Everyone has heard horror stories about companies purchasing an expensive new technology - personalization probably has the worst reputation - and after six months of trying (and spending even more big bucks on the vendor's consultants) giving up. In my own experience, I've seen a couple of high-priced technologies - of the half-million dollar variety, between the software and the hardware needed to host it - never implemented.
I've been doing a lot of radio and magazine interviews lately to promote my new book, and one really good question I get asked is, "What can companies do to keep implementation projects from failing?" I believe the seeds of project failure are sown before the decision to implement a technology is even made. I also believe that the problem lies with the company purchasing the technology, not with the vendor.
That's actually good news, because that means that the company, your company, can avoid project failure by taking some simple (but not effortless) steps before you commit to a new technology.
1. Determine Expectations
If I decide I want to purchase a house, I find a realtor in the area where I want to live. The first questions out of her mouth will most certainly be, "What are you looking for? How many bedrooms and bathrooms do you need? How many square feet?" In fact, if a realtor didn't ask you these questions, she'd probably waste a lot of time showing you inappropriate properties. You'd replace her immediately. Yet how often does an executive march into a middle manager's office and announce, "We need a content management solution (or a personalization system or a CRM system)," and off the manager goes, rounding up vendors to come in and give their presentations?
The sure way to select the wrong technology is to start with a vendor's features list. Needless to say, everything on that list becomes your starting point for "must have" features. Before you even talk to vendors or to colleagues at other companies to get vendor recommendations, determine what it is you want the technology to do. The answer "manage content" (or "personalize the site" or "facilitate customer relationships") is not an adequate answer.
The project can only succeed if it solves the problem. The devil is in the details, and you really need to get into the details - not necessarily at the field or record level, but certainly at the file and program level - in order to determine what the problem is that needs solving. Even if you purchase a turnkey solution, you're going to have to delve into these details at a later date in order to integrate this system with your existing system. Who was it that said, "No technology is an island?"
2. Prioritize Needs
Of course, your new software will need to be all things to all people. As long as everyone expects that, the project will fail to meet expectations. Now that you have a list of what the software or technology must do (although this column reads as if I'm assuming you're implementing a third-party solution in-house, the same guidelines apply if you're lining up an ASP to provide the services), you need to prioritize those features. Get agreement from all affected parties as to what the "must-have" features are and what "nice-to-have" features are. If you've got to integrate this solution with existing technologies, then perhaps a compatible database driver might be a must-have feature, while an existing API library might be a nice-to-have feature. Features lists should include functional, technical, and usability specifications.
3. Manage Vendor Presentations
Now that you have one list of must-have features and another list of nice-to-have features, you're ready to start inviting in vendors. I strongly encourage you not to have the vendor presentations take place at the executive level. Where did we agree the devil was?
When you invite a vendor in, set the ground rules. Tell the sales representative that you'd like to have an engineer from their side in attendance. Most of the major vendors have some architect and/or engineer types they can dress up and take out in public. The sales rep will balk because he knows they're going to be pressed on details, which he's been trained to try to avoid (I took the Dale Carnegie class, once). Invite your own systems architect, the project manager who will be responsible for implementation, and a database administrator to all the presentations.
Have an agenda for the presentation. Vendors always hated me. Once on a consulting project, I was asked to participate in a presentation by speakerphone for a technology my client was considering implementing. The conference room was dark so that those in attendance could see the demo projected onto the wall. I was following along on the Web from my home office. After one particularly direct question, to which the presenter had no answer, I heard the distinct sound of a dial tone. The presenter decided to disconnect me, which went unnoticed for quite a while. In my opinion, if the vendor doesn't want to throw you out of the conference room, you've either found the right technology, or your questions aren't probing enough.
Don't sit passively, waiting for the rep to make all his points. I'm not suggesting you interrupt every sentence, but don't let his presentation take a front seat to your needs. Get him through the carefully worded marketing fluff into the actual features of the system. Let no question go unanswered. End the presentation with either with a plan to get your questions answered or a plan to invite in another vendor.
Be a good host, but make sure you don't waste the valuable time of all the people in attendance (or else they'll find excuses to miss subsequent presentations). Typically, the first dog-and-pony show that a vendor makes is largely comprised of slides that "create a need" for their product. Since you've already decided you need the product, you can cut to the chase and find out whether their technology meets your needs, which you've all agreed upon internally.
Next week, I'll finish my list of ways to avoid project failure by selecting the right technology vendor in the first place.
Alexis D. Gutzman is an E-commerce Technology Author and Consultant and author of The HTML 4 Bible, FrontPage 2000 Answers!, and ColdFusion 4 for Dummies. Her newest book, The E-commerce Arsenal: 12 Technologies You Need to Prevail in the Digital Arena is now available. She can be reached at agutzman@internet.com
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
