Information System Implementations

Information System Implementations: Using a Leadership Quality Matrix for Success

System Implementations, Gain Significant Momentum, An Insiders Guide to What you need to knowBy Andries J Jacobs

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Andries J Jacobs
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4115-1

Contents

Preface.....................................................................ixAcknowledgments.............................................................xiiiIntroduction................................................................xvChapter One Background to the Leadership Quality Matrix.....................3Chapter Two Stakeholders....................................................13Chapter Three Implementation Process........................................24Chapter Four Project Management.............................................33Chapter Five Process Standardization........................................41Chapter Six Project Transition..............................................47Chapter Seven Benefit Realization...........................................54Chapter Eight Troubleshooting...............................................60Chapter Nine Selection of Diagnostic Instruments............................69Conclusion..................................................................85Appendix A: A Step-by-Step Approach.........................................87Appendix B: Leadership Quality Matrix.......................................89Appendix C: Diagnostic Instruments..........................................95References..................................................................97Recommended Reading.........................................................99Index.......................................................................101About the Author............................................................103

Chapter One

Background to the Leadership Quality Matrix

In this chapter, I'll offer you a synopsis of the five most challenging system implementations in which I have participated to provide an understanding of not only my system-implementation experience and the challenges my various teams and I had to deal with, but also my insights into the system-implementation environments that have molded the modified leader in me and contributed to the development of the leadership quality matrix.

From a Modified Leader's Pen

Project 1. In May 1996, as director of marketing administration, I had just researched and developed for the fertilizer industry in South Africa a price-decision, support-system, functional-user specification, and was then assigned the task of client system-implementation lead for the northern region to lead a SAP R/3 version 4.0 h system implementation. The team delivered the SAP R/3 version 4.0 h implementation slightly outside the budget of US$3 million and the scheduled implementation period of twelve months. The configuration and implementation effort included the FI/CO (finance and corporate controlling), SD/MM (sales and materials management), PP (production planning), AM (asset management), and HR (human resources) modules. The infrastructure-technology platform, which at the time was leading-edge, consisted of HP hardware, Oracle database, and Unix operating system. The technical team implemented a three-tier development landscape.

The primary goal was to migrate from a corporate business system developed in-house—including finance, costing, and sales—to an integrated, process-driven enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The results were remarkable: we reduced onetime plant-maintenance inventory by 30 percent, stock levels on a month-by-month basis by 15 percent, distribution costs by 10 percent, customer complaints by 2 percent, and administration cost by 1 percent.

As Winston Churchill once said, "I was strengthened by the critics' comments." Throughout the implementation, there was no lack of criticism, which in the end contributed to the molding of the modified leader in me and the understanding that leadership is a team effort rather than a management-only issue.

The team experienced a wide range of challenges related to people, process, and technology, including:

• Building an information-technology (IT) and systems team using the regional talent pool

• Dealing with poor IT infrastructure between regional headquarters and distribution and sales offices

• Transforming from a mainframe to a client-server environment

• Working with management's ability to design software for solution-supported business processes

• Getting regional alignment within the broader organization

• Developing processes and procedures that fit the real-time client-server environment

• Getting employees computer-literate enough to be trained in the new transaction-based client-server environment

• Motivating employees to execute transactions according to the flow and order of the business process

• Operating the business as an integrated unit (production, sales, procurement, maintenance, and finance)

• Restructuring administrative departments

• Avoiding putting the business at risk

• Getting system-output acceptance

Project 2. In August 2001, as information-system consultant and part of a high-performance management team, I performed a forward-looking assessment for the largest city in Canada of the value-for-money of the Information System Implementations: Using a Leadership Quality Matrix for Success process-control-system and IT components of the program-integration and coordination-services contract. When a carpool friend and colleague wassuddenlysidelinedbyamedicalcondition,Ialsotooktheresponsibility to lead the Lawson Enterprise Resource Planning conference-room pilot project.

I led the team with a focus on implementing a resource-related software solution, including the design of the selection criteria, software selection process, vendor qualification, and project recommendation and approval processes. The outcome was the rejection of the proposed system and selection of SAP R/3 version 4.6 d as the preferred ERP business system.

