IS/IT Strategy Determination Software Selection & Implementation

Links to other best practices and training at bottom of page.

Introduction

A software selection and implementation decision is a major and strategic business decision which should be viewed notionally as a ten year decision. It is vital to follow a rigorous process which does this well. If you think the following process is over-complex or unnecessary, the likely alternative based on our experience is buying:

• unnecessary software;
• the wrong software;
• paying too much;
• implementing it badly;
• or worse seriously damaging your organisation.

We have been involved in rescuing situations where these had happened and it is not a place you want to go! The range of remedies in which we have been involved include, switching the software off, replacing it with simple manual processes, unscrambling unnecessary software modifications, and fully or partially re-implementing it properly.

This article, based on our experience, describes our well tried and tested process of converting business strategy in to a requirement for software, selecting that software and implementing it to give business benefit, on time and budget.

The Process

The process breaks down into the seventeen stages below. Our proprietary expert systems, methods, or educational workshops support all of the stages shown:

1. Project Planning
2. Project Management
3. Creating / Understanding Business Strategy
4. Inventory of current information systems, and future commitments
5. Inventory of current IT, and future commitments
6. Initial view of potential benefit / justification/barriers/quick hits
7. Initial policy / vision statement
8. Education of current management team
9. Determine future potential
10. Develop IS strategy
11. Develop IT strategy
12. Go shopping
13. Implementation Preparation
14. Concept Design
15. Detail Design
16. Implementation
17. Post Implementation Review

What is an IS/IT Strategy?

An IS/IT Strategy is a structured framework designed to bring together the information systems needs and the enabling technologies to satisfy those needs. It is necessary to tightly control the process of creating the strategy to ensure that the needs of the business are met and enabled in as risk free manner as possible. Often organic IS / IT growth in the absence of a strategy leads to unnecessary complexity and ultimate failure.

Priority of business needs is a paramount consideration, and a balance between risk and taking advantage of leading edge technologies is required.

The four main types of business system to be addressed are:

1. Links to customers & suppliers
2. Support and integration of the business processes
3. Enabling systems in product, process, and market development (Information itself can be a product, or provide competitive advantage)
4. Provision of information to control the implementation of the business strategy

The Process

At every stage management (not the IT department) must take a participative role in formulating the strategy.

1 Project Planning

1. Project launch meeting / workshop of key stakeholders outlining the process and their potential role in it
2. Initial discussions with managers and staff
3. Produce project plan

2 Project Management

• At stages 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14,15, and at key implementation milestones formal sign off of proposals are required
• Project reviews will take place at regular intervals throughout the project

S08 Programme Management is designed to deal with planning and management of a programme of projects. S09 Project Management is design to deliver bottom line benefits from projects on time & within budget.

3 Creating / Understanding Business Strategy

Information strategy is tightly coupled to business strategy. Business strategy may not be clear, in which case clarification is required. S05 World Class Change Management workshop is designed to either clarify, or launch a sub project to clarify business strategy.

4 Inventory of current information systems, and future commitments

1. Assess strategic relevance of systems:
   • 5 forces analysis
   • Contribution of IS to the added value chain
2. Current systems are reviewed to assess their level of support for the business processes:
   • Business problems
   • Business Key Success Factors (KSF's)
   • We have an expert system to assess the gap between current & best practice called "Gap Analysis"

Independent assessment of information systems needs is determined by the use of our expert systems:

• Reference Model. (See What Control Systems Do I Need)
• Functional specification
• Likelihood of Success

5 Inventory of current IT, and future commitments

• Hardware
• Operating System Software
• Applications
• Operational procedures including housekeeping, change management etc. (See "25 questions to ask your IT specialist" or I03: "Best Practice Data Processing" workshop)
• Assess overall
  • Obsolescence
  • Future proofing

6 Initial view of potential benefit / justification / barriers / quick hits

This is a personal view of:

• What is possible
• What is likely to be able to be justified
• What barriers need to be tackled to achieve them
• What can be done quickly and inexpensively to create a major impact

We use a technique called Process Quality Management (PQM), which compares the leverage of each business process with the key success factors for the business, the degree to which that is currently contributing and the leverage which IT might bring to bear on that, in our S02 Business Process Reengineering training  This technique is also one of the techniques in the "C06 Improvement Techniques Pick & Mix Education" workshop.

7 Initial policy / vision statement

This is an agreed board statement of the aims and objectives of future IS/IT policy and a vision statement of what development is to be undertaken. We support this with workshops S03 Vision of a World Class Organisation & S05 World Class Change Management.

8 Education of current management team

A key potential barrier is the management team. This phase is intended to overcome these constraints, and educate the management team in what is possible, by a collection of techniques including:

• Benchmarking
• Visits
• "Software window shopping", which includes sending off for the brochures, visiting exhibitions, arranging demonstrations etc.
• Best practice educational workshops

Also see E-commerce Enabling Your Business

9 Determine future potential

This is no longer a personal view but a commitment from the individual managers to deliver business benefits by the provision of enhanced techniques including Information Systems. From this point onwards the project is no longer an IT project but a business improvement plan.

