Catch Dr. James Brown at Nexus

Just a quick note for PM’s in the Pacific Northwest.  Dr. James Brown is conducting a class on conflict management at the Nexus conference in Seattle (Bellevue, WA) on Wednesday, November 2^nd.  I’ve been doing project and program management all over the world for the better part of 15 years and this guy is worth checking out.  Yes he has a PhD, is a published author, worked for NASA and all of that, but more importantly, he knows his subject matter as good or better than anyone in the business.  His teaching methodology and project management philosophy achieve the right balance between ‘the book’, best practices and common sense.  He also has a strong focus on human behavior and what that means in the context of project management. There are teachers and speakers, and then there are the people that you make sure to see every time they are in town.  Dr. Brown is one of the latter.  I encourage you to take the opportunity to go see him and take his class at the Nexus conference.

 

Gene Echkart
Program Manager
ImageSource Inc.

Nexus is Coming!

The ImageSource NEXUS ECM conference is fast approaching.  NEXUS is a unique opportunity for you to discover:

• How companies lever ECM beyond traditional Account Payable Invoice processes
• Lean about Enterprise Content Management industry trends (Cloud, Mobile Technologies, Social Media, to name a few)
• Invaluable opportunities to meeting and collaborate with industry peers
• Attend certified educational seminars
• View current ECM related technologies
• Participate in one on one sessions with industry technical and business experts
• Hear about using ECM as a tactical advantage is solving today’s business issues

All this as well as the ability to earn industry accreditations:

1. Project Management Professionals (up to 20 PDU’s)
2. Certified Records Managers (10 ICRM CMP Credits)
3. Healthcare Professionals (16 AHIMA Credits)
4. Accounts Payable Processionals (IAPP Credits)
5. Business Analysts (IIBA Credits)
6. American Payroll Association (3.5 RCHs)

NEXUS is a conference you can’t afford to miss!

Hope to see you there.

 

NEXUS 2011
November 3 – 4, 2011
Meydenbauer Convention Center, Bellevue Washington
To learn more: www.nexusecm.com

 

David MacWatters
ImageSource, Inc

 

Exciting BPM Workflow Discovery Workshop

If you have a Business Process Management (BPM) workflow project coming up soon, don’t miss the Nexus 2011 conference in Bellevue, Washington on November 3^rd and 4^th.  One of our teams is conducting a BPM workflow discovery workshop that is built entirely on audience participation.  It’s the Business Process Management – Discovery & Problem Resolution Strategy Workshop scheduled for Friday morning (4^th).  It’s a two session workshop and we’re going to take audience members (PM’s, SE’s and BA’s) to form a project team.  We’ll provide them with a business case scenario with BPM workflow requirements and then facilitate them working through the discovery process.  We’ll make sure that they run into lots of the common challenges we see on BPM workflow projects and then watch to see how they sort it out.  It’s a serious subject and we will share best practices approaches to solving these common problems, but we intend to have as much fun as we can in the process!  We look forward to seeing you there and having you participating as part of our workshop project team.  Don’t miss it!

Gene Eckhart
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc

Plan for Differences

Oktoberfest – the largest party in the world is currently being held in Munich. As a project manager, I would love to see the project plan details for preparing and hosting a party attended by 7 million people and dealing with the drunken patrons locally called “Bierleichen” (German for beer corpses).

It would also be interesting to see what the original project plan looked like back in 1810 when Oktoberfest first started as a celebration of the wedding of Prince Ludwig. Imagine how much historians and anthropologists would learn if they were able to review and compare project plans for historical events such as Oktoberfest? Think about how the Oktoberfest project planning requirements have changed over time to reflect new technologies such as electricity, refrigeration, transportation or how regulations related to health, sanitation, crowd control, and security issues have been integrated into the project requirements.

ECM project may take years for enterprise deployment and start out as departmental solutions – with the first CM project typically implemented to address the business concerns of a high volume content area such as Legal, AP, Contracts, or Human Resources. Later CM projects are added (hopefully) over time as budget and resources are available until eventually there is a true ECM system within the organization.

How have your subsequent CM project plans changed over time after the first rollout? Underlying this question is the assumption that your organization has a central governance structure responsible for information assets to insure that subsequent CM projects maintain corporate standards for content or records management. Additionally does each of your CM project plans include standards reviews to reflect business, legal, compliance and audit standards? Just as the planners for Oktoberfest revise their plans every year, do you continually revise each CM project plan

• To include new content sources and document types
• To reflect new information requirements imposed by enterprise/federated search
• To address new BI or reporting tools implemented within the organization
• To leverage new technologies such as cloud storage
• To optimize content retrieval from new sources such as smart phones and pad devices

Prior to the next CM rollout project phase – spend some time upfront thinking about what has changed within your organization since the last rollout – and how those changes may present opportunities (or risks) to your upcoming endeavor.

