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.

Part I – ECM Project Costs and Benefits

 

ECM technology has been maturing for the past few years – and with this maturation comes a wider range of price points and expertise allowing for the benefits of ECM to be utilized by smaller companies and to truly encompass ever smaller business processes and departments within an enterprise.  Regardless of the size of the ECM project, each will be scrutinized by some type of cost/benefit analysis to determine whether to proceed with the project. 

Today, we’re going to talk specifically about costs and the flip side of the coin – benefits or cost reductions.  More specifically, I hope that the following information will increase your comfort level in dealing with ‘he/she who holds the purse strings’ – from RFP stage through negotiations that ensue regarding the trade-offs between scope, resources (costs)  and timeframe on your project.

The expectation of an ECM project manager is that he/she is knowledgeable about CM technology and can communicate with all levels of IT people.  Additionally we’re also now expected to be able to understand business processes within AP, AR, HR and effectively manage projects merging technology into business solutions and/or process improvements.  What we’re not doing and in most cases not expected to do – is to be able to communicate in finance speak with ‘he/she who holds the purse strings’.  Essentially this means that we lose control of our RFP or project change requests – and rely on others because we’re not expected to be able to talk dollars and cents.

Again, I hope the following will allow you to feel more comfortable in talking dollars and cents.

So what do the words variable, fixed, average, and marginal all have in common?   Perhaps you recognize these as a few of the myriad adjectives describing different types of costs.  Let’s wade into the types of costs that CFOs look at when they’re evaluating your project and determining whether the $1 of benefits you’ve promised really equates to 4 quarters to their bottom line.

Variable cost – there is an old saying in economics that all costs are fixed in the short-term and variable in the long term.  A good example of a variable cost would be postage.  There is a perfect relationship between how many documents you mail and how much postage you have to pay. A variable cost is any cost that varies directly with an activity. 

Fixed cost – these are costs that are fixed at least in the short term.  The key question here is how long is short term?  The answer will differ from company to company, and project to project.  Most likely you’ll need to meet with someone in the finance or accounting department to determine how projects are evaluated.  Let’s assume the CFO tells you that all projects must have a payback period of less than two years.  (In Part II – we’ll talk about different ways companies evaluate projects.)  So we can use this information to determine what costs are fixed/variable in the two year period.  Union labor contracts, real-estate leases, etc., lock in costs – making them fixed perhaps for the entire project payback period.   If you can’t break a lease or sublet freed storage space in the two year payback period – then it is unlikely the CFO will allow you to include any benefits from reducing storage costs.

Looking at many of the costs in your life – you recognize that many have both a fixed and a variable component.  For example if you budget for food costs – there is some minimal level that you can’t fall below without risk to your health or well being.  This fixed component will vary depending on whether you can maintain your happiness with Budweiser or require 20 year old scotch.   When you own a car there are fixed cost components such as insurance or your car payment, and variable components such as gasoline, tire wear, depreciation or even maintenance.   Just remember that in the short-term our ECM project can only provide savings that fall in the variable cost category.  

Average cost – You’re working on an ECM project for an AP department – and a typical question you would ask during discovery would be, ‘How much does it cost your company to process an invoice?’  The well-informed AP manager will proudly come back and give you a figure somewhere between $20 and  $50.  What you’ve just been given is an average cost.  The AP manager took all costs associated with the AP department including salaries, benefits, rent, postage,  AP’s portion of  utilities, janitorial costs, perhaps IT support, license costs for their payables system etc., and divided this number by the number of invoices processed.  By now you recognize that these costs include both fixed and variable components.  If your ECM project successfully eliminated all manual invoice costs – do you think the CFO believes that the benefits you’ve penciled in are true savings?  Of course not.

Marginal cost – Let’s go back to the AP department one more time to understand marginal costs, and ask the AP manager a slightly different question, “How much would it cost for you to process 1 more invoice today?”  The AP manager will most likely give you a blank look and repeat the same answer of $20-$50.   So, you sit down with the AP clerk and time them on how long it takes to process an invoice, you then add time/costs for invoice approval, for creating a payment document, and perhaps for postage, mailing, invoice retention – and for some reason your cost comes in at a fraction of the $20-$50.  What you’ve just done is determined the marginal cost of processing one more invoice or conversely the cost savings associated with the elimination of manual processing for one invoice.  Look carefully at the costs you’ve included – you should recognize these as the sum of all the variable cost components associated with invoice processing.

