Re: Who's going to call Hesheys? -- MIDRANGE-L

Another problem (us) I.S. folks can be guilty of is TRULY understanding the
business AND failing to see what a HUGE system change will have on the user 
base.
It is SO important when doing a "re-engineering" project like this that teams be
built THROUGHOUT the organization to study how the new software and hardware 
will
fit and what business procedures will have to change. Do "conference room 
pilots"
as we called them and bring in a representative sample of users from each area
and "run the business" for a week. Do daily orders, manufacturing, inventory,
purchasing, daily processing, etc. That's what we did and you accomplish a 
NUMBER
of things. Among them, you lessen the "fear" of changing from "the way we always
"did" things", you get the user base to become involved WITH YOU and you let 
THEM
run this process with your help, you identify areas that need more attention, 
you
discover missing pieces or problems, staffing and head count issues, etc. And 
the
REAL important part of this is you do it BEFORE you go live when pressure is 
MUCH
less. Oh, and if you are a manufacturer, let customers KNOW what you are doing
AND build inventories !!!

IMHO,

Chuck

Don wrote:

> Wynn, et al...
>
> unfortunately, big software firms, and small ones, bounce into the office
> selling themselves as the best thing since sex and canned beer...and after
> all, they're a Vendor-X BUSINESS PARTNER.  The super slick sales folks
> sometimes tend to make the client think they have the full faith and
> credit of vendor-X and create pie in the sky...
>
> Nah, you don't need more project management courses...ya just need a good
> bullshit filter, good corporate attorney and a bit of good systems
> knowledge....:)   It would be nice if Vendor-X would weed out their BP's
> that can't send out decent code or programmers...nah....that would be too
> much...:)
>
> >
> > What of all those computer science & business degrees we took? They don't
> > seem to have helped do they?
> >
> > Maybe us computer types should obtain more education in the area of project
> > management. It seems like that would help.
> >
> > Wynn
>
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