Prior to refrigeration – beer was not produced in the summer months in Germany and would spoil by the end of summer. To avoid such a calamity – a large party was held at the end of summer to consume the old stock of beer! As noted previously – this beer drinking party officially became Oktoberfest in 1810.

Steve Kissinger

ImageSource, Inc.

Take a step back to educate!

As project managers – we’re used to dealing with and preparing for uncertainty and risks.  If you were managing a project to improve an existing product or develop a new product, you would most likely be dealing with a project sponsor who was an operations or product manager who could clearly articulate his/her goals and requirements.  In essence your project risk right out of the gate is lessened with explicit project goals and a well-defined set of requirements.

In managing ECM projects we’re often dealing with projects where scope definitions and project requirements are somewhat vague – in part because the technology is new to many people, and thus there is a large amount of uncertainty about exactly what benefits CM solutions can provide.

How much time do you spend on an ECM project providing basic education services around ECM technology, and essentially helping your client define what they’re missing and potentially what the ECM project should or possibly could do?  More importantly, how much time do you spend half-way through your project dealing with changed expectations and new requirements once your client has a better ‘feel’ or understanding of what is possible and what they initially missed?

Just a thought – think about adding an introductory phase to your ECM project whose sole deliverable is an education program with the goal of ensuring that subsequent phases have well thought out requirements definitions?

Steve Kissinger

ImageSource, Inc.

Blogs as Serious Tools for Serious Project Managers?

Blogs are more than a medium for marketing, news, and education. From personal experience I can tell you that they also serve as serious tools for serious project managers.

As a professional project manager I’ve worked with companies from Seattle to Sydney. A key factor in making sure that a project goes well is communications. Blogs are excellent mediums for communicating information in a concise manner that gives all team members the ability to participate in the conversation.

Last year my little company of 70 people was acquired by a Fortune 50 company. As the project manager for the integration I relied heavily on our internal blog to communicate information about project status and schedule. It was also incredibly useful in helping train people on new processes associated with our acquisition.

The number one software used for communications in a project isn’t Microsoft Project or some other fancy tool—it’s email. Blogs have a number of advantages over email. Although our users got email notifications about blog updates they didn’t have to store and manage these notifications in their own email client. They could access the blog from their email notice. And if they wanted to go back to the subject they just had to search the blog. No digging through their inbox, deleted items, folders, or even worse—asking ME to send them yet another copy.

To communicate information about our integration we also put out several newsletters. But this format tended to be a big production in contrast to the blog. For each newsletter we had to pull together a number of articles and format them. By the time we got all the content together some of it was already dated. Plus, people tend to shy away from or skim longer items like newsletters. But with a blog we sent out postings as the information was needed. It was timely and digestible.

Although we kept our blog articles short they often linked to more comprehensive information. Users could look at the posting to get the gist of the update. Then they could use links in the blog to access detailed training, schedules, and other updates. The blog was their portal to key information and remained available well into the future.

Another advantage of a blog is that it’s a very interactive tool. When someone discovered something interesting about our new company they could share that information in a posting. Some users discovered “quick tips” about working with new systems that they shared with everyone else. I also encouraged our executives to share good news about the project in blog postings rather than waiting for company events.

If you’re interested in learning more about how blogs, wikis, and social media are useful tools for managers check out my posting on Enterprise 2.0 and the Hostage Dog. That article also links to a recent presentation I gave to the Seattle area chapter of the Project Management Institute.

Dennis Brooke writes about Almost True Stories of Life at www.dennisbrooke.wordpress.com. He’s a manager for a tiny but important division of a Fortune 50 company. On November 4 he’ll be speaking on Enterprise 2.0 and Project Management in Bellevue, WA at the Nexus ECM conference. See www.nexusecm for information.

This posting originally published on Blogging Bistro and is reprinted courtesy of  that site.

  

Putting Together an ECM Project Team

Part 3 – The Project Team

In previous blogs on this same subject, we have discussed the role of Executive Management in the overall Project Team effort.  And what elements from the  internal organization would likely comprise an effective team.   In summary, vibrant and effective executive leadership is likely to be critical in solidifying the vision for the project.  The target of effort to achieve project acceptance and enthusiasm is cascading in that the focus of executive leadership is middle management.  The components of a project team may be different for each organization or type of organization – whatever best suites the particular organizational structure, and what special considerations there might be in the project (i.e. does it involve web content, collaboration, integration with ERP or SharePoint environments, etc.).