The centralized resource-related SAP R/3 implementation was for a global engineering-services company with forty-seven offices on all major continents around the world. Major offices were located in Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Chile. The team had an outstanding performance and implemented, within eight months, the FI/CO, SD/MM, PS (project systems), HR, ITS (Internet transaction services), and employee self-service modules. A company strategic direction drove the infrastructure-technology platform, consisting of Microsoft operating system, Compaq hardware, and SQL database. As a team, we developed, implemented, and managed the global operational-support infrastructure, including the help-desk environment. The support team implemented and managed the global training-program and learning-material-development environments. The support team consisted of sixty people, delivering training to three thousand employees globally.

The main focus of the project was to amalgamate three legacy systems (SAP R/3 version 2.2, Oracle, and SUN) and three different company business processes into a single SAP R/3 version 4.6 d system. The US$10 million implementation effort reduced time spent on reconciling and management of time sheets among various countries by 50 percent, invoice time out to customers in Australia from five to three working days, effort of reconciling intercompany accounts by 50 percent, and time spent on data transfer between various systems by 75 percent.

The system implementation challenged the team leadership's capability mainly in terms of environment, people, process, and to a lesser extent technical issues. The key factors derived from this implementation vastly contributed to the understanding of the importance and management of leadership qualities of all team members in reaching successful implementation completion. The team leadership skills and qualities were challenged by:

• The big-bang rollout approach

• The project being managed by me as a company employee, supported by a vendor-assigned system-implementation manager

• The incorporation of three different companies and three different systems into a single centralized system

• A management style and diverse business requirements that resulted in conflicting system requirements

• Differing backgrounds of project-team members from the United States, South Africa, and Australia

• The team's makeup of seven independent consultants, seven internal consultants, and seven business experts

• Business requirements, training, and rollout stretching across multiple time zones, religions, cultures, legislation, and languages

Project 3. In August 2003, as SAP technology manager, I led a team of SAP R/3 professionals supporting global engineering services of SAP R/3 systems in six countries and forty-seven offices around the world. Through leadership-quality development, the team improved the overall end-user satisfaction and system acceptance, reducing end-user complaints and response times by 40 percent. As I was spearheading the SAP R/3 project systems enhancement and improvement initiative, a good friend and IT colleague reached out and challenged my leadership qualities with a request to accept an assignment on an engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) project for a leading aluminum client in Russia. The focus of the assignment was to implement, support, and maintain for three project offices around the country a state-of-the-art local-area network (LAN), office automation, and integrated-project-delivery software suite.

The US $15 million investment effort covered a LAN consisting of twenty servers and 340 end users. The server environment included a Web front end for access to database and applications, external portal to allow vendors access to project documentation, database, active directory, e-mail, application for project-delivery software suite, and documentation filing. The infrastructure technology platform consisted of HP and Dell hardware, SQL database, Windows 2000 operating system, and Windows NT networks. Information System Implementations: Using a Leadership Quality Matrix for Success

The four-month effort was about the implementation of a project-delivery suite of applications that included SAP R/3 version 4.6 c (time capturing and reporting), custom-developed cost control and progress management system, Primavera P3 (scheduling), document management system (OpenText LiveLink v9.0—document control and management), BMS's safety information management system, and Win Estimator (estimating). The support and maintenance team developed and implemented configuration, change-request, authorization, and disaster-recovery procedures. We also implemented and managed a support desk that enabled improved services, increased accuracy, increased availability of information, better management control, and improved management decision making.

When I stepped onto the international playing field, the importance of applying people-leadership qualities to following and maintaining agreed-upon business processes as a critical factor for system-implementation success dramatically impacted and molded the modified leader in me. The international business arena and the difficulty of mastering the local language put a new spin on team challenges, which included:

• IT and systems budget under client control

• No participation by implementation team in the budget-estimation effort

• IT infrastructure and accompanying administration team belonging to the client

• Part-time functional and technical support teams outside of project control

• Software systems not developed and tested to run in a client-infrastructure environment or support multiple joint-venture partner requirements

• Client requirements for process, function, and reporting not consistent with software design

• No business practices or supporting procedures agreed on before implementation and rollout

• EPCM management changes

• Difference in management style between locals and foreigners

• Failure by foreign management to fully understand the local legal requirements

Project 4. In June 2005, after a challenging fourteen months in Russia, I returned home to spend more time with family and took on the role of core-systems development lead, providing leadership and direction to the software development team and collaborating with the product-support team within the company to ensure that the required functionality and modifications were included in appropriate releases. In conjunction with product managers for the software vendor, we evaluated new technologies and products to determine the feasibility and desirability of incorporating their capabilities within the company core-system components.

