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| The Non-Technical Manager's Guide to Successful System Implementation | ||
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By Bichalu Narasimmaraj, Senior Software Engineer at Steelwedge Software |
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In the post bubble economy companies expect all departments, especially IT, to do more for less. With reduced budgets and manpower, IT has been squeezed between a rock and a hard place. When systems fail, either because they lack a champion or support from the users, they fall in the lap of a reluctant IT Department, which ends up maintaining the decrepit systems that they do not want to support in the first place. The end result is frustrated users and finger pointing. And, IT is often blamed for the inefficiencies and failures of other departments.
This article examines some common pain points of deploying and maintaining an Enterprise system, and provides the non-technical manager with a set of key questions for uncovering potential hick-ups in implementing (or evaluating) a new system.
Hardware
Even though IT usually excels in adding hardware to their environment it is nearly always time consuming-- getting a specification for the hardware from the Enterprise System vendor, internal authorization and placing orders, implementation and integration. There will be at least few rounds of consulting/working with the Enterprise system vendor and the hardware vendors. Although somewhat more expensive at first glance, custom ordered hardware is easier and faster to install than hardware assembled with parts from several vendors. The storage needs of the Enterprise System also need to be worked out with the vendor and setup properly to get the maximum through put performance. Having an inadequate or unreliable storage system may put the project implementation schedule in jeopardy. Network requirements also need to be assessed, but this is not usually a bottleneck with the advent of gigabit networks. Another consideration that is usually missed in the requirements phase is the potential upgrades of hardware to the user desktops which may be necessitated because of the Enterprise System’s user interface requirements. Usually processing power (CPU) or the memory (DRAM) need to be upgraded to meet the needs. Manager's Questions:
Infrastructure/Base Software
The infrastructure software required by the Enterprise System involves an Operating System, Applications/Web Server, Database Server (RDBMS), Web Browser and Office Automation Tools. The following software characteristics are desirable:
Manager's Questions:
Project Implementation
Project implementation involves several critical phases-- Planning, Design, Build and Test, Integrated Test and Go-live. Each step needs to be executed within the required schedule. Some missteps can be taken in to account and maneuvered in the implementation schedule, but a protracted implementation will give rise to cynicism and loss of confidence among potential users. Although most of the key requirements are identified and included in the project timeline, there will always be some that are included in the schedule in the last phases. This requires that the implementation is repeated accurately and reliably. Even though faster implementation is desirable, users will rather wait for a system without many defects than a buggy software implementation. Manager's Questions:
Data Identification, Preparation and Integration
One of the most important jobs for IT is to keep and maintain the data on which the business users depend. Even though IT is not typically the owner of the data, most of the time they are responsible for it. The Enterprise System owners need to identify the sources of the business data in the IT Systems. Since the data may be residing in disparate systems, it needs to be extracted from the sources or host systems, transformed and loaded in to a target system. This process is called (need to spell out name e.g. Enterprise Transfer Locator (ETL.) The data then need to be imported in to the Enterprise System. This process is tedious so exceptions and errors during the ETL/Import process need to be minimal in order to be useful in the Enterprise System. The error or exception conditions need to be identified and logged, so that IT or the System Administration user can go through them and correct the problems in the data. In order to reflect the changing business conditions, this process needs to be repeated on a recurring basis either daily, weekly or monthly. Hence it is better that these processes are automated with no manual intervention by IT personnel. Manager's Questions:
Security
Security has become more important due to proliferation of the business sensitive data being maintained by IT. The users need to be authenticated and authorized to access the data. This involves maintaining users, groups and user passwords in a directory server. There are several directory servers available in the market, The industry standard directory servers are:
Any data which need to be sent or received outside the firewall by the Enterprise System should be encrypted with a strong encryption/decryption protocol. The system should also allow virus propagation by the use of email/SMTP protocol. Manager's Questions:
Deployment
The Enterprise system vendor should be involved actively when deploying the system in the IT infrastructure. This can be accomplished either by manually installing the system or using the industry standard install software with use of configurations options at the right places. It is always better to deploy the system in a development environment and take it for test ride before deploying it in production systems. Key business users should test out the system to debug configuration and other mistakes. During the development testing phase, training of the key and administration users should take place in order to build internal support for the use of the Enterprise System. Manager's Questions:
Going Live
Once the system has been debugged in a development environment, the system can then be installed and configured in the production system. The owner of the system in consultation with the users needs to decide the date on which the system will be used for real. Sometimes the system will be used in a testing mode in the production system for sometime if there is some internal resistance or apprehension about the new system. Obviously, no new surprises from the operation of the system are expected. Manager's Questions:
Support/Problem Resolution/Patch management
If surprises do appear, the vendor should be able to fix them as soon as possible. This will quell any doubts about the system/vendors capability to solve the problems. But in order for the vendor to solve the problems in a production system, the following steps are necessary:
Upgrading the System
When the vendor releases a newer version of the software, it should be provided with upgrade software tools that make sure the old version of the software is replaced with the new version without losing the data and configurations of the current system. The smaller the downtime of the system, the better it is. It is better to backup the data and the old software before applying the new version. Manager's Questions:
IT Personnel Technical Knowledge Requirements
The technical skills of the IT personnel need to be current with respect to the infrastructure software used by the system. If the software necessitates training, then it is a drain in the IT budget and time. The vendor also needs to train the IT personnel in administering and maintaining the system. Usually the training is free or the price is negotiated in the purchase contract. The amount of time spent by the IT on maintaining the system is also important. Manager's Questions:
About the Author
Bichalu Narasimmaraj is a Senior Software Engineer at Steelwedge Software. Prior to Steelwedge he had been with Enterprise Software companies Panscopic Corp, Actuate Inc, Scopus Technology and Informix Inc in senior level engineering positions. He is certified in Production and Inventory Management(CPIM) from APICS. He holds a Masters Degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. |
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