Monthly Archives: March 2011

Software: Hacks upon Hacks

Posted by on March 31, 2011 3 comments

For all SME executives (and IT Teams) an excellent article by Eric Brown titled; Application Modernization – Replace, Rewrite or Replumb?

I urge you to read that article, Mr. Brown explicitly demonstrates and defines the decisions we need to make when looking at our technology systems. Specifically, (as Mr. Brown’s title suggests) the tough decisions on fixing versus replacing old software or IT systems.

For this post I wanted to pull out one small tidbit;

The AAR systems had both languished in disrepair for years with hacks upon hacks added to each to add new functionality and make the system work.

Defining ‘Hack’

The term ‘hack’, and of course ‘hacker’ has become a pop culture term meaning the typical bad guys stealing your private information, writing viruses, and all of the other nasty stuff that make our computer lives difficult.

In the technology world however, it has a couple of  alternate definitions, and one simply meaning the quick and dirty doing what is necessary to get the job done.

As a physical example, imagine that you want to move a ceiling light 4 feet in your kitchen. Rewiring the complete light to the new location is one thing. Using electrical tape and wire connectors to ‘bandage’ on that extra 4 feet of copper wire is a hack. (A risky one too)

First, as I will demonstrate below – a ‘hack’ is not necessarily a negative thing on its own, but when they get out of control – and worse, when the reason why it was made was never written down, you get ugly bandages of software attempting to keep things running. This is not just a big business problem, it can be worse in smaller businesses. You may use a tool such as Salesforce.com, if you are a slightly larger organization, perhaps some accounting, planning, or manufacturing tools such as Dynamics  (among many other possibilities).

And let me put it bluntly. Many small to medium business technology teams make decisions in ad-hoc formats, and consider actually writing things down to be just as much fun as a root canal.

Your first step should be guidelines on how modifications to IT systems are made, and second? Yes. Write the bloody reasons for that decision down, along with detail of the modifications. (I will state the ‘why’ in a minute)

Consider this example.

Years ago I worked with a business that purchased a type of software tool. (And here is how quickly not following those guidelines can create problems down the road)

We bought that software from a company in the United States. And our business was Canadian.

Simply enough – we don’t have ‘States’ or ‘ZIP Codes’. (As a side note, over the intervening decade, vendors have gotten better at supporting both with State/Province)

So the team modified ‘State’ to ‘Province’ and ‘Zip’ to ‘Postal Code’ within its database and application screens.

Simple!

Until the first invoice was generated from the system. State and Zip not there? software died.

Hack! Modify the invoicing piece of the system to use ‘Province’ and ‘Postal Code’

Simple!

Until the first management report on regional activity. Canadian Postal Codes can contain letters. Software died!

Hack! You get the idea.

Earlier I stated I would answer the ‘why’ question about these type of hacks.

Imagine a year or so later, version 2.0 of that product comes out. How will the upgrade go? My guess is that it will probably not work at all from those ‘hacks’. The worst part is that no one will understand why because they aren’t written down.

The SMB Takeaway

I realize that this example is fairly simplistic, but if you are a CFO, COO or General Manager responsible for IT, I hope it demonstrates that allowing ad-hoc and undocumented modifications will cause problems. Maybe not today, or even next year. But they will eventually.

Understand the risks, ensure you have guidelines, and most definitely, ensure that it is documented.

As another note – we are currently dealing with a system of our own that sounds like the twin brother of the subject used in Mr. Brown’s article. But that is for another time……

A Short Link – CFO Managing IT

Posted by on March 28, 2011 No comments

I have mentioned it here before, and in this article titled: An Action Plan for IT by CFO Magazine puts it much better than I ever could

Don’t merely pretend to understand, and don’t let ignorance push you to delegate significant spending decisions completely to the CIO.

The article states you need not try and dive into the weeds, the term I use is you need to know the relevant level of detail.

The SMB Takeaway

Technology is woven into the fabric of our business.

You must manage it carefully. To manage it – you need to understand at least to the relevant level of detail.

