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Effective Practices in Technology Project Delivery
Revenue Growth, Technology & WebsitesBy focusing on five things, you will begin delivering projects more effectively and build a better “project culture”. We understand that effective project and program delivery is vital to support the agenda of and organization and that good project management is a critical business skill. Even in the challenging climate, typically the demand for projects exceeds the capacity to deliver. In addition to good project management, organizations need to effectively manage a portfolio of projects. Different groups within the organization compete for scarce resources and priorities and needs change over time. Too often, we see the same set of issues go wrong in project delivery and we also see the most mature organizations succeed across a number of dimensions. These successful organizations are, in particular, strong at linking projects and programs to business strategies, establishing strong cases for change, and maintaining a good “project culture”. Success is less about the fact that a set of project management standards exist, it has more to do with the quality and commitment of people, the collaborative culture of project delivery (business and technical) and the maturity of ingrained project delivery practices within the organization. Some of the problems we often see include:
So, how can you ensure improvements in project delivery? The answer is in focusing on an the end-to-end approach of portfolio management, ensuring business change is managed, and delivering on objectives with a credible projects culture: 1) Manage the project portfolio: Before you even begin, ask yourself the question; Should we be doing this project? Successful organizations manage a portfolio of projects well and understand the interrelationships and architecture impacts. They also establish the clear linkage between projects and business strategies. 2) Architecting the solution and approach: the project approach and timeline must reflect a complete understanding of both the business and technical aspects – and clarify how the project will be delivered around milestones and collaborative working. Successful projects are characterized by the right mix of management, technical and business skills, as well as the underlying infrastructure. It is also important to select technologies based on business need rather than technology elegance. How well does the solution design fit with the organization-wide systems architecture? Ultimately, a well designed solution that ties into the overall enterprise model will deliver far greater value to the business – as long as you consider the business needs for time-to-market. 3) Setting up proper resourcing and commercial structures: How should the project be sourced? What are the critical skills and specializations? What existing solutions could accelerate the project delivery and improve quality? Who should you engage? Ensure that you have structured and effective commercial and service interface arrangements with your partnering suppliers. 4) Delivering Change: Most technology projects are 20% about technology and 80% about business change and adoption. You can’t skip the steps in delivering change- ensuring the project is rational and the case for change is clear and agreed, making sure the project is ready with the structures and plans for success, delivering the project well- with both the business and the project teams, and importantly – making the delivery stick by embedding the changes in the organization. 5) Project Control: How effective are team members and time allocations? Use clearly defined procedures appropriate with to the project objectives. Be pragmatic, rather than bureaucratic. Manage to quality and benefits, while effectively tracking and communicating time and budget with the right set of technology tools and reporting. Successful delivery of technology projects is about more than implementing project management procedures and controls. Successful organizations effectively manage the complete portfolio of projects. They also have more then a set of standards, they have the right people with the good delivery skills, values and collaborative working styles to ultimately build a “projects culture” within your organization.
Semantic Technology is Real
Revenue Growth, Technology & WebsitesSemantic technology addresses the data-explosion problem by providing more intelligent ways to search, sort, and filter data based on business and user relevance. So, what is Semantic Technology? Here is what Tim Berners-Lee stated as a vision back in 1999: “I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.” Semantic Technology is often referred to as “Web 3.0”. At it’s core, Semantic technology is a new and more innovative way data is created, stored, and exchanged. Instead of the classic relational approach, where data is used in a software application based on its relative position in a tabular framework, semantic data is created with embedded meaning. This meaning is assured by creating the data using a pair of standards called the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL). RDF creates flexible data, free of the tabular constraints of the relational approach. OWL defines ontologies, which are domains of described data relationships. Semantic technology mates RDF’s flexible data with OWL’s intelligent descriptions, which results in “smart data”. With smart data, the user can experience data’s utility within context. With data in a semantic format, a variety of new IT capabilities become possible. Because the data is self-describing (has meaning) there is much greater flexibility in designing, modifying, and changing semantic applications. This will help address several major challenges facing IT today.
Advanced semantic middleware frameworks are being created by software leaders like Cambridge Semantics (Sean Martin and Lee Feigenbam ) and architected by colleagues at CrossTech Partners including Colin Britton, John Saber, and TJ O’Connor. Cambridge Semantics has also developed a powerful set of solutions to unleash data from the 1,000s of spreadsheets being used across enterprise clients and dramatically enable data collaboration. Best practices and development models are becoming increasingly available, making semantic technologies more accessible to a broader group of developers. As these technologies move from the “third circle” (bleeding edge) to the “second circle” (today’s innovative technology) we can fully implement compelling new solutions for advanced search and relevance engines for information access. We can integrate these new applications with social software and deliver compelling new experiences for big brands and their audiences. Lee Feigenbam is a contributing author to this article.
