There are amusing and horrific stories of the trials and tribulations connected with the replacement of technology, and the implementation of new systems and architecture. There are lessons that we can learn from those who have blazed the trails before us, and those who have been burned by the blaze. Get your fingers ready to count the five fundamental considerations for implementing new technology.
What we learned from Oracle
Replacement Social Security Card Application
"The customary plan was to transition the existing It infrastructure to Oracle over a duration of three months. It is three years later, and we think that we are approximately done with our Oracle implementation." Does this sound familiar? if so, you have abundance of good company. Oracle is a distinguished engine. It is high octane, scalable, and has flexible object oriented architecture to allow continuous growth and integration. So, what went wrong?
Quite often, in the eager prospect to install the newest and greatest engine, the other parts of the car were forgotten or overlooked. Sure you have a distinguished new engine, but your steering wheel is gone. It was replaced by a series of point and click drop down boxes to beyond doubt instruct the car to turn at a specific angle. Do you want to make a 30 degree turn, a forty degree turn, or a 90 degree turn, right or left? simply select the approved item from the drop down menu and you will have the exact turn that you desire. Gone is that old fashioned and inaccurate steering wheel that required manual intervention and guidance to gradually adjust the turn in process, and installed is the precision turning gismo that is managed by your mouse. The qoute is, nobody mentioned that the new steering mechanism was sold separately, and would take someone else six months to program. Nobody mentioned that everybody responsible for driving the car would have to learn a new steering methodology, lose the quality to make manual adjustments along the way, and need to learn to be more predictive and literal, in the choice of the literal, turn. Adjustments can be made along the way to literal, a turn, with more point and click menu selections, if necessary. The extra time, produce and development costs, and employee training are sold separately. You see, Oracles sells that distinguished engine, not the steering wheel.
Does that sound funny or familiar? If it sounds familiar, then the humor is bitter-sweet. If it sounds ridiculous, then you have not experienced it yet. The steering wheel is only one example. Once the steering mechanism is programmed and put into place, then the other discoveries begin. That distinguished engine comes with a speedometer and tachometer, so you can see your doing and the Rpm of the engine. Isn't is spicy to see that you have only partially tapped into the imaginable power of this magnificent Oracle engine? Unfortunately, if you rely on other dashboard devices like signals for turns, air conditioning, or a radio, then you have to build these things yourself. After all, the engineers of the engine comprehend that you turn on dissimilar roads than everybody else, you have personal preferences for your climate controls, and you have personal preferences for terrestrial or Sirius satellite radio stations. Therefore, you need to build the point and click objects, menus, and radio buttons to accommodate your personal preferences, and all the inherent variations thereof. Man forgot to mention that all of these functions and amenities need to be institution designed for each driver.
Once the tasteless dashboard and control devices are designed, developed, and implemented, then the next wave of discovery begins. The old buttons, knobs, and dials are gone. Everything has been replaced with the convenient control of a particular device, your mouse. That seemed like a remarkable convenience when it was first described to you. All of the controls are at two fingers on one hand. Once you are past the pain of installing all of the other controls at further cost, it occurs to you that it might be a exiguous complex to switch in the middle of steering the car, sending a command to roll up the windows, turning on the air conditioner, choosing a radio station, and signaling your turn, all at the same time with one device. All of these things wish a dissimilar set of menus, so you need to select your work stream very carefully. Otherwise, you may run into the back of a truck while trying to turn off the heater, and turn on Howard Stern. Just then, it begins to rain, and you comprehend that the windshield wipers have not been coded yet.
Dear Larry Ellison, please forgive me if my sense of irony has inadvertently presented what could be perceived as an unflattering commentary. It is merely intended to make a point about proper planning for transition of technology. After all, you do build a gorgeous engine.
So, what should we do?
1) Be Aggressive
It is approved to be aggressive when implementing new technology that provides a contentious edge. The contentious edge may be connected to broad theory doing that empowers employees to come to be more productive. A contentious edge may be a utility that empowers clients and customers to come to be more self-sufficient, like installing the Atm engine outside the bank for buyer self-sufficient convenience. The contentious benefit may join complicated functions, partners, or streams of data that allow for more spicy decisions or effective business. If the implementation, integration, or replacement to new technology is going to have a large and measured contentious advantage, then be aggressive about the pursuit of technology.
