A Practical Approach to Solving for Technology Needs

Summary
I remember leading a project for a company some years back where business leaders were struggling on the right technology solution for their department.  The department had interviewed several possible solutions but couldn’t internally decide on what solution was right for them.  After some digging, we discovered that the problem didn’t reside in the limitations of technology itself but rather they had not agreed on many of the inputs and requirements needed to make the right decision regarding a technology solution.  They jumped straight to technology and were trying to match it up to some fluid strategies and processes.  They were using up valuable time and effort, and even worst, delaying critical benefits of the project.

We had to develop a new framework and path to a new solution while setting them up a foundation for long-term success.  Each step needed to be thought through and largely understood and agreed to before the next step could be started.  That’s not to say you might not go back and change something based on new information or some other dependency, just that each step should be understood before the value of the next one can be achieved.  For example, many technology offerings are built on industry best practices that you may want to implement and when you discover what those are, you might refine and standardize your processes.  Below are the steps we outlined and followed in our framework in guiding them to the final solution.

Strategy
In order to successfully achieve your business objectives, Strategy is key.  Your Strategy should be driven by an understanding of your sources of competitive differentiation in the marketplace.  Having an effective Business Strategy helps define what actions and decisions you’ll take to achieve your business goals.  Consider how you’re best going to support company objectives when developing a departmental strategy.  For example, if you’re an HR department, do you feel it’s best to have HR generalist that handle a broad, but not deep, knowledge of the business?  Or would you rather have HR Business Partners that have a thorough understanding of the business units (and their objectives) that they support?  Each option solves different objectives and have different pros and cons.  Defining a Strategy lays the foundation for the other phases. 

Processes
Based on your defined strategy, you have to develop and understand your processes to achieve those results.  Watch and document what your teams are doing and capture gaps and concerns.  Are they following your processes or are parts broken and being circumvented?  Are the most important processes and steps being monitored and measured for quality?  I’ve often seen employees that don’t follow processes because “they’re broken and don’t work”.  I always emphasized that I can’t fix something that’s broken if you’re not doing it that way to begin with.  We can always work together to fix a broken process if we can see what is (or is not) happening.

People
Do you have the right people to achieve your strategy and conduct your processes effectively?  If you’re in a business where the expertise of your people is a competitive differentiator then this step is crucial.  Someone once used the analogy of a football team.  The team spends millions on getting a star quarterback and exceptional receivers for a largely passing offense but if you’re a team that likes to run the ball more, then you’ll invest more in running backs and large lineman.  Going back to our HR example, if you want to have HR Business Partners, you might seek individuals that have business unit knowledge and experience rather than just general HR policies and procedures.  Their value is to know and deeply understand the business unit objectives and goals to support them.  This principle should apply to any area in a company…supply chain, operations, IT, etc.

If the team doesn’t have the experience you need, you’ll need to address this either through training or investments in getting the right people on staff. Additionally, having effective organizational change management throughout the whole process is critical.

Metrics/KPI
I’ve seen time and again where my customers implement a technology and then find out the data do not provide them with the metrics they need to accurately measure performance.  Understanding what key performance indicators you need to measure is imperative in selecting a technology.  Generally, top tier providers now provide robust reporting and allow you to measure many steps in business activities but until you know what is important to your business, you’re dependent on what can be provided.

It’s also important to emphasize that you should only measure things that you intend to optimize and that “move the needle” of business performance.  Data can be extracted and about anything can be tracked and measured but if no one looks at it because it’s not an effective measurement that improves performance, then you’re wasting money and valuable resources for nothing.

Technology
And finally, we come to the selection of technology.  Now that you have a solid understanding of the other areas, you can feel comfortable that you fully understand your requirements and can better assess the pros and cons of what a technology solution can offer.

As I mentioned above, new information may lead you to refine some other phases, but it shouldn’t drive you to entirely redo anything you’ve done.  For example, you may learn in the RFP process that a solution has best practices configured in the system and you have to decide if you want to modify your processes and validate the other steps again.  However, remember that customizations (vs configuration) in a software solution greatly increases the complexity and costs of future upgrades.  Because of this, ensure that any customizations have a higher cost of return or are a “competitive differentiator” in your business and will yield a high return.

Conclusion
Many of us have been in a situation where we’re implementing a technology solution and it seems like it never ends.  We’re experiencing change after change and find that we’ve now implemented a complex system that’s benefits are now in question.  By thinking through the phases above before you bring in an integrator, you’ll minimize an expensive and painful implementation.