Speed bumps on your Information Highway

Speed bumps are an effective way to get people to slow down on the road.

They also affect the use of technology in your business. It can also go beyond technology and prevent you from improving your performance in other ways.

In a recent discussion, a client mentioned that there are a lot of opportunities and ideas for improvement, but there is no "down time" between events. This was identified by an organization that used events as a major revenue generator. The problem was that they knew the way that they managed the events was inefficient, but they couldn't improve them, because as they cleaned up from one event, they started another one.

This is also true in any day-to-day operation. When sales are good, everybody scrambles to respond to customer needs and doesn't focus on improving performance. Improving performance requires stepping back from the fray and looking at how you can improve the operation, then designing and implementing solutions. This becomes more complicated when you install new software or try to use the software that you have in different ways. You need time to learn how to use the software and figure out how to apply it to the problem. When you change something, you need to learn how to do it (even if you designed it) and this slows you down and affects productivity.

As small business owners, we often feel that we cannot afford increased expenses. This applies to software and the use of consultants or advisors. This costs us money. The only time we consider this is when business is not so good and we have to reduce expenses. They we find out that it will cost us to save money, and we are doing it in a declining market.

When you are driving slowly on a built up road, speed bumps are not a problem. They are only a problem when you have an open road and an opportunity to move faster. The same is true of speed bumps in your business. When business is great, you have an opportunity to increase sales even more, by improving productivity and reducing costs, but you can't do that without help. You don't want to take on long term projects that may someday gain some benefits. You want to focus benefits that improve productivity in the short term, while business is booming. The way to do that is to have someone look at existing business processes and what is holding you back, then work with you to develop actions.

You can't afford to have someone study your needs, make recommendations and walk away. Knowing what to do is not enough. The speed bumps will prevent you from developing solutions. You need focus and support during the implementation process. This is even more true when you are running hard to keep up with customer needs.

Having a trusted advisor, who understands your business (and not buried in day-to-day activities) can help you to take a broader view of your business operations and help you to maintain focus during these critical times.

On the Theory of Constraints and IT

Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt wrote about the theory of constraints in this book "The Goal".

The original process was designed and implemented and everybody understood it when it started. In the normal operation of a business, some activities become more efficient than others over time. People learn how to do them more effectively.

When these activities become more efficient, a constraint is normally created in other activities that have not been improved. This activity becomes a constraint and inventory piles up in front of the constraint. We normally think of this in a manufacturing line, but the same things is true in a service process.

When things pile up in front of a constraint, the process breaks down and prioritization and escalation starts to happen. Effort gets redicrected from other activities to the area of constraint. While this gets the work out the door, it also impacts normal workload and problems and backlogs occur in other areas as a result.

This is the general concept of the theory of constraints. What does this have to do with Information Technology?

Information Technology can improve productivity and performance of an organization. It is often a much more efficient way of running than a manual operation. There are two issues encountered that relate directly to the theory of constraints and these are the key reasons for failure of many software projects.

1. When new software is installed in a business, management often assumes that the process still operates as it was installed a few years ago. This is seldom the case. Since productivity of some activities has improved, the process operates in a different way and has new constraints. Often the improved productivity provided by the new software operates on the already improved activities, not on the constraints, creating bigger problems for the constraints.
2. Computer software comes with an assumed process built in. Most software is not very tolerant of exceptions and major problems are encountered when ongoing exceptions are found. This takes more effort to manage the exceptions, when the exceptions are already a burden. The number of exceptions and reprioritizations increases, creating a bigger bottleneck in the business.

Your goal is to get work out the door, satisfy your client's needs and get paid as quickly as possible. The "improved productivity" provided by the new software becomes a new bottleneck, reducing productivity and increasing frustration. All of this costs you time and money.

The problem started with buying new software to upgrade your business performance. See my article on "The Importance of Business Process" to find a starting point.

10 Reasons your small business needs a technology services provider

I found a blog entry that described these ten reasons and they are excellent points.