Increased activity in the aluminum industry around the world raised the demand for system-implementation leadership skills, leading to me accepting the role of scoping, planning, and managing the implementation, support, and maintenance of a state-of-the-art integrated project-delivery software suite on an EPCM project for a leading aluminum client in Brazil.

The systems environment encompassed two locations, seven hundred end users, and twenty servers. The four-month, US$21 million system-implementation effort covered the implementation of a project-delivery software suite that included MARIAN (procurement, logistics, and materials management), SAPR/3Projects (time management, project-breakdown structure, and invoicing), custom-developed engineering progress management system, custom-developed cost control system, document management system (OpenText—document control and management), and Primavera P5 (project scheduling). As part of the integration effort, the task also included the preparation, planning, and management of the implementation, support, and maintenance of a BizTalk integration platform, transferring data among four project delivery systems: MARIAN, iPAS, APMS (client system), and EBS-Oracle finance (client system). This time around, the new buzzword and technology introduced to the project was the implementation of a Web-based voice-and-video-over-IP communication platform called AliceStreet Conference Center.

Coming off the Russia project and going on to a second international assignment brought me to a strong realization that in non-first-world countries, the perception and belief exists that control is a proof of leadership and is required above all to bring project success. With a couple of minor exceptions, it seemed as if the international project-driven system implementations had very much the same challenges:

• IT and systems budget under client control

• No participation by implementation team in the budget-estimation effort

• IT infrastructure and accompanying administration team belonging to the client

• Part-time functional and technical support teams outside of project control

• Software systems not developed and tested to run in a client-infrastructure environment or support multiple joint-venture partner requirements

• Client requirements for process, function, and reporting not consistent with software design

• No business practices or supporting procedures agreed on before implementation and rollout

• EPCM management changes

• Difference in management style between locals and foreigners

• Failure by foreign management to fully understand the local legal requirements

Project 5. In August 2008, with my major international project assignments behind me, it was time to focus on and reconcile with my family. My relationship with my wife, Anna was increasingly strained, and my two wonderful daughters were grown up and on their way to university. It was time for me to keep my family together. In doing so, I had to change direction, travel less, and bring us all together in Vancouver.

While providing system-implementation management services to a molybdenum-mining client in British Columbia and a gold-mining client in Nunavut, Canada, I was asked by the Vancouver office management—because of my experience in EPCM project-delivery systems, understanding of project-delivery business function, and ability to lead diverse teams—to lead the EPCM project-delivery-services team. The team of approximately sixty professionals provided project-delivery services to all the mineral and mining processing and renewable-power projects in the Vancouver office. I provided leadership to specialists in the following areas: project setup, accounting and time management (SAP R/3 version 4.6 c), capital cost estimating (Candy), planning and scheduling (Primavera P6), procurement and materials management (MARIAN), project cost control (custom-developed application), engineering progress (custom-developed application), and document management and control (OpenText LiveLink version 9.0). Special assigned tasks included optimization of business processes, procedures, computerized tools-that-work, and team and business-functions productivity.

After two major international assignments, I had hoped for a smooth ride and was pleasantly surprised by the variety and large number of challenges that the team faced in implementing and using the various project-delivery systems. The project-delivery-services team's leadership skills and qualities were challenged by:

• Project-delivery systems that were mainly developed for the mineral and mining processing industry and not for the renewable power industry

• Renewable power projects that were small in dollar value, stretching over a large time duration

• Conflicting reporting requirements between project managers and business management

• The perception of project managers that the corporate systems were designed for large EPCM projects

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Information System Implementations: Using a Leadership Quality Matrix for Successby Andries J Jacobs Copyright © 2012 by Andries J Jacobs. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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