Business Value with Oracle

One of the topics our Executive team discusses quite frequently is “Keep Movin” Forward”.

From a client perspective, this means advancing their cause to the best of our ability.  This comes in handy with one of our manufacturing clients.  Sometimes their staff can be a bit of a bottleneck.  It isn’t because they are intentionally trying to stop progress.  It’s because they are swamped.  Their staff of three is doing the work of a staff much larger.

That being said, not getting tasks completed doesn’t work for them – nor does it work for us.

We have been most successful when we have made their staff’s life easier.  Sometimes this has meant completing tasks not normally assigned to us.  Other times this has meant making ourselves available on a moment’s notice.  Still other times this has meant working in off hours to ”keep the ball rolling”.

Point being, rarely have we upset this customer by changing our methods, or being more aggressive or creative in our problem-solving approach.

At the end of the day, they want results.  They want tasks checked off their list.  They want progress.

And we also understand that although our relationship has become more than just the typical client/vendor arrangement, we can and will be replaced if we don’t get the job done.  At the end of the day, that is really what matters.

Don’t kid yourself.  Move things forward.  That is what you have been hired to do!

Recently, I had one of our recruiters suggest that we “lower” the bar in our recruiting practices.
She suggested that our process was too detailed, was made up of too many steps and was too hard.
She said “I work with companies a lot bigger than yours – and their hiring process does not have as many steps as yours does.”

At first, I really didn’t know how to take her comments.
What was she really saying???
Was she really being honest?  Did she really want to work that hard for her commission?

I did give it some thought, but frankly I didn’t think about her comments for very long.

We look for top talent because we need top talent.  Our clients are demanding.  They expect for us to bring new and fresh ideas to the table each and every day.
They expect for us to be technically competent.  They expect our people to be trained on the latest technologies.  They expect that we know what we are doing and bring proven experiences that have been successful for our other clients.
They expect for us to be able to communicate – both in writing and verbally.
They expect for us to be able to deliver projects on time, on budget and be able to handle, with class, the various stresses that occur during the normal software development project lifecycle.

So, for the last 2 1/2 years, we have been defining and refining our hiring practices so that we “test” candidates on the various needed skills discussed above.
As a potential new hire, we will run you through a comprehensive screening process.  We want to understand to the best of our ability if this is a good fit for us – and you.
If it’s not, that’s not good for you, me or our client.

We have not and will not lower the hiring bar.  In the end, it’s just not worth it – for anyone.

What keeps CIOs up at night?  Is it the technology, the processes, the people – or a combination of all three?

Talent retention — Attracting, training and retaining top talent is always on top of the agenda, regardless of where your company is located.  Employee development programs recognize and reward job performance.  Employees want help understanding and planning their career path (including training).  If you don’t have an answer and they can’t “see” their future working for your firm, the search will continue elsewhere.

The Cloud — CIOs feel pressure to innovate.  Cloud computing is today’s most discussed and debated trend.  CIOs in more established companies with large IT infrastructures are in a unique position – with a lot to think about.  Like all other decisions, companies are advised to take a business-driven approach to cloud adoption.  If the key business requirement(s) are met by a cloud solution, then by all means analyze and potentially implement.

Mobility of IT — Employees have adopted the consumer electronics they are using at home, such as smartphones and iPads, and now expect those tools (and specifically the simplicity of those tools) to be offered and available while on the job.  However, from a CIO perspective, these devices are often not enterprise ready.  For example, they may lack the security required for an enterprise deployment.  CIOs and corporate trainers must educate employees on how to use these devices in a secure fashion at work.

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with three educators.  The topic was the oral and written communication skills of young adults attending college.

Each of these women teaches English in a Midwestern college or university.

Each told story after story of their frustration with today’s youth and their inability to communicate verbally – and in writing.

One particular story that is now stuck in my head is a student’s request for the teacher to read their paper in class so they would not have to read it themselves.  My friend (the teacher) firmly believes the student did not want to read their assignment because they could not accurately pronounce all the words within the paper that they had just written.  She thought that the student felt as if they had done enough by writing the paper and that it was “fair” to ask that the instructor read some of the paper to the class.

There were other discussions between the four of us about poor sentence structure, too much texting, inability to hold a meaningful conversation for any longer than about three minutes and too much Xbox.

I felt I had to chime in.  I told them about my experience earlier in the afternoon.  I was in the final stages of our on-boarding process with a potential new hire candidate.  The position we are hiring for is software developer.  This particular candidate had performed well with the various technical aspects of our recruiting process.  We were now at the R & D/writing assignment step.  The document that was submitted left much to be desired.  Not a lot of effort was put into the deliverable.  Sentence structure was poor.  And to top it all off – our recruiter had to send the document to me.  Why?  Because the candidate had a typo in my email address – and I never received their initial submission.

Issue: New software functionality needs to be added to your enterprise content management system

Option one: quick, “down and dirty” approach that will most certainly cause issues for all further down the line

Option two: a more thorough design approach that will take longer than option one (above)

Option one sets us up with a technical debt according to Ward Cunningham.  Technical debt is quite similar to a financial debt in that they both have interest payments in common.  What I mean is that there will be additional effort and time spent in the future because of the initial design choice.

Again, we are presented with two options.

Option one: continue to pay the interest

Option two: pay down principal by re-engineering the initial design into the improved design

Real-world example: customer timeline is short.  New functionality built.  Parties agree to deploy phase one deliverable into development environment.  Initial timeline met, code delivered to client.  Client deploys code directly to production environment.  Issues occur that increase stress for both parties.

Technical debt can be good or bad.

What makes this so interesting for those of us in the consulting field is that we must deal with technical debt while also reconciling it with the financial restrictions and timeline necessities of clients.  Meaning, we all need to be aware of this debt, and inform customers of this debt, but we will often need to live with it as a reality despite “knowing what’s best”.  This is written with complete humility.  Why?  Remember that we have been hired for our expertise.

As an entrepreneur in a highly competitive industry, we’ve learned that “good business” refers to positioning your business for greatness – and more importantly, always doing the right thing.  At all times, the right thing to do is to think long-term for the sake of:

• customers
• employees
• shareholders
• community

It is a balancing act – and it’s not easy.  Try simplifying.

If you treat people right and always do your best to give your best effort, new opportunities will present themselves.  Additionally, make sure these opportunities are the right type of business your company to make a lasting impact.

In the end, always take the high road and do what’s best for ALL parties involved, even if it isn’t lucrative at the outset.

That’s good business, and that yields long-term success.

I have great respect for Southwest Airlines.

I was recently reading an overview of some of their initial keys to success – and one in particular caught my eye.

Southwest began as a short-haul airline – offering routes from Dallas to Houston and Houston to San Antonio.  From the very beginning, they were offering a low-fare, high-frequency alternative to driving.

Much like Southwest’s approach, we set out to provide more value for the training dollar spent.  While others divide an agenda item into more than one class, we combine multiple topics into a single class – giving clients only the most needed information.
As such, we will offer a client eight (8) days’ worth of training in one five (5) day class, for example.

More of the needed information in less time at a lesser cost = more value!

One of the features of our offering that many clients appreciate is the customizing of their agenda at no additional cost.  Clients like this feature mostly because they feel they truly receive what they want/need from their training experience.

Giving people a better experience than they expect – and having them engaged in the entire process – leads to satisfied customers!