Rationalize Your Communications Technology: Cut Costs & Improve Impact
Revenue Growth, Technology & WebsitesI am working with a global financial services company that needs to overhaul its portfolio of communications technology. These include their public/customer facing web sites to intranets and broadband communication services serving their internal associates across functional areas. To add further complexity, this is a global organization across time zones embodying different cultural norms and styles of communication along with different languages. Typical of many organizations, the communications technology portfolio has grown out of different business organizations that have changed and been re-aligned over the years. While IT has been working hard all along to deliver and manage a set of solutions that align with business needs, the changes in business structure and focus has increased the “value gap” over time and resulted in a highly disparate systems portfolio that can no longer support the business. Multiple email systems, disparate intranet channels and internal web sites, experimental broadband video services, third party communication platforms, and multiple public facing or customer-specific web sites have been deployed across the businesses have created a complex communication portfolio making it impossible to deliver a consistent and timely brand message to either the internal and external audiences. What’s the solution? They need a rational communications technology portfolio and the governance structures to manage it well over time. A rational communications technology portfolio is characterized by a number of elements:
To help them define a strategy, we are pursuing a five step process:
The benefits of a rational communications technology portfolio come from both cost reductions and communications impact. We have seen cost reduction from 15% to 35%+ through the elimination of duplicate systems and related support costs while dramatically simplifying and unifying communications. By embedding a portfolio governance process, they will have a common language to explore and resolve issues around application rationalization planning. Maintaining an application inventory will support future planning and decision-making and provide a consistent framework to analyze performance, effectiveness and progress
Learning from A-Rod: Putting Marketing on Steroids
Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Revenue MarketingAs A-Rod has taught us, steroids accelerate performance – MVP seasons!
No matter what your view of A-Rod (I live in Boston, so I don’t have to go far to get an opinion), we can see that steroids can drive performance. While we may not want to use this controversial approach, there are some things we can do to drive the performance of our marketing spend by better connecting marketing with sales and embracing digital strategy.
At a recent event, I was asked by the Boston Business Journal to comment about trends in technology that may impact the Boston metro area in this difficult economic cycle. I described two competing trends – a positive macro trend we see around the seismic shift in spending from traditional media to digital media and a negative micro-trend of increasing day-to-day pressure on spending on current marketing programs. The overall macro trends support a move toward digital media and new marketing strategies which help drive down the costs of marketing, sales and lead generation and enhances relationship selling throughout the buy-sell cycle. Traditional marketers offer strong brand identity and creative thinking, but we need more linkage between marketing and sales and better systems to synchronize with the sales process. We need to embrace the principles of permission marketing and “opt-in” lead collection that are tightly aligned with the buy-sell process.
So what are the strategies?
Here are six steps you can take to build an integrated sales and marketing program “on steroids”:
First, understand audience. Starting with the existing customer base, segment your audience (customers and target customers) into logical groups and align the marketing approach to each segment. Understand what each of the audience segments really want so you can tailor your content and better connect. We recognize a shift in power from the company to the customer and need to recognize that the customer now has controls at his/her fingertips. The customer expresses their intentions every time they go online and type in key words into a search engine. You can educate this audience in a very crowded space. Begin by mapping audience segments to understand their needs.
Second, align marketing to the sales cycle. Each individual will be at a different stage in their personal buying life cycle. Align your marketing channels and strategies to each stage of the buy-sell cycle. Here is a typical buy cycle: explore… learn… interact… review… acquire… use. Map communication channels and strategies to the buying cycle: attract… engage… educate… transact… fulfill… support… Spend most of your face-to-face time and money on the later stages of the buy-sell cycle and use digital channels to nurture opportunities in the early stages of the buy-sell cycle. I call this a Nurture Program.