So if average cost is incorrect – is marginal cost the correct figure to use when calculating ECM benefits?  From the scenario above – does this mean marginal cost is the same as variable cost? The answer to both questions is no.  The reason is that we’re making an assumption if we extrapolate the savings/costs associated with one invoice to many invoices.  If an AP clerk can process 100 invoices per day then potentially we can reduce the salary costs associated with one AP clerk if we can eliminate manual processing for 100 invoices per day.    If we’re able to replace a number of AP clerks, perhaps next year when the AP manager retires – we can replace him/her with an AP supervisor.   If the number of AP users decline significantly – then next year we can negotiate a lower license cost with our AP software vendor.

What margin really means is that all costs are variable.  At some point in the AP process we run into constraints where fixed costs are impacted.  For example, if every single AP clerk is working as hard and efficiently as possible and working all the overtime allowed by the company – then adding one more invoice would force the company to hire one more AP clerk.  In such a case the marginal cost of that one invoice could be $2000 and not $2.  What if there wasn’t any room in the AP department for one more desk/person?  In such a case the AP department might be forced to add a new shift of workers.  Adding in the cost of a shift manager and other restructuring necessary – the marginal cost of that one invoice may now be in the $100,000 range.

The point is that over the life of your ECM projects benefit period – you can expect to convert some of the fixed costs to variable costs that can then be reduced or eliminated.  If any part of this benefit period fits within the payback period of your project then you could and should include those benefits as project benefits.

My final point in understanding these costs is credibility with your customer’s ultimate decision maker. 

As an ECM project manager, you’ve easily won over the IT department with your technical expertise in ECM hardware/software.   You’ve wowed the business users with a list of successful implementations.  What you don’t want to do is diminish your credibility with the CFO when they’re evaluating your project on a cost/benefit basis.   Spend time understanding your customer’s cost structure; how they evaluate projects – and present accurate numbers that truly depict realistic benefits.   If you do – you will have won over the most important person in the decision making process.

Part II in a few weeks will look at different financial methods that companies use to evaluate projects – and how to structure your project within those methodologies.

Steve Kissinger

ImageSource, Inc

  

Considerations for Architecture and Deployment of Global Capture Systems

 

The considerations for architecture and deployment of global capture systems are several fold. In our experience they include the traditional considerations and methodologies (software deployment models, conventional server models, fault tolerance considerations, human resource considerations, change management, etc.), however, in the global context there is another set of considerations that must be factored into the decision making processes. Regardless of the quality or nature of the software, there are myriad factors (independent of the software application) within any global corporation that can and will affect how that software is implemented and how it performs in any given region of the world. The ability to implement quickly and efficiently is tied directly to the organization’s communication structure, reporting structure, internal politics, policies and procedures, physical infrastructure, and the relationships that exist between the various IT support groups and the business. Any distributed applications performance can be impacted by the network, security configurations, load balancing systems, WAN Acceleration systems, and all of the rest of the traffic traversing those global backbone and regional networks. Many of these factors can and often are completely beyond the control of the customer’s project teams, and those that do control them often have completely different reporting structures within the organization.

Having a clear handle on the state and configuration of the existing environment combined with well managed Command and Change Control structure and a central hierarchy of authority that can be used for escalations is vital to the ability of ground teams to implement, troubleshoot, correct, adjust, optimize and complete rollouts in a predictable, consistent and timely manner.

Most of these factors are never fully known or understood until the teams are well into the planning stage of a given project. There are several ways that any global rollout can be approached from our perspective. Our preference is to work closely with your teams to understand the traditional factors as well as the lesser known and intangible ones so that together, we can arrive at the most effective, efficient and reliable ways to implement for each given region of the world. In our experience we have also found that being flexible as a combined team in our approach can help to ensure successful outcomes at the end of the day. We have to plan based on the information available at the time. As new information becomes available, we work together as necessary to modify the plan to achieve our stated goals and objectives for the implementation and to satisfy the needs of the users. At the end of the day, from a users perspective, it just has to work.

Gene Eckhart

Program Manager

ImageSource, Inc.

