Last week was the eDiscovery conference in Melbourne that I was asked to present at. I did decide to use Prezi for the presentation, which I think was really the best choice as the presentation really lent itself to this format. The presentation is available at prezi.com.
The talk itself went down fairly well, as well as I guess I could expect in a room that was mainly legal people and vendors. This was the problem, in my opinion, the conference was a very intriguing mix and I really don't know that the Information Managers who were asked to speak were really given a good enough brief about the focus of the other people in the room to make our presentations meaningful to everyone.
For me, I really enjoyed the IM briefs and quite a few of the eDiscovery process ones as well, there were issues I had never really considered that helped solidify for me that the focus of the work I am doing will be very helpful for the business in the long run.
Maybe I am misjudging the level of interest from the legal people, maybe they really did get something out of our presentations as well - guess I have to wait for the feedback to really find out - it just felt like there was a bit of a disconnect between what each side of the room might have been trying to get out of it.
I know that the focus of the conference was to bring IM, IT and Legal together, and Warren tried very hard to do this in his chairing role - it just seemed to lack some unity for me. And that is not saying that I didn't think it was worthwhile or interesting, I really got a lot out of it, just not quite cohesive.
April 18, 2011
March 31, 2011
Sometimes it is just your job to listen
I feel like I have become a bit of a therapist in the last couple of weeks, as I have started conducting the needs gathering workshops within the organisation.
The way that I have approached this is that I have provided them with a template to capture the information they need to do their jobs; the information they create as part of their jobs; the IT/manual systems they get information from and put information into; the people they rely on for information and the people they communicate information to; and finally the limitations that they experience in all of these areas.
Many of them haven’t done the pre-work, but it is a good template to commence the conversations around.
On the whole the majority of the comments are not unexpected, the revolve around communications, standardising procedures, better access to the information they require, sorting out the shared drive, having compliant and accessible systems and so on.
So why do I say I feel like a therapist? Well there are a lot of these areas that have obviously not had someone sit down with them and give them the ability to explain where corporate systems are not supporting them properly, or where they struggle to find the information they need, or anything along these lines really.
So I’m getting everything relating to processes, organisational structures that don’t work, corporate policies relating to vehicles and any number of other frustrations coming through in the discussions.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the process and some of the conversations have allowed me to fill some gaps in my corporate knowledge in the process. And, above all else, I think that it is important that staff are given the chance to get these frustrations off their chest. Does it mean I will be able to do anything to influence changes to many of these issues? Of course not, but as the title says sometimes it is just your job to listen.
And for the things that I can influence? They will go into the Needs Matrix for inclusion in the Information Management Strategic Plan.
The way that I have approached this is that I have provided them with a template to capture the information they need to do their jobs; the information they create as part of their jobs; the IT/manual systems they get information from and put information into; the people they rely on for information and the people they communicate information to; and finally the limitations that they experience in all of these areas.
Many of them haven’t done the pre-work, but it is a good template to commence the conversations around.
On the whole the majority of the comments are not unexpected, the revolve around communications, standardising procedures, better access to the information they require, sorting out the shared drive, having compliant and accessible systems and so on.
So why do I say I feel like a therapist? Well there are a lot of these areas that have obviously not had someone sit down with them and give them the ability to explain where corporate systems are not supporting them properly, or where they struggle to find the information they need, or anything along these lines really.
So I’m getting everything relating to processes, organisational structures that don’t work, corporate policies relating to vehicles and any number of other frustrations coming through in the discussions.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the process and some of the conversations have allowed me to fill some gaps in my corporate knowledge in the process. And, above all else, I think that it is important that staff are given the chance to get these frustrations off their chest. Does it mean I will be able to do anything to influence changes to many of these issues? Of course not, but as the title says sometimes it is just your job to listen.
And for the things that I can influence? They will go into the Needs Matrix for inclusion in the Information Management Strategic Plan.
February 3, 2011
The Project Team - Project Series
I know that I have moved away from this series for a little while, but there are certainly still a few areas that I want to examine, comment on, whatever it is I'm doing here.
The next one is the structure of the Project Team, and more particularly, the business representative(s) on the project team.
Unfortunately projects involving IT can take a while to get in place, and organisations are not usually staffed to be able to lose valuable operational staff to a project for a long period of time. This brings another tension into projects that have IT components, since the business is reticent to lose skilled staff for long periods, so they will pressure the project team to deliver earlier, or make their staff member(s) available 'as required', or in the absolute worst case give the project team a staff member they are willing to part with for a long period.
Rule #1 for the business unit should be when choosing the business expert to give to the project team it should be a person that you really can't do without. Or put another way, if you are happy to let a person go to the project they are the wrong person for the project.
This is not rocket science. The role of the business expert in the project team is to inform the project and development staff about the business processes, and make decision about the product that the business will have to live with. So think about it, surely you don't want to give them a staff member who is less than effective in their role? You want to give them the person who understands everything, you want to give them the person that everyone else relies upon for support and assistance, you want to give them the person who you trust to train new staff in the business processes. It stands to reason that this would be the case.