There is one issue that isn't mentioned though, and that is your service provider's focus. Many IT service providers to small business take the "break-fix" approach. That means that they wait until you call and fix the problem that you have identified. They have better skills and can fix the problems much more quickly than internal staff, but that is only a very small benefit.

The real issue is that technology can be managed, problems can be prevented. When well managed, the number of service incidents can be reduced, which means that you don't get the interruptions at all. This is where the real benefit is.

Read the 10 reasons

An IT project is a business change project

I just read an article by Jed Simms identifying that every project is a change project and should be managed as such.

What does this mean? Many of the business owners that I talk to are not interested in technology and don't want to have to deal with it. They aren't comfortable with it, despite the fact that it surrounds us. The reason is that much of the technology is hard to deal with. Software is developed by software programmers for software programmers. It isn't developed for normal people. So it's not hard to understand why business people don't want to have to deal with it.

The problem lies with the fact that when we change technology, we are changing the business. Our business processes are affected, therefore our daily work is affected. Our business lives are changed (or why did we do it?). We were looking for improvements, we were looking for change. When we change business software or even the underlying technology (like Vista), we are changing our daily activities. We do much of our daily work without thinking about it. When our subconscious takes over, we get much more efficient. However, when faced with change in our daily work, we have to start thinking about it. We have to learn these new ways of doing things. This slows us down tremendously. We become less productive.

In many cases, the change can feel overwhelming. There is so much to learn and we still have our normal work to do. What do we spend our time on? How do we prioritize? Since we can't get our work done in the normal time, we start to get stressed. We often revert to the way we used to do it, or find some other shortcut. These shortcuts are not always useful from the perspective of the new technology or software. This causes numerous problems.

As a business owner, you don't need to focus on this technology. You need to focus on the change in your business. How will your business be changed? What is the most important thing for your staff to learn about this new software? How do you get them to be productive more quickly?

This is what a change project is all about. This is why every business owner needs to be aware of the business impact. This is why any IT project needs to be dealt with as a business change project.

More on the Technology mindset

I have been asking this question to see how it is affecting business operations. In the first few interviews, I was looking at people who are uncomfortable with technology, although I saw problems with people who were comfortable with some aspects of technology and tended to overuse the same tool.

Today I spoke to an entrepreneur who was comfortable with technology, but but was frustrated with the time it took to learn new tools. His problem was not the learning process, he enjoyed it. His problem was that during the learning process, he was unproductive. It took far too long to get the job done and when he needed information about his business, his files weren't up-to-date. That means it was affecting his business. His frustration and the time required was bothering him and causing him to delay working with the software.

This brings up a point that happens in every business. When you implement new software, you lose productivity. Much of what we do everyday, we do by remote control. We don't think about it, because it has become routine. This is good, because we are much more productive and effective (try thinking about walking and see how difficult it is).

When we implement new software, we can't do it subconsciously, we have to think about it. We are also often overwhelmed by the sheer functionality of the software. We bought it because it had a lot more functionality than we had before (if not, why did we buy it?). The result is that we become less productive. If we focus on the whole software product (if that's possible), we resist dealing with it (That's why many software projects fail to meet their goal, people revert to the old way).

The solution is to focus. Find those items that are a priority. Spend your time on them and get up-to-speed quickly. Then focus on your next priority. As you do this, you will learn to do these things automatically, your frustrations will go down, and you will become productive much more quickly.

Unfortunately, software suppliers don't help you. Their interest is to "train you". This means turning on the firehose of training. This isn't the way you learn and it doesn't help your business. Focus on your business processes and the software functions that achieve your objectives. If you want more detail, check out my white papers for more information.

If you want to know what happened to my friend an his mindset, we identified three transactions that he needed to focus on. He is going back to get help on those specific transactions, and now recognizes that they will only take a few minutes to handle as part of an assignment. He has scheduled learning periods for himseff to bring him up to speed on the software. This won't impact his business performance, since it isn't being done at critical times. He enjoys the learning and can focus on this during his learning sessions.