  

PUTTING TOGETHER AN ECM PROJECT TEAM

Part 2 – The Project Team

I discussed in the last blog on this general topic that the strong support of the intended Project by executive management is a critical factor for success – they need to support the projects sponsor, and smooth the path of challenges that sometimes occur when change is contemplated.  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, and then it effort fans out to focus on users and supervisors. 

What Will be the Right Team
The right team of players, working together to hone the vision, is required to construct the concepts to be considered, refine the concepts, and to develop strategies to support the selected conceptual structure to fruition.  The people on the team are as integral to your project’s success as the solution, the project plan, the software tools, and infrastructure that is chosen.

Forming the right team is not easy – as not all leaders and users welcome new ideas and changes to the routine process.  But the executive support and the right team members are just as important for for standard ECM projects success as these factors are vital for business process management (BPM) and integrated implementations.

The primary key role types that are required on any ECM project team are listed below.  The exact position titles and numbers of team members recommended for participation will differ depending on an organization’s size and individuals’ skill levels. It is important that the eight classifications of people resources below are part of the Project team.

1. Executives: provide the supporting vision and enthusiasm for the solution objective

2. Line-of-Business (LOB) Managers: provide important project support and key higher level objectives

3. Business Analyst: provide discovery and analytical resources, reporting, perspective and ideas

4. Records/Compliance Manager: assure objectives and solutions match mandates and requirements

5. IT/IS Manager: supporting infrastructure, including business & IT challenges into the plan

6. WorkGroup Manager/Supervisor staff:  provide working knowledge of operations being addressed and realistic possibilities on what will work and where the challenges will be

7. End users: discovering what will and won’t work and where the challenges for acceptance are

8. Project Manager:  This person is the organization’s operational leader of the project and the coordinator with outside resources – ECM industry experts, software vendors, conversion resources, Training, etc. 

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

Neil W. Lindsey, ECM^M, CDIA+
Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

Putting Together an ECM Project Team

Part 1 – Getting Started

From a user organization perspective, constructing an effective ECM Project Team needs to be on of the initial mandatory objectives and activities undertaken when implementing an ECM Project.  Achieving this objective in its totality directly links to the success of the implementation of any major ECM project within an organization – whether it be for a phased enterprise or a departmental initiative. 

Achieving this objective is a management challenge that must be supported at the top.  It requires Executive leadership that should initially lead to developing:

• an organizational vision
• clear and consistent motivation
• full mid-management support
• staff commitment at the user level that supports the executive sponsored vision developed by a qualified Project Team. 

With the above being understood, in an instance where the initiating champion of an ECM Project has a mid-level management role, that person needs to acquire an appropriate and committed executive level sponsor. 

In a typical scenario there initially needs to be a management level person(s) involved as project sponsor(s) who would likely be a department/division manager or line of business (LOB) manager.  As indicated, this person needs to acquire the active support and sponsorship of executive level management.  This could be a VP of Operations or the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the organization. 

The first sponsor tasks are to:

[1]   Develop and document the initial premise of the ECM initiative.

[2]   Select and organize an effective team of Project Team members who will work together with the sponsors to fully define and refine the project vision, and develop a strategies to plan the details and bring the project to fruition. 

The people selected for the Project Team, their planning and collaboration skills, their ability to understand the underlying concepts of both the change management and technologies necessary to implement ECM, and their ability to communicate effectively are going to be as important to the success of the ECM Project project’s success as the software, supporting expert resources, and project implementation team solution that is ultimately selected.

The successful ECM project will likely have new business processes implemented, improved workflows, integrations with existing systems, and will require changes in the way supervisors and users do their work.  The successful Project Team will be realistically creative, and individuals as Team members need to be open in their communication of ideas and the challenges to be faced.
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This blog will likely continue on this subject – with future installments discussing the recommended makeup of the Project Team members, the considerations that need to be covered, utilization of supporting partnership resources, and some recommended methods that should be considered to achieve implementation objectives.
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Neil W. Lindsey, ECMΜ, CDIA+
Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

 

  

ECM Best Practices – Green Support

Enterprise Content Management Solutions
– Remote and Mobile Employees

Many of today’s business discussions revolve around the fact that providing select employees with the ability to work from home, in a mobile environment, or otherwise more independently, is a positive factor towards fostering conservation and a “GREEN” initiative.  Considering the integrated component benefits of a well conceived and implemented Enterprise Content Management System (ECM), with the right employees selected for a remote work environment, this green initiative can also promote a highly efficient and productive business environment.

