IS Consulting Process IS 6005

1
IS Consulting Process (IS 6005)

• Masters in Business Information Systems 2006 /
  2007
• Programme in Professional Information System
  Practices

Fergal Carton Business Information Systems
2
Last week

• Demo EBSCO access
• What is unique to the business?
• Business model (cost, products, design, customer
  satisfaction, )
• Unique feature (products, production methods, IS,
  supply chain, )
• Leading questions
• Revenue, headcount,
• Current successes, recent announcements,
• IS consulting profession
• Consultant, project manager, analyst
• Consultant skills
• Analytic abilities
• Analysis tools (IT audit example)
• Checklists, presentation matrices,
• Adding value in reporting findings in a way that
  prioritises actions to be taken
• Technical abilities
• Project management abilities
• Example from Accenture

3
This week

• Key roles in ERP project
• Handout (UCC example)
• ERP project team example (PCB case study)
• ERP project proposal
• High level phases and deliverables (not tied to
  dates)
• Project timeline
• Consultant skills (cont.)
• Relationship building abilities
• Proposal writing
• SIB Industries handout
• BPM Future of IT (Peter Keen article)

4
Project team composition

• Example of ERP project team from consultant
• Client engagement level
• Project management
• Process leads (for each process affected)
• a process lead will have sub-process leads
• Technology leads
• Change Management leads
• At least 5 years experience
• Analysts below this not shown (at proposal stage)

5
Project team composition UCC

• Skills
• Mix of technical and business skills
• Representatives from every functional area
• Data clean-up and migration
• Application knowledge
• IT implications
• Team members
• Full-time availability
• Power users
• Skill transfer

6
Project team composition PCB
7
Key roles in ERP project

• Mix of technical and business skills
• Team members seniority and competence
• Include all functions in team
• Catch-22 the right person is busy!

8
Our proposed approach segments the program
delivery into four components supported by a
focused Enterprise Planning Team
Phase 1
Phase 2 3
GlobalPrototype
Build Test
Deploy
Run

• Model to be processes
• Create baseline configuration
• Assess organizational impact
• Generate functional designs
• Develop and build development architecture
• Develop technical infrastructure requirements
• Plan for build, test and deploy

• Finalize detailed configuration
• Complete technical designs
• Build reports, conversions, extensions and
  interfaces
• Build execution architecture
• Conduct integrated system test
• Develop training
• Prepare conversion plan
• Define on-going support organization

• Plan system migration and data cleanup
• Conduct test fires
• Train users
• Implement help desk support
• Conduct business simulation
• Develop detailed conversion plan
• Convert site
• Stabilize site

• Manage and maintain production environment
• Prioritize enhancement requests
• Perform break/fix
• Establish and manage to SLAs
• Manage data center network operations
• Provide help desk support

Enterprise Planning
9
In our standalone design build model, we deliver
the ERP program within 18 months, delivering the
new capabilities in 2 releases
18 Month Program Window
2001
1999
2000
Mobilization
Global Prototype
Build and Unit Test
Integrated System Test
U.S. Site Preparation
U.S. Launch and Stabilize
U.S. Launch
Ireland and Sales Site Preparation
Ireland Sales Launch and Stabilize
Ireland and Sales Launch
10
The right combination of skills from EMC,
Andersen Consulting and Oracle positions us to
successfully deliver this large, complex program
Global Prototype Organization
Steering Committee
Mike Ruettgers Paul Noble Dave Donatell Bob Heise
Steve Reilly Bob Dutkowsky Colin Patteson Phil
Dolen
Quality Assurance
Advisory Committee
Gary Bloom Ron Veith
Stephen Kampe Michael Rissi
Program Office
Chris Bowers Marty Ferguson
Janet Simons Oracle Representative
Enterprise Planning Team
Oracle Solution Delivery
Mike Langois John Drake Value Delivery Management
Terri Strauss
Develop New Products
Product Delivery
Demand Management
Enterprise Management
Technical
Change Management
Mark McGloughlin AC/Oracle - TBD
EMC - TBD Ravi Vuppala John Tolmachoff
Kathy Lyons Justin Kennedy
EMC -TBD Vladimir Teofilovic
Franck Cincotta Basil Yunan
Carol Neville Dan Lopolito
11
Relationship Building Abilities

• Build rapport and trust with the client
• Difficult to define
• Feature of all communication (not just
  face-to-face)
• Not just what is said, but how things are said
• Question effectively
• Way to build rapport and control the direction of
  the conversation
• Open questions, closed questions
• Ask the right questions (preparation)
• Ask them the right way (practice)
• E.g. avoid interrogating, vary styles, positive
  open questions, closed to confirm, statement with
  a quizzical look/rising tone, etc..

12
Relationship Building Abilities

• Communicate ideas succinctly and precisely
• Different areas use different language (e.g.
  finance, marketing)
• The Key is not the consultants knowledge of the
  area, but how the consultant uses that knowledge
  to create value for the business
• Most impact when he/she talks the same language
  as the client
• May need to translate technical jargon into plain
  language
• Negotiate objectives and outcomes
• Client may not have a clear idea of what is
  wanted for the business or may have unrealistic
  ideas which are not achievable within the project
• Disappointment for both the client and consultant
  results more from unclear expectations than poor
  outcomes

13
Relationship Building Abilities

• Convince others through verbal, written and
  visual mediums
• Having good ideas is not enough
• Conviction results if ideas are communicated in a
  manner that is appropriate to the audience
• Ideas must have substance - Use information to
  make a case for a particular course of action
• Some information included in the initial
  communication and some held back as a response to
  questions and/or objections

14
Relationship Building Abilities

• Develop selling strategies
• Consultants must sell ideas, sell themselves and
  their organizations
• Consultancy does not respond well to a
  hard-sell approach
• Focus on what you can offer the client with a
  view to building a long-term, mutually beneficial
  relationship
• Work effectively as a member of a team
• Consultancy team and extended client team
• Requires careful definition of individual roles
  and responsibilities
• Requires interpersonal, motivation and conflict
  resolution skills
• Align interests of the team individuals with the
  overall task that the team faces sometimes
  necessary to compromise individual concerns in
  the interest of the group, as a whole

15
Relationship Building Abilities

• Demonstrate Leadership
• Ability to focus and direct individuals to act in
  a certain way
• Draws together many relationship skills (e.g.
  articulate vision, motivation, communication)
  into one behavioural strategy
• Leadership is not a fixed property, but is
  situational may shift between members of a
  project as the project evolves and the situation
  changes
• Leadership Core Competencies
• Project Management Institute (2005) Vol. 6,
  Issue 1.