However, as mentioned earlier you can't afford to lose this person for a long period of time, so what does the business do? This is where a lot of projects fall down. We had a project in Defence that was developing a system to support a particular business process. A position was chosen as the liaison point, which was not the best position but the business couldn't spare the people who actually did the job. The person in that position had their own thoughts about how things 'should' work in the space, and had the system designed to support their view of the world. Needless to say that there was a significant redesign task when other people finally saw the system.
The thing that I have learned is that you cannot rely on one person to inform the project of how the business works, and most projects seem to understand this. There should be a business person on the project team, someone to keep the IT people on the straight and narrow when they get too focused on the technical aspects and lose sight of what the system is being designed for (it happens). The business person is also an important role to assist with the communications and training development. But it is even more important to ensure that the project team has a stakeholder group with your best staff, and that they are engaged appropriately in the process of developing the system.
There should be a Goldilocks approach to this consultation - not too little, not too much, just enough. The stakeholder group should not be asked to validate everything the project business member says, but they should be asked to validate processes early on, they should be shown the developing system at key times in the process and of course they need to be part of the test and trial process before full UAT is commenced.
A note for Project Managers and BAs - when you are developing the business case and doing process mapping ask the question 'who do you go to for help?' and ensure that the 1 or 2 people that the majority of staff mention are requested to be part of the project. Put the business on the spot to say that they won't give these people up and identify the risks involved. In my experience the business seldom thinks of the actual impact of giving you less than optimal staff.
The next one is the structure of the Project Team, and more particularly, the business representative(s) on the project team.
Unfortunately projects involving IT can take a while to get in place, and organisations are not usually staffed to be able to lose valuable operational staff to a project for a long period of time. This brings another tension into projects that have IT components, since the business is reticent to lose skilled staff for long periods, so they will pressure the project team to deliver earlier, or make their staff member(s) available 'as required', or in the absolute worst case give the project team a staff member they are willing to part with for a long period.
Rule #1 for the business unit should be when choosing the business expert to give to the project team it should be a person that you really can't do without. Or put another way, if you are happy to let a person go to the project they are the wrong person for the project.
This is not rocket science. The role of the business expert in the project team is to inform the project and development staff about the business processes, and make decision about the product that the business will have to live with. So think about it, surely you don't want to give them a staff member who is less than effective in their role? You want to give them the person who understands everything, you want to give them the person that everyone else relies upon for support and assistance, you want to give them the person who you trust to train new staff in the business processes. It stands to reason that this would be the case.
However, as mentioned earlier you can't afford to lose this person for a long period of time, so what does the business do? This is where a lot of projects fall down. We had a project in Defence that was developing a system to support a particular business process. A position was chosen as the liaison point, which was not the best position but the business couldn't spare the people who actually did the job. The person in that position had their own thoughts about how things 'should' work in the space, and had the system designed to support their view of the world. Needless to say that there was a significant redesign task when other people finally saw the system.
The thing that I have learned is that you cannot rely on one person to inform the project of how the business works, and most projects seem to understand this. There should be a business person on the project team, someone to keep the IT people on the straight and narrow when they get too focused on the technical aspects and lose sight of what the system is being designed for (it happens). The business person is also an important role to assist with the communications and training development. But it is even more important to ensure that the project team has a stakeholder group with your best staff, and that they are engaged appropriately in the process of developing the system.
There should be a Goldilocks approach to this consultation - not too little, not too much, just enough. The stakeholder group should not be asked to validate everything the project business member says, but they should be asked to validate processes early on, they should be shown the developing system at key times in the process and of course they need to be part of the test and trial process before full UAT is commenced.
A note for Project Managers and BAs - when you are developing the business case and doing process mapping ask the question 'who do you go to for help?' and ensure that the 1 or 2 people that the majority of staff mention are requested to be part of the project. Put the business on the spot to say that they won't give these people up and identify the risks involved. In my experience the business seldom thinks of the actual impact of giving you less than optimal staff.
January 16, 2011
Information environment presentation - progress
The presentation for the eDiscovery conference is coming along fairly well. I have decided to do it in Prezi, but I will have a backup in faithful old powerpoint just in case technology fails me.
I've come up with a closing quote for the presentation that I'm pretty happy with:
I've come up with a closing quote for the presentation that I'm pretty happy with:
When we know what we know and where and how we keep it then we know how to discover itIt's only recently that I added in the "and how" part, but I think that is one of the most important parts in an eDiscovery sense. I'm pretty nervous about this presentation actually, since it is the first time I'll be presenting at a conference that is not focused towards records and information managers, but we'll see how it goes. Surely lawyers aren't that scary :-)
December 20, 2010
And now for something completely different...
I usually don't do posts that are simply links to other people's blogs, but I really need to make an exception for this one for two reasons:
Maybe it is just the Krismas spirit, maybe it is the hopeless romantic in me, but I just had to share this one - enjoy.
- This is one of the most romantic things I've ever seen (read), and not just what Sid did but also the song - which is free for download from the Heartless website (the movie is really lovely too.)
- It not only has muppets in it but I have learnt from this post that it is possible to design and purchase your very own muppet Whatnot!!! Which I must say is a super-cool concept, even if the online store doesn't ship to Australia.
Maybe it is just the Krismas spirit, maybe it is the hopeless romantic in me, but I just had to share this one - enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)