Flipping The Fit Gap

I've been in the software business a long time now...I can remember from first-hand experience how things were done 15 and 20 years ago.  It seems like one of the biggest changes from then to now comes in our approach to "Fit Gap".

Fit Gap sessions are part of most packaged application implementations approaches.  The idea is to compare user requirements with software functionality in order to see how well the software "fits" with those requirements and where the software fails to meet those requirements (each of the latter is a "gap").

In the past, the focus was on fulfilling identified gaps by manipulating the software:  personalizations, extensions, customizations...what ever was needed to support changing the software to fit end user business practices.  But times have changed.

Enterprise Application systems now come with industry best practices baked into the software.  In fact, when Enterprise Software vendors talk today about "transforming your enterprise", they're really focused on three things:

1.  Leveraging the best business practices baked into the software to improve a customer's business processes.

2. Providing valuable information about your enterprise from all that data collected by the enterprise applications system (transactional reports, business intelligence and analytics, etc.).

3. Improve your operational agility and provide an opportunity to redirect your IT focus by moving your IT operations to the cloud.

The changes in Enterprise Applications have changed the nature of the Fit Gap process.  The emphasis has changed.  The objective is no longer to simply move your business processes to a new technical platform.  Instead, the target is to determine how well the best practices baked into the applications will work for your enterprise.  In other words, will this software package make my business better?

Over the past few years, I've seen a change as Enterprise Applications customers have picked up on the change.  There's less of an effort on building big requirements up front.  Instead, those customers are running the software "plain vanilla" out of the box in a test run (or Conference Room Pilot 1 or CRP 1).  Afterwards, the Fit Gap is conducted...but with a focus on how well the current enterprise fits into the business processes baked into the software.  Changing the software mostly occurs when the customer enterprise is, for one critical business reason or another, unable to fit into a best practice.

Big change when you think about it.  Fit Gap has been flipped from an emphasis on "make the software fit us" to "how can the software help transform our business"?  Fit Gap has been flipped!

Moving Forward

Seems to be quite a bit of buzz in the enterprise software user community these days about moving forward.  Budgets have loosened up, users want better experiences, in-house IT providers want to reduce maintenance and infrastructure investments, C-level officers want better and more timely information on strategic initiatives, and everybody wants to be agile (even though there are multiple visions of agile, we all want it).  So it seems the big question lately is "how do we move forward"?

Most of my posts lately sound like "blasts from the past"...you can probably add this post to that category.  I'd recommend four things you can begin with right now in preparing to move forward:

1.  Move To The Latest Applications Release

If you're not on the latest release of PeopleSoft, Campus Solutions, E-Business Suite, or whatever packaged products you're using, get there.  Doing so will assure that you have the best platform to move forward from, in addition to making most transitions substantially less complicated.

2.  Prepare A Business Roadmap For Moving Forward

Another way to state this is is develop a description, in well-defined behavioral terms, for where you want your enterprise to be.  Note that this is not a technical roadmap, but more of a business-oriented roadmap.  Some considerations for that business roadmap may include:

3.  Inventory Your Enterprise Assets

Understand what assets you have on-hand that may help or hinder your way forward.  Were it me, I'd want five categories of existing enterprise assets:

• Business processes
• Applications (custom and packaged)
• Information (including both what we have and what we share with whom - they're different!)
• Projects
• Customizatons

4.  Reconsider your customizations

Customizations increase the cost of moving forward and extend the time required. That customizations list we built in step 3?  Why do we have those customizations?  Could we replace any of them with out-of-the-box functionality from shrink-wrapped applications?  What about an extension to a packaged application?  Do we still need the customization at all?  Should we rebuild the customization on a new technology platform?

So, there ya go.  Four things you can do today.  No consulting services or special tools required.  Just serious commitment on your part: get to the latest release of whatever you're using, describe your desired business end-state, catalog your enterprise assets and reconsider your customizations.  The discussion doesn't change, regardless of the tech platform you're currently using.

We'll talk soon about what comes next.  In the meantime, share your thoughts in the comments...and get busy!

A Crazy Game Of Poker, Verse 2

A few months ago, I announced my resignation from EiS Technologies ("A Crazy Game Of Poker").  Another one of those leaps of faith - agreeing to part months ahead of time, not quite knowing where I was going next.  It's a great approach to parting ways with an employer if all parties can step up to behaving like grown-ups.  It gives the employer time to find and train a replacement as well as picking your brain for knowledge transfer, and it gives the employee time to search for the next gig without facing huge financial pressures.  It works well as long as all parties are mature enough to refrain from any vindictive behavior.

Big kudos to the leadership at EiS for stepping up through this time period and making it all work well.  EiS is a special place with a special team...I miss every bit of it.

I started a new adventure with Io Consulting in February.  I like the social value of the company's mission:  100% Oracle, 100% Higher Education, 100% Customer Satisfaction.  Each and every one of those elements are important to me.  My role will be building up Fusion Middleware and Oracle Cloud Applications Services capabilities within the company. So I'll continue to be deeply involved in User Experience, ADF, and the overall Fusion/Cloud Applications architecture.  I'll likely get into some PeopleSoft & Campus Solutions areas as well...it's been awhile since I've been intimately involved in either, so it'll be nice to get back there again.  So I'm very excited to join the Io Consulting team and look forward to what lies ahead.

In some ways, it will be weird: no more Collaborate or KScope, a little less emphasis on EBS, a more narrowly focused customer set.  But I'll get to attend Alliance on a regular basis (rather than the sporadic attendance of the last five years) and I'll still be a regular at OOW.  And the new management team uses the word "cool" on a regular basis, so that's a good indicator.  And I get to work with Ted Simpson - it gets no better than that!

OK, I'm done being self-centered now.  The next post will take us back to our regularly scheduled programming.