The Role of Line of Business Managers in the Project Team

As your project will likely either be addressing a limited requirement of a single department or two, or will be the start of an enterprise wide implementation of ECM, it is always recommended that it focus on a manageable quantity of work – normally one or two Departmental or workgroup solutions.  Enterprise wide ECM, ERM, and Business Process Management implementations usually start with one or two departments.   The Department(s) chosen for the Project are normally those where enthusiasm for improvements is high, cooperation is supportive, and where the business entity will benefit highly from the application of ECM technologies.

Starting with one or two areas that have been carefully selected based on their high potential for success and strong need for improvement, permits the rapid and clear demonstration of  ECM technology benefits – and that strong example can assist in the acceptance of the larger project to come across the enterprise.

Departmental management and supervisory involvement and strong support is crucial.  The organization’s line-of-business (LOB) managers understand the routine and cyclical “problems and challenges” of business operations.  They are operational experts within their areas of responsbilbity, know the character of the staff resources they have to work with, entity strengths and weaknesses, the potential to accept change, and what “change management” efforts should be implemented.   These LOB Managers and supervisors routinely “concentrate on organizational effectiveness through current processes” they will become the bridges that will carry the success of the ECM project forward into routine of daily work production.

The LOB Managers and other key supervisory or lead personnel need to be considered for the Project Team for either full involvement, or participation in the development of specific new process or workflow designs.

• They are most cognizent of what is done in their departments and why, what documents are received and how they are processed, the various sources of data (paper from internal and mail sources, voice mails, emails, internet provided input, etc.).
• They understand the decision criteria in the flow of work, the point where specific processes are needed, risks to successful processing, exception processing, and all the rest of the challenges that will need to be considered in a process design.
• They also know which other business areas need access to their documents and data.
• They usually have the only available insight into key details regarding operational systems, processes, and policies that support their organization’s mission.

When you apply ECM and BPM technology to an organization’s routine processes, you must have input and significant levels of planning participation from the managers and key personnel who are most familiar with operations so they can ensure that the new system will be successful in meeting objectives at all meaningful levels.  These people are needed to allow the project team to reach all objectives through consistent operational production.

From time to time this blog will continue with the subject of project team challenges, some considerations to remember, use of supporting vendor resources, and some recommended methods for implementation.

Neil W. Lindsey, ECMm, CDIA+

Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

ECM Projects and Oracle I/PM 11g

 

Oracle recently announced the release of version 11g for their I/PM (Imaging and Process Management) software. With 11g, Oracle now provides a complete vision for image enabling the enterprise.

What does this mean from an ECM Project Management point of view?

First – I believe I/PM 11g will significantly reduce the complexity of an ECM project as you will be able to offer/manage a one-vendor, complete solution for imaging processing including capture, indexing, workflow, and application integration. This reduced complexity minimizes risk, and shortens the development, testing, and implementation phases of your ECM project.

Second – Since I/PM is a core component of Oracle’s ECM Suite (it can also be purchased separately) - you can leverage Oracle’s comprehensive ECM offering to provide the full gamut of ECM services including records management, library services, web publishing, etc., again with minimal additional project time.

Third – I/PM 11g includes many new features, but there are two that excite me from an ECM project point of view, and more importantly providing immediate value and benefit to your client.

• The first is pre-built workflows and workflow monitoring tools. Oracle included in I/PM 11g common workflows such as invoice and PO processing, and I hope they continue to expand their included pre-built workflows for other business processes. The pre-built workflows are customizable to manage exceptions or for specific company requirements. These workflow templates should provide an entry point in your project to discuss business process improvement. I would also hold hope that in the future I/PM users or user groups such as the OAUG (Oracle Application User Group) members will share their workflow templates.
• The second feature I liked , included in 11g was content-based recognition technology that allows extracting data from documents (without using templates). By including automated data extraction – a whole range of benefits and process improvements become available in your ECM project including reduced data entry time and entry errors, automated indexing,  and more ‘intelligent’ workflow driven processes.

Fourth – Oracle I/PM of course integrates seamlessly into Oracle applications , but just as importantly Oracle I/PM 11g provides the framework for their I/PM or ECM suite to integrate easily with non-Oracle applications across the enterprise. Most imaging or content management projects are designed to handle the particular needs of a department such as AP, or to automate a particular process within the organization. Without a doubt, Oracle (and their shareholders) hope that organizations will rethink such a departmental/process based strategy, and come to the realization that content management should be truly enterpise wide.

A few changes I would make managing an I/PM 11g project?