2) Be Cautious
If the replacement of technology touches upon the core competency or income of your business, then be cautious about manufacture any requisite changes. This does not mean that you avoid improving technology. It merely implies that it is approved to be more cautious in learning the ramifications and ancillary applications which may be impacted by even a subtle convert to the code. There are bad dream stories from clubs that implemented seemingly innocuous changes to billing, and then failed to furnish invoices or statements for the clients. During this duration of the replacement of technology, income was suddenly reduced. The effect created financial hardship for the billing company, and for the disgruntled customers who suddenly received any months worth of accumulated billing once the invoicing theory issues were resolved. Not only was this an impact on cash flow During the interruption in billing, but it impacted the relationship with the clients as well. Be aggressive about contentious opportunities to grow your profit and performance, but be cautious when it comes to implementing changes that may impact your core business offerings, clients, or billing.
3) Be Quick
Be quick to implement minor changes, and determined monitor the impact. When it come to doing enhancement, internal suggestions for simplifying routines, or improving the buyer experience, do not delay. produce the small changes, test the changes thoroughly, and generate a agenda to consistently roll out enhancements. Quite often, the exiguous enhancements have the biggest impact to business performance.
4) Be Slow
When it comes to major changes in the architecture or systems that withhold your business, be slow in implementing change. Frequently, the core architecture and functions of the business are the most effective and streamlined. The processes that get the most use are the ones that get the most attention, and are often the most very evolved. Unfortunately, these are also the processes that typically are premium for the first priority when it comes to implementing a replacement in technology. On the contrary, avoid the appeal to of focusing on customary ground, and withhold the customary processes until the transition has been tested on some of the more complex, and less often utilized, utilities. By focusing development on the most complex and least used functions, there is large knowledge to be gained by the experience, and the least amount of impact to the business. There are too many bad dream stories of clubs that eagerly transferred the main processes, and then spent months or years working out the bugs that could have been identified by developing a much less needed or impactful part of the process.
5) Be Safe
There is no good time to address the vast array of inherent security needs than During the design, development, and implementation of new technology. What personal data to you manage, process, forward, or store? This is not exiguous to reputation card transactions or bank catalogue numbers for wire transfers. Somewhere in the large archives of data, you are probably holding high-priced private data on every one of your own employees. employee records consist of social security numbers, bank accounts for direct deposit, names and addresses, and maybe even reference to healing coverage. Quite often we think about the pipeline to our customers, and forget about the goldmine of private data inside our own facilities. Don't we owe the same security to our own employees?
Privacy data can consist of healing records, financial records, and personal information. Driver's license numbers, reputation card numbers, or even matching email address with telephone numbers, are all inherent risk to privacy. The threat is not exiguous to how habitancy entrance the data from the outside, or the amount of firewalls that you put into place. The threat is also from the inside, and what kind of data is ready to employees and associates. How easy it is to look up client records and download the data to a thumb drive? How easy is it to copy the whole business database of buyer information, catalogue information, or intellectual property? What would it be worth to a disgruntled employee to take requisite client data to a competitor?
There is no good time than the gift to have a security master value the inherent breaches of privacy in your organization. If you have customers, toll cards, buyer accounts, client information, intellectual property, financial information, healing information, or employee data stored electronically, accessible on a network, or printed in files, then it is time to reconsider security.
If you are in the midst of preparation for a technology transformation, design, development, integration, or implementation, then it is the perfect time to quote all of the connected documents with a security and privacy expert. If you are organizing all of this information, then why not take benefit of your efforts to protect your customers, your employees, and your business? Executives and management are increasingly being held responsible for ignoring or overlooking the inherent security breaches in their respective organizations, both from protecting customers from external threats, and for controlling the actions of disgruntled employees. Mitigate risk to the company, and the executives of the company, by taking approved and cheap precautions for master analysis, controls, and privacy.
Words of Wisdom
"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who conduct what they do not understand."
- Putt's Law
"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."
- Alice Kahn
"There is an evil tendency fundamental all our technology - the tendency to do what is cheap even when it isn't any good."
- Robert Pirsig
"Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
directory Implementing New Technology
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