Third, embrace new media. New media helps engage an audience with quality interactions and compelling experiences. These strategies drive influence at a lower cost. The audience can “opt-in” to the conversations qualifying themselves as interested in solutions. New media will also enhance awareness and “buzz” by accelerating conversations across the social web. Outreach to bloggers and engage in forum discussions where your products and services are being considered. Use Webinars, Twebinars, and YouTube videos to deliver content that reflects your expertise or value and build a brand identity. For selected audience segments, offer a velvet rope community – a tailored private channel of conversation and information delivery tailored to the unique interests of the targeted audience. Use these channels to build a special relationship with this invite-only audience and keep this segment tightly connected to your brands and offerings. Careful, we can only participate in a finite number of social and collaborative networks, so you may need to determine whether to build your own community or engage in one that already exists – or both. With your own community, you can build strong relationships – just set the right expectations about the level of engagement you should expect.
Fourth, use digital channels to nurture your audience. Your web site(s) should engage users with usable content and be visible to the search engines based on your key words. Sites and landing pages must be optimized and have conversion points so that your visitors can easily “opt in” to engage in a dialog about areas of interest. Blogs offer more dynamic and current content and increase the visibility and relevance of your area of expertise. I wrote a blog post two weeks ago and my post was on the first page of Google search results for the key words “application rationalization:. You also need to embrace the mobile web by ensuring your site is WAP enabled – and if it makes sense for your business, build an iPhone or Blackberry application!
Fifth, don’t give up on face-to-face. Digital does not and should not replace the value of face-to-face interactions with your community. Events and meetings are an effective way to build a network, provide education, nurture opportunities and develop sales leads. Just like a visit to your web site, a registration at an event is a declaration of intent. Your goal is simply to deliver on that intent no matter what part of the buy-sell cycle the individual is on. Provide education, engage in a business discussion, and convert the opportunities. The key is to deliver a compelling event experience end-to-end.
Sixth, gain audience intelligence with data management. You need to understand your audience yet traditional CRM methods are outdated. CRM is limited to your “known” audience of prospects and customers. CRM is being replaced by what we call Market Relationship Management. Today, you need to understand the broader market – the complete audience of known and registered community and those that are connecting to your brand through social media sites and RSS subscriptions. You may not have all the details for this wider audience, but an effective listening and intelligence platform will give you needed insights about the sentiments in the social web. You can use this data and historical trends to target in more effective ways. By linking these systems to your sales process, you will be in a position to focus your sales energies on the audience members that have chosen to engage in conversations with you – these are your most qualified opportunities. In summary, for full disclosure, I am Red Sox fan, so perhaps I am not the biggest A-Rod fan. However, I do like “steroids” when it comes to accelerating a marketing strategy. If you embrace a digital strategy that ties marketing more closely with the sales process and engage the wider social web to nurture your audience intelligently – your sales with increase and costs will go down. Good luck and good selling..!
Six Steps for Digital Marketing
Revenue Growth, Revenue MarketingAt a recent event, I was asked by the Boston Business Journal to comment about trends in technology that may impact the Boston metro area in this difficult economic cycle. I described two competing trends – a positive macro trend we see around the seismic shift in spending from traditional media to digital media and a negative micro-trend of increasing day-to-day pressure on spending on current marketing programs. The overall macro trends support a move toward digital media and new marketing strategies which help drive down the costs of marketing, sales and lead generation and enhances relationship selling throughout the buy-sell cycle. Traditional marketers offer strong brand identity and creative thinking, but we need more linkage between marketing and sales and better systems to synchronize with the sales process. We need to embrace the principles of permission marketing and “opt-in” lead collection that are tightly aligned with the buy-sell process.
So what are the strategies?
Here are six steps you can take to build an integrated sales and marketing program “on steroids”:
First, understand audience. Starting with the existing customer base, segment your audience (customers and target customers) into logical groups and align the marketing approach to each segment. Understand what each of the audience segments really want so you can tailor your content and better connect. We recognize a shift in power from the company to the customer and need to recognize that the customer now has controls at his/her fingertips. The customer expresses their intentions every time they go online and type in key words into a search engine. You can educate this audience in a very crowded space. Begin by mapping audience segments to understand their needs.
Second, align marketing to the sales cycle. Each individual will be at a different stage in their personal buying life cycle. Align your marketing channels and strategies to each stage of the buy-sell cycle. Here is a typical buy cycle: explore… learn… interact… review… acquire… use. Map communication channels and strategies to the buying cycle: attract… engage… educate… transact… fulfill… support… Spend most of your face-to-face time and money on the later stages of the buy-sell cycle and use digital channels to nurture opportunities in the early stages of the buy-sell cycle. I call this a Nurture Program.