Employees that successfully work from home or on the road as much as they do in the office are likely characterized by desirable core competencies.  This is nothing new and these strong employee qualities have always been required of the person working independently from constant co-worker and management relationships and support. 

Successful remote employees are oriented towards achieving results, and as such, as a group they can be described as being self-motivated, self-disciplined, and as self-sufficient as their supporting infrastructure will allow them to be.   “Remote” employees very often maintain a strong client focus and spend a lot of time working at client sites, communicating with clients, and seeking new clients. 

In order to give the successful remote employee the best opportunity to be as productive as they can be, and promote an organization’s green initiative,  that organization can develop the information management and communications infrastructure that fosters collaboration and information self service.  This also prepares an organization to address the current business trend towards more remote employees.  This developed business structure can also support instances where employees are able to work, but have to do that work away from the office due to illness, convalescence, family emergency, transportation problems, etc.

In addition to the infrastructure, it is important to implement a training program so that these resources are known to the remote employees and they are well trained in making the most of them.

The following are among those driving guidelines that support effective mobile and remote employees:

• Digital information and content are increasingly pervasive and require well developed broadband technologies and services.  Remote employees must be provided with required independent information access and research needed for commercial, client, and business awareness.  ECM Benefits contributing towards a green initiative and remote employee support include:
  • ECM – Customer and business information access through web based document and image management
  • ECM – Research and document re-purposing through web based document management
  • ECM – Work and transaction processing continuation through web based workflow processing
• Group and teamwork oriented communications channels are instrumental to effective and collaboration between the remote employee, clients, co-workers, and management, and to providing effective remote presentation resources.  Integration of Collaboration Management and web based meeting services with compatible ECM systems provides a productive team environment contributing to a focused energy and natural resource conservation effort.
• Businesses (and individuals) must effectively communicate on the move and be supported by personal mobile communication technology and web services.  Personal mobile devices now provide a technology that not only communicates between people, but also communicates information to people using compatible web based Enterprise Content Management systems.
• Data submission and resolution tool resources allowing for information communication and independent problem solving must be provided to the remote employee dependent upon business type and objectives.  Digital Forms Processing and Management systems, a major component of many ECM systems, can provide effective solutions.

Neil W. Lindsey
Project Manager / Senior Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

Attend the following GREEN oriented sessions at
NEXUS 2009, November 2nd, 3rd, 2009, Bellevue,
Washington

Finding the PR Value in your Green ECM Technology
Reducing Your Organization’s Cost and Carbon
Footprint Through Inter-Office Scanning
Economical & Environmental Benefits of eForms

Change Management and User Adoption

Here is a follow up on my post of June 29, 2009.  This follow up focuses on the section referenced by  “Change Management (People)”  where ECM projects sometimes include significant business process changes that require the user community to change the way they work.  In this case, the success of the project will be dependent upon user acceptance of the new system and their adoption of new processes, challenges to the way they work, and their feeling for their  job security. 

I was reviewing some other blogs sourced from the AIIM site the other day and came across the following blog attributable to AIIM’s “8 Things” guest blog series, and the guest blog author Lynn Fraas, a Director for Crown Partners, and the current Vice Chair and Chair Elect of the AIIM Board of Directors.  Because the following material from Lynn Fraas is related to my previous blog, I am providing this reference to her blog  post as an expansion on the Change Management subject.    See below ↓
          ________________________________________________________________

User Adoption of ECM and ERM systems
8 Ways to Increase User Adoption

A consistent topic in ECM circles is low user adoption.  We think of ECM as “mature” technology, however, most companies still struggle with broad user adoption.  In implementing ECM technology we fundamentally change the way an individual or group does their job.  Consequently, the business process and culture change associated with the technology is much more significant that the implementation of the technology itself.  Below are 8 things you can do to increase user adoption of ECM Applications:

1.  Get top-level support. 

This seems to be a “no brainer” but one that is consistently overlooked.  ECM implementations often require significant changes to the underlying business process.  A strong sponsor at the executive level can work to remove any organizational roadblocks the team may (or should I say will) encounter as you roll-out applications across the organization.

