Information System Implementations: Using a Leadership Quality Matrix for Success

System Implementations, Gain Significant Momentum, An Insiders Guide to What you need to knowBy Andries J Jacobs

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Andries J Jacobs
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4115-1

Contents

Preface.....................................................................ixAcknowledgments.............................................................xiiiIntroduction................................................................xvChapter One Background to the Leadership Quality Matrix.....................3Chapter Two Stakeholders....................................................13Chapter Three Implementation Process........................................24Chapter Four Project Management.............................................33Chapter Five Process Standardization........................................41Chapter Six Project Transition..............................................47Chapter Seven Benefit Realization...........................................54Chapter Eight Troubleshooting...............................................60Chapter Nine Selection of Diagnostic Instruments............................69Conclusion..................................................................85Appendix A: A Step-by-Step Approach.........................................87Appendix B: Leadership Quality Matrix.......................................89Appendix C: Diagnostic Instruments..........................................95References..................................................................97Recommended Reading.........................................................99Index.......................................................................101About the Author............................................................103

Chapter One

Background to the Leadership Quality Matrix

In this chapter, I'll offer you a synopsis of the five most challenging system implementations in which I have participated to provide an understanding of not only my system-implementation experience and the challenges my various teams and I had to deal with, but also my insights into the system-implementation environments that have molded the modified leader in me and contributed to the development of the leadership quality matrix.

From a Modified Leader's Pen

Project 1. In May 1996, as director of marketing administration, I had just researched and developed for the fertilizer industry in South Africa a price-decision, support-system, functional-user specification, and was then assigned the task of client system-implementation lead for the northern region to lead a SAP R/3 version 4.0 h system implementation. The team delivered the SAP R/3 version 4.0 h implementation slightly outside the budget of US$3 million and the scheduled implementation period of twelve months. The configuration and implementation effort included the FI/CO (finance and corporate controlling), SD/MM (sales and materials management), PP (production planning), AM (asset management), and HR (human resources) modules. The infrastructure-technology platform, which at the time was leading-edge, consisted of HP hardware, Oracle database, and Unix operating system. The technical team implemented a three-tier development landscape.

The primary goal was to migrate from a corporate business system developed in-house—including finance, costing, and sales—to an integrated, process-driven enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The results were remarkable: we reduced onetime plant-maintenance inventory by 30 percent, stock levels on a month-by-month basis by 15 percent, distribution costs by 10 percent, customer complaints by 2 percent, and administration cost by 1 percent.

As Winston Churchill once said, "I was strengthened by the critics' comments." Throughout the implementation, there was no lack of criticism, which in the end contributed to the molding of the modified leader in me and the understanding that leadership is a team effort rather than a management-only issue.

The team experienced a wide range of challenges related to people, process, and technology, including:

• Building an information-technology (IT) and systems team using the regional talent pool

• Dealing with poor IT infrastructure between regional headquarters and distribution and sales offices

• Transforming from a mainframe to a client-server environment

• Working with management's ability to design software for solution-supported business processes

• Getting regional alignment within the broader organization

• Developing processes and procedures that fit the real-time client-server environment

• Getting employees computer-literate enough to be trained in the new transaction-based client-server environment

• Motivating employees to execute transactions according to the flow and order of the business process

• Operating the business as an integrated unit (production, sales, procurement, maintenance, and finance)

• Restructuring administrative departments

• Avoiding putting the business at risk

• Getting system-output acceptance

Project 2. In August 2001, as information-system consultant and part of a high-performance management team, I performed a forward-looking assessment for the largest city in Canada of the value-for-money of the Information System Implementations: Using a Leadership Quality Matrix for Success process-control-system and IT components of the program-integration and coordination-services contract. When a carpool friend and colleague wassuddenlysidelinedbyamedicalcondition,Ialsotooktheresponsibility to lead the Lawson Enterprise Resource Planning conference-room pilot project.

I led the team with a focus on implementing a resource-related software solution, including the design of the selection criteria, software selection process, vendor qualification, and project recommendation and approval processes. The outcome was the rejection of the proposed system and selection of SAP R/3 version 4.6 d as the preferred ERP business system.

The centralized resource-related SAP R/3 implementation was for a global engineering-services company with forty-seven offices on all major continents around the world. Major offices were located in Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Chile. The team had an outstanding performance and implemented, within eight months, the FI/CO, SD/MM, PS (project systems), HR, ITS (Internet transaction services), and employee self-service modules. A company strategic direction drove the infrastructure-technology platform, consisting of Microsoft operating system, Compaq hardware, and SQL database. As a team, we developed, implemented, and managed the global operational-support infrastructure, including the help-desk environment. The support team implemented and managed the global training-program and learning-material-development environments. The support team consisted of sixty people, delivering training to three thousand employees globally.

The main focus of the project was to amalgamate three legacy systems (SAP R/3 version 2.2, Oracle, and SUN) and three different company business processes into a single SAP R/3 version 4.6 d system. The US$10 million implementation effort reduced time spent on reconciling and management of time sheets among...