopleSoft resources obtained from far-off places? The Satyam scandal could make many organizations redo their outsourcing risk/reward analysis.
The Indian federal agency investigating the accounting issues at Satyam Computer Services Ltd. said Tuesday it has filed charges of cheating and forgery against the former chairman of the Indian software exporter, B. Ramalinga Raju, and eight others….
Hyderabad-based Satyam plunged into turmoil following revelations in January by B. Ramalinga Raju of overstating profits, revenue and creating a fictitious cash balance of more than $1 billion.
Perhaps it is time to take a harder look at well seasoned professionals, those with many years of proven success, who reside a little closer to home. We all know there is a lot more involved in determining the total cost of a project than hourly rates. Trust, performance, and risk must be factored into the equation as well.
Is Satyam the end of it? Some think not. The Satyam fraud should not come as a shock..
“Our experiences … suggest that manipulative accounting and aggressive promoter [owner] practices are more common in India than is generally believed to be the case,” he said.
“Many [Indian] firms have become so convinced of their own invincibility that they do not even bother denying irregularities when confronted with the evidence. They simply threaten you.”