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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:10PM
#11
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Hi Tom -- From your experiences, what are the pros vs. cons of a big bang implementation?
That is a fun question for me. I come from 12 years of consulting prior to my 3 yers now at Varian Medical Systems and as a consultant I loved the idea of a big bang. I was less risk averse I suppose. Now back in "industry", I feel quite different and am more inclued to look at rollo-outs. However, for our big ECC 6/BI7/CRM "upgrade" (actually "re-mplementation") we felt that it would take YEARS if we did a rollout, so we very carefully conducted a big bang (dinosaur) project!
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:11PM
#12
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Hi Tom, Did you do any benchmarking before deciding how to proceed wtih this project? If so, any tips on that for other IT orgs? Thanks.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:14PM
#13
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Hi Tom -- From your experiences, what are the pros vs. cons of a big bang implementation?
Billy, as for pros and cons, to answer your question more directly, I think that the big pro is simplicity of delivery (hence why as a consultant I woudl like it). We just planned one cutover, one series of data conversions, one (massive) wave of training, and then we were switching off legacy systems and into support. When I did rollouts as a consultant, it got quite messy. Just for example handling intercompany trnasaction between a part of the business still on legacy apps (or the old version of SAP) and the part of the business on the new SAP system. The other big attraction of big bang is time to benefits--we get the full befefits of the implementation and we get it faster. The con of course is risk. You are betting the farm when you go big bang.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:18PM
#14
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Hi, Tom: You mentioned that IT is becoming more of a strategic partner to business areas such as sales, supply chain, etc. How have folks from the business side responded to this change? How has it impacted them?
This is a key change for the company that is in process. The business is changing alongwith IT. Yesterday I was in a meeting where the BUSINESS was asking me if I agreed that they should hire a Director level person to play the role of coordinator of projects working with an IT counterpart. They see so much value in the development of our systems that they want more control of the project portfolio, more discipline in the way it is built (project identification), prioritized, quantified (business benefits and project costs translated into ROIs), etc... Naturally, I am very supportive!
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:22PM
#15
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Hi Tom,
Did you do any benchmarking before deciding how to proceed wtih this project? If so, any tips on that for other IT orgs?
Thanks.
Benchmarking is a great idea but usually tough to do or at least tough to find the time to do. We did our benchmarking for our big "re-implementation" halfway through the project. That was not ideal and in some cases you would have trouble getting the project launched without a justification that started with benchmarking current perforamance and then quantifying the future expeted performance and benefits. We worked with Deloitte, who was our partner on the big project and they had a methodology for the benchmarking. I think that is a key. If yo udon't know how to do the benchmarking, they enlist some support. Usually you can get that for free from consulting implementation parters who are hungary for business.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:23PM
#16
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Hi Tom -- The article describes the benefits on this initiative to your organization, but what was the greatest benefit to your IT team? Thanks!
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:24PM
#17
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Hi Tom, Would you say that this new "IT as a business partner" outlook has had an impact on the motivation and morale of your IT team? Do you find that your IT folks are more charged up about the work they're doing? Thanks.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:26PM
#18
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Hi Tom,
Did you do any benchmarking before deciding how to proceed wtih this project? If so, any tips on that for other IT orgs?
Thanks.
Did I answer your question? If you are looking for "tips" I would say that the benchmarking shoudl be based on two things--any changes you will make in teh infrastructure/architecture that will affect cost or performance and the changs that you will make in business process. I like the idea of rally hammering on the latter, because that is where you will get the business to recognize and sign up for the benefits (which ultimately they have to deliver by using the system). This means however that you have to have a pretty good idea of the "design" of the new business processes. So, having a Project Prep phase that includes a high level design and benchmarkgin/business case deliverable is ideal.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:28PM
#19
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Yes that's great advice. Thanks Tom.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2010 - 1:32PM
#20
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Hi Tom -- The article describes the benefits on this initiative to your organization, but what was the greatest benefit to your IT team? Thanks!
Hi! The biggest benefit to the Varian apps team that I manage was an increase in our ability to deliver projects on time and on budget. We just have more throughput on changes that improve the business. Related to this, the chagne in strategy requires that the internal apps team be up to date on the apps we support--we are expected to be the "leaders", more knowledgable than our 3rd party support team and knowledgeable enough to only have minimal needs for consulting support on our projects. That means people need to get trained and attend conferences, etc... So, for us, that is not a "nice to do" distraction, but a "need to do". Of course, we still have the problem of balancing the work with the training, but we look at the training as more impt I think than many other organizations.
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