On Eavesdropping, IT Cost and Investment

Posted by on March 21, 2011 2 comments

This is a little story to demonstrate that IT tasks, usually aren’t ‘IT Tasks’. They are business problems.

This little story started  simply enough; I was sent by my Doctor to a radiology lab for an X-ray.

That is not interesting on its own, but here is where it got interesting. While I was sitting in that radiology waiting room, I overheard what seemed to have been an IT staff member talking to someone else about a technology issue.

OK, now I have to confess that I shamelessly eavesdropped on the little technology bits I heard. (And please – I was sitting in a waiting room about 10 to 15 feet from the speakers – not hiding in a broom closet near their offices!)

It seems they were having an issue where this clinic was required to send X-Ray digital images to some type of  remote facility, I don’t know if that remote location is an office, hospitals, or other Doctors offices as the end destination was never mentioned . What they did mention was that they were apparently soon going to have to do the same with fully digital ultrasound video.

And from what I heard, they had one big problem.Media

Their Internet network connection was not up to the task of pushing the amount of digital imagery and video they required. From their very frustrated comments, it sounded like their network connections to wherever this remote location or locations are is grinding to an evil halt just with the massive digital X-Ray images – and adding digital video would make traffic congestion worse.

It also seems that the building they were located in did not have newer (and faster) fiber optic based cabling entering the building, only older (and slower) copper wire cabling that they could use for their Internet connectivity. The IT staffer also complained that getting faster fiber optic based Internet speeds would cost 30 Grand because the business would have to pay for the complete tear up of the parking lot to lay the cable.

So that ends the little technology issue that I overheard. First, it paints an interesting story about cost and investment of technology infrastructure from a SME standpoint – and secondly, but more importantly it also opens points to many questions that need to be answered by both IT and business managers. And my goal with this one is to simply demonstrate why business managers and their IT Leadership must ensure open, complete, and accurate communications.

So, as an owner or manager in the small to medium business, lets work through this.

Fact: We don’t know why or to where, but large amounts of digital media are required to be sent remotely

Fact: Current network infrastructure is not able to handle the load

Fact: A minimum cost of $30,000.00 seems to be the price for upgrading that infrastructure.

Now here is where business and IT Managers need to be asking the tough questions. First question – for any IT spend on this issue; is it an expense, or an investment?

If this mandate for circulating massive amounts of this digital media in real time is simply for a head office mandate – it is probably just an expense. However, if this digital media needs to get to hospitals or Doctors offices – that is different from both a revenue generation and health care point of view – we can assume that there is a need to qualify that as an investment.

As an example, if this is just an head office mandate expense? Perhaps all this data real time is not necessary and tools that send out that data over night may be all that is required.

But that won’t work if you need those media objects sent to get paid – or if patients with possibly dangerous illnesses are waiting for that information.

So for this critical business case scenario – we need to look at everything – yes – even perhaps moving!

We don’t know how ‘fast’ their current copper based Internet connection is, we just know that it is not fast enough. Next question – could we get two (or even more) of these copper based Internet connections and have one (or more) dedicated to the video and image transfer requirements? It is possible, however the down side is that modifications to routing hardware will be required – not mention that we are at a minimum doubling our operating expenses for the Internet connection.

We don’t know this information, but depending on how much extra doubling (or tripling) of their OPEX for this Internet connectivity – over what time frame would that extra expense make the $30,000 cost of installing faster fiber optic cabling justified?

And note – we have not even touched whatever penalties or revenue losses they may be looking at with their existing slow network connection.

The SMB Takeaway

We don’t have enough information to help this business to a happy ending. But for managers in the SMB the sole purpose of this post?

To demonstrate that if we aren’t discussing everything, we can’t answer the complex questions that can be needed to effectively use technology within our business.

This story should show you one thing.

A faster Internet connection – sounds like just an IT task or project doesn’t it?

I hope the questions above show you that it far beyond an “IT Task”

It is a business decision based on business requirements with a true understanding of the associated costs and risks of each option.