1. With Oracle ECM or I/PM 11g your project team should – even if the initial phase is departmental based – include an ‘enterprise’ sponsor. If you’re to provide an enterprise solution – don’t start the project with departmental management/oversight.
2. Lobby up front to have your ECM hardware and software infrastructure, support and development costs allocated on a corporate basis – similar to network services, database administration, etc. Since every department will get hit with these costs – two benefits will occur.
   • There won’t be new departmental CM solutions (and associated costs) appearing.
   • The organization is making a commitment to ECM – and announcing (explicity ideally) their expectation that every department should be prepared to review their existing processes for improvement in light of the new ECM infrastructure.
3. Automated workflow processes may be new to the organization. Be sure to include business analysts on your project team to insure all possible process improvements are realized.
4. Encourage your project sponsor/team to join a local or national Oracle User Group. The Oracle user community is huge – and there are significant benefits in leveraging the experience of other Oracle users – especially given the breadth and depth of Oracle’s product offerings.

For more information on Oracle I/PM 11g – stay tuned to this forum or visit Oracle’s website on I/PM

Steve Kissinger

ImageSource

  

Nexus ’10 – Hot Topic Suggestions to “Ignite Your Information”

Well, Nexus ’09 is over and it was another great event. It was such a great event people began  registering for Nexus ’10 before we even started tearing down the booths and equipment.  The new year is here and the ImageSource team is already hard at work getting ready for Nexus 2010. The venue and date have been set. It is in beautiful downtown Bellevue, Washington at the Meydenbauer Center on November 4-5, 2010. The ImageSource team is already looking at prospective keynote speakers, presenters, making all the arrangements for fun and entertainment, and looking at the hottest topics that will truly ignite this year’s event!

We have a host of  management and technical tracks that we deliver every year. Year after year the management and technical tracks continue to attract more attention and excitement. These tracks have significant value for many individuals. There is wide variety of topic focus for Executives and Directors, IT Specialists, System Engineers, Project Managers, Records Managers, Business Analysts and Technology users. For those who hold a Project Management Institute (PMI)  certification like PMP, CAPM, PgMP, PMI-SP or PMI-RMP it is a great way to earn Professional Development Units (PDUs). It is our goal to provide you with relevant and timely information about Enterprise Content Management that you can take home and start using in your business and even personal life. 

That’s where you come in.

We are looking for your suggestions on the hottest topics out there that you have interest in? What is significant from a management and technical standpoint in the Enterprise Content Management space that you want to hear and talk about with your colleagues in the ECM industry? What is going on in the ECM industry that you feel will light up the sessions and discussions? What do you have a burning desire to know more about?

Even if you don’t plan to attend Nexus ’10 (and you would be foolish not to),  we would still like to hear what you think the “hottest topics” are in Enterprise Content Management from a technical and management perspective. Let us hear your comments and suggestions so we can make Nexus ’10 the hottest it has ever been.

Don’t forget to register too!

Nexus ’10 Registration

 

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.

The Role of Leadership vs. Management in Project Management

You’ll often hear people extolling the virtues of leadership, and at other times the virtue or failures of management. The question is what is the difference and how does that play out within the context of Project Management.

In a nutshell (yes, I am simplifying it for this discussion) the difference between leadership and management can be thought of in this way:

Management is about dealing with the complexities, logistics and issues of execution. In short, it brings order, consistency and predictability to the notion of things like Project Deliverables, meeting Quality Assurance goals, and the overall delivery of product, projects or programs, regardless of what those things might be.

Leadership on the other hand is about vision, inspiration and dealing with change.

In order for any effort or organization to function in a healthy and sustainable way, there must a symbiotic relationship between the two. 

Managers and leaders have commonality in some of the tasks and activities that they perform (i.e. deciding what needs to be done, who will do it and making it happen), but they go about achieving the end results in very different, yet interrelated ways that create a synergy that is much more effective than either trait on it’s own.

Managers will plan, create SOW’s, Gantts, Issues Lists, Test Plans, etc… in an effort to solve problems. Leaders will develop a vision first and devise strategies on how to achieve that vision.

Managers will focus on recruiting and hiring to staff the project to completion.  Leaders will often be more focused on aligning strategic resources within the teams, communicating the vision to them knowing that they will support, propogate (and in some cases enhance) the vision to the rest of the teams.

Managers will use all of the planning tools at their disposal to monitor execution and evaluate the end results against the plan. Leaders will inspire and motivate people to continue moving in the right direction, to not be sidetracked by problems, issues, or false objection. And they will often do it in what seems to be very simple ways that speak to the human aspect (e.g. emotions, values, etc…) of their team members.

So as Project and Program Managers, which do we want to be?  Perhaps … both. Any project, program or organization of any substance must have a management component to survive. Structure, procedure and protocol is not a bad thing. But structure, procedure and protocol without vision, and human inspiration becomes static.  Likewise vision and human inspiration without structure, procedure and protocol can lead to chaos.  The key is understanding the difference between them, the proper balance between the two, and when and where to apply them.

Gene Eckhart
Program Manager
ImageSource, Inc.