2.  Start small. 

We have all heard the phrase “take one bite of the elephant at a time”.   Trust me; it is harder to do than it sounds.  To start on the ECM journey, take a relatively straightforward business process and work with that first.  Select a group that has at least one or two individuals who are champions for the new system.  Get the first project over the finish line and in the winner’s circle before you embark on project #2.  Measure the results, celebrate the success and make sure the rest of the organization hears about the success.  This will create a level of excitement that will drive other groups to “want” the new technology.

3.  Be fanatical about internal PR and communication. 

User adoption is driven by system acceptance.  Become a PR and communication expert as they form the cornerstone of gaining organizational acceptance of the system.  You must evangelize and spread your messages to executives, managers, information workers and outside vendors and suppliers.  Build a PR/communication plan early in the project and incorporate different mediums to get the word out.  A simple grid with audience (executives, managers, workers etc) on one axis and form of communication on the other axis will suffice.  The key is identifying major stakeholders and messages then planning the communication campaign to ensure all messages are delivered multiple times.

4.  Use “personas” to understand how the new system will impact users.  

Create a persona for your key stakeholder roles and ensure your system addresses their needs.  The typical organization has multiple roles that will interact with any given business process and therefore the system.  Each role has its own unique requirements (at least from their perspective).  Understand who will interact with the system and what they need to be successful.  Make sure you have them covered with the solution – ultimately it is all about making their life easier.  Understand the WIFFIM (What’s In It For ME) for each persona.

5.  Focus on the business process.  

The business process that ECM technology will support should be the focus – not the underlying technology.  The business user wants to get their job done in the most straightforward manner.  To the extent technology provides tangible benefits to the user – adoption will follow.  If you implement technology for technology sake – you will probably struggle to get users to actually use the system.

6.  Get users and business owners involved. 

People love to be heard.  Leverage that core human trait and get the users/business owners involved at the very beginning of the project.  Other than the typical steering committee thy these avenues for involvement:

• Have a representative from each group on the implementation committee and make sure they communicate regularly with the group they represent.
• Organize an occasional brown-bag discussion or whiteboard session to make sure you understand the process and how ECM will improve the process and the lives of the users (well at least their working lives!).
• Drive hands-on involvement by establishing a “model office”.  Use the model office to engage with users, conduct process “what If’s” and to develop and test applications prior to their general release.  The model office is also useful for ongoing training as you add to or change staff.

7.  Leverage collaboration tools. 

In the world of Web 2.0 it is very easy to create a dialogue with the broad user community.  Check into leveraging an existing corporate intranet or wiki to engage the organization in the discussion around the new system.  If you don’t have a corporate standard there are many ways to generate conversation with free web based tools such as Twitter, Yammer, Facebook and MySpace

8.  Training is more than just a class.  

If I had a dime for every time I heard the words “companies did not plan for training” I would be on a sunny beach.  You hear that training is often overlooked and that is a key piece of the user adoption puzzle.   I also believe that in many cases training is conducted but it is ineffective.  To be effective, training must be more than one how- to class.  Here are some additional ways to ensure people make the jump to using the new system:

• Provide online or hardcopy step-by-step user guides with screen shots to help users the first few times they use the new system.
• Conduct a training session prior to use and then one week after implementation.
• Leverage the wiki or whatever collaboration tool you use to enable users to ask questions and get quick answers – that can be review and used by others as you add to staff or bring different groups onto the system
• Review the question and answer site to see if there are any trends indicating issues you need to resolve with the new system.

The broad adoption of technology is difficult but not unattainable.  I leave you with a great clip that my colleague  posted on the Information Zen site – a great clip to show users:  http://www.informationzen.org/video/2043787:Video:160

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Atle Skjekkeland, referenced in this blog, is a speaker at the NEXUS 2009 Conference later this year.

Neil Lindsey, Project Manager / Business Analyst
ImageSource, Inc.