Photo Credit Aidan Jones via flickr

Process And Inventory Turns

Posted by on March 17, 2011 No comments

If you have never been in a retail oriented line of business, the concept of inventory turn may be a bit alien. But when your business is involved in moving any kind of product, the faster you get that product sold and out of  the door, the less time you have cash locked up in those same products sitting on shelves or in warehouses.

The February 28 edition of Automotive News (subscription required) has an extensive article looking at the internal processes that can help improve inventory turns. From my reference material – I guess that the examples mentioned being in the automotive world is a little obvious! (but the concept of this post is not limited to that market)

First?

The numbers are amazing – the article provides examples that go from one large organization improving their inventory turns about 42% (saving about 400 Million) to a smaller organization that almost doubled theirs.

Now, I don’t write about inventory on this blog – I write about technology issues for non-technology managers! So……????

It is something I have repeated before; technology if necessary, but not necessarily technology

The point I want to make clear, in some of the examples provided there were indeed technology tools that helped meet their goals.

But as one example in reducing inventory processing time from 35 days to 15 days states;

… studying every step in handling … and improving the process…

Technology not always necessary.

I have written previously that removing friction, and by friction I mean reducing the gaps and time lost between individual steps or touch points can pay dividends.

You will never find a magic technology tool that you buy and that will instantly start a waterfall of cash onto your bottom line.

Technology?

Sure – it can help automate or standardize a good process. But people have to be doing the hard work involved in those processes first.

Disaster Preparedness And Recovery

Posted by on March 15, 2011 1 comment

We all know of the tragedy taking place in Japan after that massive quake and tsunami. And yes, there are already IT based articles describing how as business owners and managers we don’t take enough time to invest in business continuity and disaster recovery. I won’t re-hash those here.

I want to point out a not-so-simple thing we overlook when we talk about disaster recovery. That being preparedness.

And the best piece I have seen about preparedness was written in this article titled;  Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake

To quote;

Japan is exceptionally well-prepared to deal with natural disasters: it has spent more on the problem than any other nation, largely as a result of frequently experiencing them.

Now, when I talk preparedness, I am not just speaking about event ‘X’ has happened, when was the last time we tested our  fail over ability to ‘Y’?

So what is preparedness?

In Japan, emergency preparedness is baked into absolutely everything. It is not an afterthought. By saying baked in, I mean that from the initial planning and design stage – what to do in the event of a disaster is considered.

I urge you to read that reference post – because within 15 seconds notifications start,  and by 120 seconds protocols are active……

That is not a typo – Yes Seconds!

In 120 seconds – emergency protocols and events were taking place.

Trains, including those high speed bullet trains – emergency stops within seconds. The author even describes a web based application that had been built where each and every web page could be immediately taken over and replaced with an emergency warning.

Outside of this article, if you saw many of those horrible videos of the earthquake and start of the tsunami – one thing you may not have noticed was the screaming of automated warning systems. Again – these are in minutes!

Recovering from even minor disasters is never easy – and I join the world in offering condolences to the many in Japan affected. But let me add that this culture which has preparedness built into everything it does has outdone what my government or our businesses could ever hope to accomplish.

And that is something to think about.

Book Review: Financial Intelligence

Posted by on March 11, 2011 1 comment

Financial Intelligence, A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean

By Karen Berman and Joe Knight, ISBN 978-1-59139-764-9

Read this book a few years ago, but hauled it out to read it again.

For IT leadership in the small to medium business, if you are not already familiar with financial concepts, this book is a must read. It is written for non-financial managers to understand finance without an accounting or economics degree.

How are you at understanding income statements, the balance sheet, cash flow, or some of the key ratios that govern what  our business finances are truly telling us? If there is any uncertainty in your answers, read this!

Will reading this turn you into a forensic accounting expert? Absolutely not. Will it help you understand your effect on the bottom line with IT investments and costs? Absolutely.

Designing Process Backwards Revisited

Posted by on March 9, 2011 No comments

It was just a couple of weeks ago that I wrote  Design Process Backwards. Simply stating that when building internal processes, look at the end result that you are trying to achieve first. Then work backwards from that goal to identify what can be done to achieve those them.

On the HDI blog, Aileen Diefenbach has written an excellent example of this in piece titled; Translating User Feedback.

