Tag: Change Management

Bring Your Process

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

Many of software projects are technically driven in nature. That includes the users mindset where the software will solve daily issues. That is half correct because software is usually built with best practices from known industry SOP (standard operating procedures). Thus, we tend to ignore the existing process that will be impacted by the new system. Customisation and change management are common reactions when you bring your own process into the software projects.

Customising

Customisation is the most common approach taken when evaluating the current business process. Change is resistance and the demand to customise will echo in major projects. It is known that you should limit customisation to less than 20%. If you are facing more than that, it means that the software product you have is not a good fit and you are better off doing turnkey development.

Change Your Process

The fear of change is major factor towards project failures. If getting top notch software products is the key reason, it is worth considering change management for existing SOP. It also makes no economical sense to customise process by each office. The driver to change management is usually triggered by cost reduction and operational efficiency.

The strategy for new software implemented must be done with the understanding of existing processes. Often, this is neglected during the pre project phase. The approaches in your project will be either a mix of customisation and change management to leverage on the features and conforming to local business processes.

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Process Driven IT

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

There will be challenges when business is not aligned with IT. One of key reason is process driven IT. Processes forms many of the flow that business need for IT to flow with one another. If there is no processes, data will exist in silos with the rest of applications. Without processes, business can demand features without consideration to operations.

Processes as Sanity Check

One of common IT failures is the lack of processes when IT is implemented. Users may request for features that does not have existing processes. This is usually a result if references to competitor application. Thus, request for new scope must be supported by expected processes (To-Be). It serve as a sanity check for the “As-Is” processes.

Processes as Barrier

Not al IT requests should be implemented. If there is a reason to say no, you can utilise processes as barriers. It is not surprising that users have no idea how the new features can gel with the existing processes. It takes time to update existing processes and change human behaviors

I usually implement IT enhancements with a process driven mindset. It is easy to gauge the effectiveness of the enhancements when there are not existing processes. Therefore, processes can serve as barriers to stop the users requests.

Multicloud Managment

~ Danny Kwok ~ 1 Comment

Multicloud management is becoming a challenge when you are trying to tabulate your overall TCO (total cost of ownership). You will also require a broad set of cloud skillset across different cloud providers. Most organisations will adopt multicloud due to migration of legacy systems to cloud. Another reasons are the strengths of each cloud providers. How should you prepare towards multicloud management?

Cross Functional Cloud Team

Cloud providers have a common dictionary and concepts. You should start to develop your resources to acquire a general cloud skillset. It is also time that you build a cross functional team for managing your cloud assets across different providers. The team must be adept to tabulate and normalise cloud consumptions across different platform. This team will also assist in best Cloud practices. However, the team is not to be a replacement of COE (Center of Excellence). Many organisations refer this team as a Digital Transformation team.

Multicloud Vision

As legacy migrate to cloud, it is estimated that your future applications should be cloud in 5 years time. Thus, it is time to formulate multicloud strategies and vision for your organisation. The vision will steer your multicloud managment into these approaches:

  • Centralised Multicloud will seek to view all your cloud usage in a single view and manage from a control tower vision.
  • Regional Multicloud approach leverage cloud providers selection and consumptions at a regional levels due to timezone and locations.
  • Applications Centric approach builds from transition of on premise application to Cloud.

Multicloud Management will be replacing traditional IT management as the migration of cloud is underway. It is time for organisations to transition your management to multicloud management instead than retaining your existing team structures around your traditional IT architecture.

Changes for Management

~ Danny Kwok ~ Leave a comment

There are times where project implementation often require process changes or change management. The rationale for these changes will need top management engagement. Some changes are anticipated while others happens during production support. You will need to explain these changes for your management endorsement. These are some approach that you can consider.

Explain Why, not How

Management view changes differently from operations or users. Knowing why is the strongest motivation factor to understand the purpose to change. Thus, you should focus to explain why instead of telling how you do the change. These information allows management can debate the resistance of change to reasons more clearly. You will be surprise to learn that most management are not aware on the reasons that system changes bring about.

Positive Change

The users voice towards changes are usually laced with negativity. This is why you must appoint change agent or champion who are positive change drivers. These roles provide hard facts and data to support the change reasons. The data shows how the changes bring about the positive effect. It will refutes the voice of disgruntled users resisting these changes. All the positivity will provide management the confidence to handle changes with users.

Changes for management must have good justification and positivity. Focus on why rather than how. Change agent helps with data and facts to support the positive effects. Do not use the same change management from users on management. Use these tips to adopt for a successful change management.