Poor scope control. #1 serial killer of projects.

This in an excerpt from my recent free ebook "Analysis, Automation and Adoption for #AwesomeAdmins"(44 pages of valuable content - not 6 pages of marketing fluff). It is written with Salesforce implementations in mind, but it is equally applicable to any other systems implementation; MSDynamics, SAP, Workday, Oracle etc or in fact any change initiative.  https://elements.cloud/ebook-analysis/ …

Operational Excellence 2.0: invented in Silicon Valley?

I spent 15 years building Nimbus, a process mapping company, to a reasonable size in the UK and a very successful exit. I now live in San Francisco where I have become an avid student of “the Silicon Valley way”.  And 4 years after the exit, I have got the 3 of the founders got …

AK47 – perfect example of “know your user”

Designed with "user in mind" The AK47 assault rifle was designed with an intimate knowledge of the potential "user". It was designed for an army made up of "average grunts who are scared, incompetent, untrained and have limited natural talent".  Increasingly the average age in conflicts is dropping with children armed with AK47s. What happens when …

10 reasons why the COO hates Christmas

Just recently Q9 wrote a suitably dour article on why the CIO hates Christmas – Bah humbug. It all hinges around BYOD and the power of the consumer as an employee. So in the cheery spirit of Christmas, I thought I’d turn my attention to the COO or Operations Director. The one who keeps the wheels turning, no …

Q9 Group launches. The start of a new era or is that error?

The summer is over. The flip flops and shorts have been swapped for business attire. I took the summer off to spend time with the family and that has proved to be one of my better decisions. But I also set myself the goal of by 1 Sept that I would decide what I would …

Corporates: pay your bills on time

Payment terms of 30, 45 and 60 days are not unknown. But the time it takes big companies to pay their little suppliers can be as much as 120 days, and it is getting worse with the average now 58.5 days according to a report by D&B. This is not only tantamount to corporate bullying, …

Customer Service #fail #virgin

Dear Virgin Media, I'm really sorry for my Father in Law not paying his bill last month, but what with him being dead and all, it's probably slipped his mind. Some people, eh? You, however, are to be publicly commended for swooping in with all the sensitivity of a charging rhino and instantly fining him …

Gartner BPM Summit. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I am bracing myself for a mailbox of hate mail from disgruntled BPM software vendors that say that they are releasing V8.3.45 which has enhanced dynamic repetition or some such bollocks. Having spent 2 days at the Gartner BPM Summit in London a couple of things struck me. BPM is still mired in the junior …

Couriers don’t deliver

Is it really that complicated? I used to think that couriers, especially the large players, were pretty reliable but recent experiences backed up by wider research is that they are dropping the ball. This is at a time when the increase in online purchases should be enabling them to grow very profitably. I find it …

CRM = Customer Rejection Management #crm #crmfail #customerservice

Every major organization has some form of customer call center. You may have renamed yours "contact center." They are manned by staff that are trained, tooled-up with technology and incentivized to support customers. The center is critical because it drives long term sales and protects repeat revenue. It may even be considered a "profit center." …

Online purchases www.crapbuyingexperience.com

I bumped into this fantastic video by Google who shows the online checkout experience in real life. How many websites have you visited buying Christmas presents that are this bad. Your answer is probably "most". Web designers seem to forget 2 things: 1. Their job is to remove as much friction from the process as …

Harry Potter and the Leap of Faith #social #bpm

I was sitting with my two children watching the latest Harry Potter film and my mind began to wander. Maybe because I had lost track of the plot, the multiple characters or the bizarre twists of the storyline. Or maybe I was just marvelling at the animated effects. And I started to think about Harry …

Gartner releases iBPMS Magic Quadrant; Confused? You should be. #bpms #bpm

Gartner has been keen to stress that the iBPMS is not a natural evolution of the BPMS Magic Quadrant. Over a year ago Gartner suggested in research reports that IBO (Intelligent Business Operations) was the way forward-thinking clients would run their businesses. And with that in mind, the iBPMS is the technology platform that supports …

Standing in the fire hose of data: drowning or refreshing?

Big Data is a great topic. Everyone recognises the rise the volumes of data being generated by individuals, systems and devices. There are some fabulous headline figures about data. It is the journalists, analyst and bloggers dream. IT vendors are jumping onto the bandwagon and any analysis and reporting capability they have is being rapidly …

Is Microsoft paying $1.2bn to put lipstick on a pig?

There has been a great deal of debate about whether social media inside the workplace is a fad or delivers real business value.  There are several reasons why social media has got such bad press. The moniker “Facebook for the enterprise” has not helped, as Facebook is seen as a great way of wasting time …