Step 1, start with the feedback of people directly affected.

Step 2, identify and pair the feedback with appropriate processes

The above article is about implementing IT Service Management via ITIL, but the same framework holds for all business process designs.

Not Able or Willing? Well, Which Is It?

Posted by on March 7, 2011 3 comments

A gem of a piece written by Henry Jenkins titled What Constitutes an Open-Book Exam in the Digital Age?

First, outside of my area of expertise, if you are in education or learning, a definite must read for its dialog about the future questions we need to answer in education.

As a tiny summary, if learning materials are digital, it stands to reason that digital devices (eg. laptops) could be included as permissible materials in an open book examination. But what about the communications enabled by wireless networks that would allow instant messaging, or other digital methods of using materials beyond course materials to cheat?

I will leave the education questions to experts in that field, for my technology in business niche, this next issue is the one I want to cover;

The idea: Disable networking of electronic devices within the exam environment, enabling using the student devices for course materials, but not allow them to get to IM or Facebook trying to obtain an answer from a friend who did the exam last semester.

Allow me to quote;

…asked the tech people if it would be possible to shut down the wireless in the room for the duration of the exams. They were not able/willing to do this

Not able, or not willing to do this……

And this is where IT Leadership gets a well deserved black eye for lousy communication and its failure to actually connect with business (OK, education in this example).

First – which is it? unwilling? or unable?

If the answer is unwilling, I think that is a failure of IT Leadership right there.

If the answer is unable, a clear explanation of the mitigating circumstances are deserved.

Wireless transmissions definitely cannot be turned off in one small space without ensuring surrounding areas are turned off as well. There is always the possibility that a strong enough signal can still be received. Secondly? perhaps this request was made 8 or 12 hours before the exam time. A dialog that the short time frame makes it impossible, buts lets look at next semester…. ?

As an IT Leader?

My first thought would be to ask what can I do to help an educator  take the next step in what could perhaps become a new chapter in learning.  Heck, I’d offer to co-write the research paper for both the technology and education journals!

Questions I would try to answer?

If wireless cannot be disabled in the examination room without an adverse affect on nearby learning spaces, would using a gymnasium or library space be possible? Is there any space segmented enough that temporarily turning off wireless could be done fairly easily?

Alternatively, could we load the applicable course materials on stand alone computers? (allowing students to have the digital materials available,  without having access to their own wireless enabled devices)

The Takeaway

As an IT Leader, would doing a one off thing like this be a challenge to accommodate? Sure – but if the experiment is successful, could we look at a space where that can be common occurrence during an examinations? Also yes.

And the larger concept of IT truly delivering more value supporting initiatives like this?

Priceless

Photo Credit Freenerd via flickr

Get Thy Internal House in Order

Posted by on March 2, 2011 No comments

I am going to steal some terms from the fields of psychology and behaviour,  namely the terms intrinsic and extrinsic.

The proper definition of extrinsic being: originating from or on the outside, and intrinsic being: originating or due to causes within.

The elements that make up the technology infrastructure of our businesses is admittedly complex. The interaction between servers, software, database engines and other devices can have unexpected behaviours. (translate that as bugs)

In the IT world a bug meaning an unwanted or harmful experience caused by errors in software code or devices.

So yes, these bugs can exist, and definitely do exist. And in my 15 plus years in the technology field I have seen at least a few of them.

But here is the thing, In that same 15 plus years, for every genuine bug I have seen, there were 10 issues caused by our own human error.

Human error from poor planning, poor practices, and poor implementations.

Now here is why I am stealing these words. (just briefly – I will return them later)

Many technology staff think extrinsically. They sound like this: Not my fault. Must be a server bug. Must be a problem with that hardware, that software, that database or that device.

And sure, perhaps there is a genuine ‘bug’. I usually doubt that though. IT staff need to think intrinsically first. What changes have we made? Was that software code, that change, that database, or that device implemented, changed or created using sound guidelines and practices?

I am willing to put a bet that human error wins the majority of time.

The SMB Takeaway

Certainly there can be external issues that cause IT services to fail. But check your internal practices first.

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