Should you care about SR&ED?

SR&ED (Scientific Research & Experimental Development) is a tax credit program provided by the Canadian Government to help companies improve their competitive position. In a recent discussion with a SR&ED consultant, I found that many of the activities that a company undertakes may qualify for a tax credit. This can help a company to justify their expenditures on advancement.

Information Technology is a necessity for any company to survive today. Since technology is constantly changing, keeping up with technology and increasing the return on investment is also a necessity. This is more than a technologists view, but one of a company improving or maintaining its competitive position.

Most people probably think of SR&ED in terms of research and development projects, but the Income Tax Act defines it more broadly. There is a structured approach to the requirements and sometimes it can be difficult to go back and justify expenditures as SR&ED eligible.

There are three criteria for eligibility:

1. The project must be undertaken in a systematic manner, following a scientific method and be carried out by qualified personnel.
2. The business must face a technological uncertainty with regards to the project.
3. The business conducting the project must seek to advance its technology, even if the advancement may be only incremental.

When I take on an assignment, the company that I work with has normally failed to successfully implement software to upgrade their business performance, which was their goal. On the face of it, they possibly have qualified for criteria 2 &3 above. They obviously faced technological uncertainty, because they failed. They were attempting to advance their technology as they were implementing new software to upgrade business performance. The only criteria that they may not have met is the first one. Was the project undertaken in a systematic manner, following a scientific method and carried out by qualified personnel?

In my experience, these projects did not follow criteria 1. They didn't get qualified personnel to help them because they didn't want to spend the money. They often fail to get the value or business outcomes that they sought because they didn't have the skills. The SR&ED program may be an opportunity to provide a win-win. Since expenses on an a project that follows a systematic method are eligible, the business may hire skilled consultants to help them and get some of those costs back in a tax credit, their success and profitability are improved.

Can a business afford not to invest in getting help to improve their business performance? This is only a preliminary view of the potential for a business to gain twice from SR&ED. As I learn more about the opportunity, I'll provide an update.

The 5 factors for a successful software project

In my experience, software projects in small business are successful for a few good reasons, none of which has to do with the software itself. It has to do with the approach of the manager or owner of the business.

The 5 factors are:

• Attitude
• Consistency
• Persistence
• Support
• Advice

I've discussed your technology attitude in a number of posts, and this is a critical factor. If you go in with an attitude that you aren't comfortable, you are aiming at failure.

Consistency is the second most important. For those people who have had negative experiences with computers, you may find this hard to believe, but computers are very consistent. They will do the same thing every time and will expect you to do the same. People are much more flexible and can adapt when things change. They don't recognize that St. and Street are the same and a lot of problems are caused by inconsistency of data. The same is true if you change the way you do something.

Persistence is the third key element. I have never seen a software project that goes perfectly and that is often due to our lack of consistency. No matter how frustrating it seems, you have to push on through and solve those problems that you will encounter during implementation. Most of them have simple solutions. The good news is that because of consistency, once they are solved (really solved), they don't return.

Support is a critical element. If you have no experience with installing software to upgrade your business, get someone to help you. An experienced consultant can help you overcome those simple problems that I mentioned. You will save a lot of time and effort and be able to continue to make progress towards your goal. Get somebody who will work with you throughout your implementation, not just react to your problems when you encounter them.

Even better, get some advice before you start. This will allow you to plan more effectively and prevent many of the problems that you are likely to encounter. If you do choose to get advice, look for a supplier who will work with you throughout the project. This means that they will learn more about your business and be in a better position to support you when you need it.

Notice that none of these factors involve either the software or your technical skills.

A long time ago, a mentor told me that there are three factors for success: focus, will and capability; capability is the least important. If you maintain focus and have the will to continue, you will develop the skills or capabilities that you need.