10 Develop IS strategy

This is the "how" statement for the business improvement plan above. It includes:

• A checklist of functional requirements. We use our library of functional checklists we have developed over a number of projects in a number of industries, and an expert system, which converts a questionnaire into a checklist of functional requirements
• A skeleton new business process
• This is part one of two parts of an "invitation to tender"

11 Develop IT strategy

This is the statement of enabling technologies required to satisfy the IS strategy. It includes:

• Technology needs
• Hardware
• Utilities (like report writers, enquiry facilities). We use a checklist we have developed over a number of projects in a number of industries of best practice utilities and report writers
• Interfaces / integration needs (links to other internal or external processes)
• This is part two of the "invitation to tender"

12 Go shopping

1. Obtain high level data about potential suppliers and their products (the glossy brochures)
2. Re-check requirements, establish other evaluation criteria and update agenda. Again our checklists include all aspects of supply, installation, and support requirements.
3. Draw up a short-list of potential suppliers (No more than 5). (You need a positive reason to include someone.)
4. Do detailed 'agenda' based evaluation of short-list
5. Decide preferred candidate (Do not tell them or who their major competitors are.)
6. Draw up list of queries about supplier to ask referees
7. Check queries with reference sites / user groups given by supplier
8. Negotiate with 2 or 3 suppliers. (See "Negotiating Software Contracts")
9. Check contracts. There are a number of horror stories about software contracts, the main problem being the ongoing relationship between the supplier and the customer and the longevity of the arrangement. Some of these issues are discussed in "Negotiating Software Contracts", but you really need to seek expert advice
10. Load representative data to preferred supplier's system (mini "Conference Room Pilot")
11. Prepare sanction
12. Prepare implementation plan
13. Get supplier committed to your plan

13 Implementation Preparation

1. Identify major work-packages
2. Identify major work-package owners
3. Input / Output (I/O) analysis education for owners
4. Set up Measures of Performance (See "Focused Improvement Systems")
5. I/O analysis of work-packages
6. Install hardware & software
7. Planning workshop
8. Set up projects / work-packages
9. Set up implementation project teams
10. Prepare plans
11. Confirm budget
12. Present plans to steering committee

14 Concept Design

1. Best practice workshops. The purpose of these is to educate the critical mass into what is possible so that they can contribute effectively to the new design. It then becomes their design not yours (See "Culture Development Methods")
2. Problem solving techniques training
3. Document existing system in sufficient detail to criticise it
4. SWOT existing system. This technique is one of the techniques in the "C06 Improvement Techniques Pick & Mix Education" workshop
5. Remove Non Value Adding activities (NVA) (Activities which are not contributing to strategic objectives). This technique is one of the techniques in the "C06 Improvement Techniques Pick & Mix Education" workshop
6. Prepare concept design. (See "Organisational Redesign")
7. Present concept design to steering committee

15 Detail Design

1. Detailed software training for designers
2. Detail design(s). (This is sometimes called a "systems specification".) Map your processes and data to the software
3. Confirm implementation plans
4. Conference Room Pilot for each development phase
5. Present detail designs to Steering Committee
6. Firm up design
7. Firm up implementation plans

16 Implementation

This will be the subject of a future article. Meanwhile you should look at "Implementing ERP systems", and "25 questions to ask your IT specialist" for some interim advice.

17 Post Implementation Review

Often omitted this process (because it is embarrassing) asks the question, "were the objectives achieved"? What lessons can be learned? We use a method of comparing the original reasons for buying verses the benefits achieved. However with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight it is worth considering how much the benefits could have been achieved without the software. We have a range of experiences on this ranging from:

• It has made things worse
• It has made no difference
• It has made a significant difference
• It has made a difference to performance but has added cost

We are often called in after implementation (by someone else) to do a review. The most common problem we have found is the failure to kill the old system. Our recommendations have included:

• To take the system out and replace it with simple and clear processes. (See Previous Best Practice of the Week 009: "Visibility of problems through simple and clear processes").
• To remove the software because the technique employed by the software was inappropriate for the business.
• To re-implement a faulty implementation.

A number of our post implementation review findings are listed in "Implementing ERP Systems".

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The following further best practice articles were also mentioned in this paper:

Previous Best Practice of the Week 009: "Visibility of problems through simple and clear processes

Examples of checklists of functional requirements, Utilities (like report writers, enquiry facilities), and other software evaluation criteria, can be supplied on request. (This service is not available to consultants)

The following public training courses and in-house workshops provides solutions to IS / IT Strategy:

I01 Information Systems / Information Technology Strategy

S02 Business Process Reengineering

The following related courses were also mentioned in the document:

To discuss your consulting or training needs with one of our independent consultants or trainers please Contact Us.

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© SM Thacker & Associates (Consultancy and Training Specialists) Original April 2000, version 6 February 2008