Keys to success in delivering complex IT solutions are the capabilities of the business resources and process governance system. I’ll illustrate how these capabilities contributed using an example from my past.
We wanted to optimize the receiving process. The best practice would be to have all suppliers properly tag certified quality parts and send tag and quality information to us prior to the goods arrival. This would allow automated movement of parts from the delivery truck to the proper manufacturing line or warehouse location.
As we looked at applying this best practice among the questions that arose were: Could we count on suppliers to appropriately tag 100% of their parts? How would we handle parts that had not been quality certified? Answering these questions requires knowledge of suppliers’ capabilities, and the authority to require suppliers to change how they operate. This is not something that IT or a consultant can decide. The business players on the team answered these questions during the design sessions. Without the appropriate business participation, the design would have been delayed or unworkable, adding time and costs to the project. The key to success was the capability of the team’s business players. Such capability is even more important in agile projects which focus on speed.
Among designs considered for the receiving process were several that were not compatible with our standard solution. We needed to decide if we should change the desired process to match the standard solution or custom code a solution to match the desired process.
IT’s role is to explain what the system can do without customization, and what creating custom code requires. Then governance needs to be employed. Too much customizing adds to the project costs and makes the solution less flexible and more difficult to maintain. Too little customizing risks losing a process that drives competitive advantage or the solution being rejected by the organization. Good governance strikes the right balance to ensure the solution will deliver the right business outcomes at an optimal cost of ownership. A real time governance process is always critical whether deploying a package solution or a custom coded application.