Basics of Consulting for the ECM Project

Many organizations look for expert assistance in a quest to justify, plan, and develop the concepts for an Enterprise Content Management system (ECM) or smaller departmental system using this technology.  A provider of these services needs to have demonstrated expertise regarding consulting services focused on the application of the entire breadth of the disciplines associated with Enterprise Content Management.  General business process or management consultants seldom have the experience necessary to provide the requisite resources.  The solutions addressed by the consultation project need to focus each client’s objectives and how they may have to be addressed by the professional application of a combination of:

• Document Management
• Document Imaging / Image Management
• Digital and Physical Records Management
• Digital Asset Management
• Business Process Management and Workflow
• Reports Management (ERM / COLD)
• Content Addressable Storage
• eForms Design, Library management & business processes
• Legacy system and database integration for data sharing (i.e. SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft)
• Legacy system integration for image enablement of third party applications
• Digital signatures and data encryption
• Large Document Viewing Enhancements
• Data capture technologies & custom document and data capture management
• OCR/ICR/OMR & bar code reading
• Data capture from Digital forms and Web forms
• Web Publishing & Content Management
• Web based information delivery systems
• Network Fax Systems and capture
• Collaborative Portals and resources
• File conversion, document migration, and scanning services
• Application Development and Programming Services for Custom Requirements

Consultants need to be able to actively provide expert participation and guidance in analysis to determine requirements/objectives, develop and validate goals and expectations, and apply capabilities of technology for application concepts, business processes, and design at the workgroup, departmental, and enterprise requirement levels per objectives. 

Consultants need to provide resources to advise and direct on project aspects such as technical design specification for hardware, ECM software platforms and components, the network infrastructure, conversion and migration of document information, the training program and facilities to be utilized. 

A consultant’s roll can consider numerous other ECM specific factors such as performance standards, operational and functional objectives, ROI analysis, Change Management considerations, and others which frequently need to be addressed, researched, analyzed, documented, and presented to the client when . 

ECM Consulting Services should also be able to address and provide guidance on the following when generating documentation to the client in the form of a Consultant Report, a Project Charter, and/or a subsequent full Project Plan with design detail:

• Current process documents and flows of work
• Project Scope Planning, Definition, and Management
• Definitions – Process Re-engineering to Technical Opportunities
• Project Deliverables Definition
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) at the Project Plan level
• Conversion and Migration Services Requirements – Deliverables
• Standard and Advanced Training Curriculum Planning and Management
• Quality Control Strategies and Planning
• Project Cost Estimating Costing

Application Design for Project Standard Deliverables as well as Architecture Engineering Analysis and recommendations.  These can include conceptual to detailed Design for standard and custom system components and design details for:

• system configuration, and all standard software modules
• document/image capture including information capture considerations for workflows and business processes
• planning, design, and development for web-based resources
• interfaces and integrations with legacy systems as required by objectives
• Activity Definition, Sequencing, and Predication Planning
• Risk Identification and Management Planning
• Duration Estimation with Project Schedule Development and Control (Microsoft Project) when developing Project Plan level strategies plans.
• Project Team Development and Management with Resource Planning
• Communications, Information Distribution, and Performance Report Planning

The consulting organization may bring multiple experts to guide and participate with the client in the discovery and analysis process. Consultants, no matter what their expertise in a particular vertical application, should remain open to a client’s specific goals and interests and not automatically apply past experiences to the specifics of what solution a new client will need.  There should be an initial concentration on specifically defining business challenges, phased implementation priorities, and evaluations of the best opportunities for initial success. This process leads to business solutions that integrate with a client’s standing technology investment and unique business culture, and result in real returns if managed professionally.

Find out more about ECM Strategies and Project Planning at NEXUS 2009

Neil W. Lindsey, Project Manager
ImageSource, Inc.
www.imagesourceinc.com

IIBA Certification – Is it Worth it for PMP Certified Project Managers

As a PMP certified Project Manager in the Enterprise Content Mangement area I am interested in hearing from other Project Managers who have also gone through the International Institute of Business Analysis process to get an IIBA Business Analyst Certification.  As Project Managers in the ECM area, Business Analysis is a large function of the work we perform on projects.

I have been hearing more and more about this certification. I have also done some research on the IIBA certification process from their website:

International Institute of Business Analysis

A local chapter of IIBA is just forming in my area and I plan to become a member so I can gain more insight into the program.  I did this same thing when I joined my local PMI chapter when I first entered into the PMP program.

I would love to hear from any project managers or even those who have gone through the program in reference to the value of the certification and whether it is worth the time and effort to get the certification?

Al Senzamici, PMP
Program Manager
ImageSource Inc.