Third, embrace new media. New media helps engage an audience with quality interactions and compelling experiences. These strategies drive influence at a lower cost. The audience can “opt-in” to the conversations qualifying themselves as interested in solutions. New media will also enhance awareness and “buzz” by accelerating conversations across the social web. Outreach to bloggers and engage in forum discussions where your products and services are being considered. Use Webinars, Twebinars, and YouTube videos to deliver content that reflects your expertise or value and build a brand identity. For selected audience segments, offer a velvet rope community – a tailored private channel of conversation and information delivery tailored to the unique interests of the targeted audience. Use these channels to build a special relationship with this invite-only audience and keep this segment tightly connected to your brands and offerings. Careful, we can only participate in a finite number of social and collaborative networks, so you may need to determine whether to build your own community or engage in one that already exists – or both. With your own community, you can build strong relationships – just set the right expectations about the level of engagement you should expect.
Fourth, use digital channels to nurture your audience. Your web site(s) should engage users with usable content and be visible to the search engines based on your key words. Sites and landing pages must be optimized and have conversion points so that your visitors can easily “opt in” to engage in a dialog about areas of interest. Blogs offer more dynamic and current content and increase the visibility and relevance of your area of expertise. I wrote a blog post two weeks ago and my post was on the first page of Google search results for the key words “application rationalization:. You also need to embrace the mobile web by ensuring your site is WAP enabled – and if it makes sense for your business, build an iPhone or Blackberry application!
Fifth, don’t give up on face-to-face. Digital does not and should not replace the value of face-to-face interactions with your community. Events and meetings are an effective way to build a network, provide education, nurture opportunities and develop sales leads. Just like a visit to your web site, a registration at an event is a declaration of intent. Your goal is simply to deliver on that intent no matter what part of the buy-sell cycle the individual is on. Provide education, engage in a business discussion, and convert the opportunities. The key is to deliver a compelling event experience end-to-end.
Sixth, gain audience intelligence with data management. You need to understand your audience yet traditional CRM methods are outdated. CRM is limited to your “known” audience of prospects and customers. CRM is being replaced by what we call Market Relationship Management. Today, you need to understand the broader market – the complete audience of known and registered community and those that are connecting to your brand through social media sites and RSS subscriptions. You may not have all the details for this wider audience, but an effective listening and intelligence platform will give you needed insights about the sentiments in the social web. You can use this data and historical trends to target in more effective ways. By linking these systems to your sales process, you will be in a position to focus your sales energies on the audience members that have chosen to engage in conversations with you – these are your most qualified opportunities. In summary, for full disclosure, I am Red Sox fan, so perhaps I am not the biggest A-Rod fan. However, I do like “steroids” when it comes to accelerating a marketing strategy. If you embrace a digital strategy that ties marketing more closely with the sales process and engage the wider social web to nurture your audience intelligently – your sales with increase and costs will go down. Good luck and good selling..!
Application Rationalization: Moving to a Second Circle Portfolio
Revenue Growth, Technology & WebsitesI wrote a few weeks ago about strategic outsourcing and technology rationalization. Today, I am sharing some further views on successful technology portfolio assessment and a transformation strategy to Second Circle Technology ™. As the economic downturn continues we are seeing and increasing number of companies looking at cost reduction through application portfolio transformation. Application transformation with Second Circle Technology drives more flexible and lower cost while legacy systems constrain IT’s ability to meet business needs. We have seen reductions in cost that range from 15% to 30% of IT spend. At the same time, legacy application portfolios constrain the ability to meet business needs. Some of the typical constraints are:
There are also inhibitors that make changing the application portfolio a challenge:
We see many instances where companies fail in their efforts to transform their application portfolio. Often, there is insufficient up front focus securing business sponsorship and commitment. Transformation to a new or updated application portfolio is complex and there is an insufficient focus on the culture changes and buy-in needed to support the new approach. If you are trying to assess your application portfolio, you must ensure the transformation is driven by the business strategy – establish the business vision, leadership and sponsorship required to drive the program. When evaluating each application in the portfolio, you can use a structured analysis to select the most appropriate transformation approach. Begin with an inventory of applications and an overall mapping of how systems all fit together. From that point, you can assess each component of your architecture for the right strategies. Once the overall view is in place, you can make decisions at the application level. Options include:
To ensure success, make sure you treat your initiative as a business change program – put in place the required capabilities, skills and resources to deliver the transformation, define and communicate your approach.