Pilots to Profits

by Gerber, Rip

• ISBN13: 9781587768354
• ISBN10: 1587768356
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-30
• Publisher: Hudson House Pub

Summary

Benefit from the 20/20 hindsight of over 50 executives, business managers and IT professionals whose detailed roundtable discussions present their experiences, insights and useful tips for implementing applications with measurable ROI. Planners and implementers will all benefit from these lessons.Pilots to Profits helps you define, pilot and effectively deploy mobile and wireless applications. Security, change management, budgeting, pilot project logistics, build-or-buy decisions, and aligning business objectives with IT initiatives are just some of the topics addressed.Starting with "why is now a good time to seriously consider mobile and wireless," this book moves readers through the key strategic and tactical issues that affect the process. Each chapter is designed to be effective by itself so you can read cover to cover, pick and choose chapters based on your pressing needs.About the participants Roundtable participants come from several countries represent organizations of all sizes bring experiences from the commercial, government and not-for-profit sectors collectively have deployed a wide range of applications These individuals range from people who are planning their initial deployment to those who have completed one or more.

Author Biography

Craig Settles, with 18 years experience helping organizations understand how technology can improve their bottom line, punctuates participants' observations with additional points to consider.Rip Gerber, Chief Marketing Officer for Intellisync, adds critical viewpoints from the vendor side of the deployment equation. Any major project involves multiple-vendor participation which brings with it multiple opinions, agendas and solutions.Together, their industry, technology consulting and strategic planning expertise helps you avoid many pitfalls and setbacks. Whether you're starting your first mobile or wireless deployment, or you already have some battle scars, ôPilots to Profitsö will be your constant companion.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xvii
Mobile Mandate #1. Now Is the Right Time to ``Go Mobile''	1	(18)
What's driving mobility?	1	(2)
Show them the way	3	(1)
Removing the barriers to executive action	4	(2)
Roundtable discussion	6	(9)
Bill Brook
Randy Carpio
Joseph S. Keri
Tony Carroll
What's was it that convinced you the time was right for a mobile or wireless implementation?	8	(2)
When you were first considering the technology, was there someone who walked you through a process to analyze how your business might be able to use mobile and wireless, or did you go straight to a pilot project of some sort?	10	(1)
Why haven't other organizations haven't committed to mobile and wireless?	11	(1)
What are some compelling reasons for organizations to seriously consider a wireless or mobile application?	12	(2)
What are some general guidelines you would give people for setting ROI objectives?	14	(1)
Food for Thought	15	(4)
Mobile Mandate #2. Be Prepared to Embrace Change	19	(16)
You can bank on change	19	(2)
Are you ready?	21	(1)
Improved decision making	22	(1)
Adjusting the role of IT	23	(1)
Roundtable discussion	24	(10)
Howard White
Bill Barrett
Russ Matsenbaugh
Steve McDonald
After deploying mobile and wireless, have you seen changes in your organization's or department's business operations beyond time and cost savings? Did you foresee these changes?	26	(2)
Are your people who are using mobile technology making better decisions? Are the people with whom mobile workers interact making better decisions?	28	(2)
Have you seen, or do you foresee, the technology changing how your organization works with outside vendors and contractors?	30	(1)
Are mobile and wireless deployments different than deploying other types of technology? If so, in what ways, and how can IT staffs adjust to better address these differences?	31	(1)
How do you recommend resolving issues associated with multiple vendor relationships that are typical of many mobile and wireless deployments?	32	(2)
Food for Thought	34	(1)
Mobile Mandate #3. Build consensus among and between executives, managers and departments	35	(14)
Executive participation is more than an option	35	(1)
With executive participation must come rank & file participation	36	(2)
Roundtable discussion	38	(8)
Pam Carlin
Johan Kroes
Peter Jackson
John Sands
Are your senior executives using mobile devices?	40	(1)
What was it that made executives either early believers or disbelievers in mobile and wireless? What did you do to overcome the reluctance of the disbelievers?	41	(1)
Do senior level executives have different expectations for the technology than department managers?	42	(2)
How did regular mobile workers and employees initially respond to plans to deploy the technology? If there was resistance, how was this addressed?	44	(1)
How would you recommend organizations get maximum support from rank & file employees early in the mobile and wireless implementation planning stage?	45	(1)
Food for Thought	46	(3)
Mobile Mandate #4. Align technology initiatives with business objectives	49	(14)
Ten business side tips to getting the best from your IT group	49	(1)
Effective alignment begins with your state of mind	49	(1)
Lean towards simplicity and prioritization	50	(1)
Be clear on your business objectives	51	(1)
Be clearer on quantifying or qualifying results	52	(1)
Roundtable discussion	52	(8)
Gregory Morrison
Joyce Lewis, Sr.
John Jarrell
How did your organization go about aligning your wireless application initiatives with the business objectives of various departments?	54	(1)
Are there steps an organization can take to get the business side and the IT side to better understand each other's needs, motivations or operations issues?	55	(1)
What steps do you take to resolve conflicting objectives and keep initiatives on track by both IT and business departments?	56	(2)
Were your executives actively involved with decision-making, planning and/or deployment of your mobile and wireless applications?	58	(1)
What advice would you give organizations to help them get business managers and IT working from the same page when planning, deploying and evaluating mobile and wireless deployments?	59	(1)
Food for Thought	60	(3)
Mobile Mandate #5. Know the Key Issues that Define a Deployment	63	(14)
Bird's-Eye-View of your choices	63	(1)
Buy it, build it, rent it	63	(2)
Roundtable discussion	65	(11)
Robert C. Smallback, Jr.
Tom Baumgartner
Ralph Nichols
Matt Piatt
Jeff Pinney
What factors contributed to the decision to buy or develop in-house your mobile and wireless applications?	68	(2)
How do you ensure and manage mobile hardware and data security?	70	(1)
What are the top two or three challenges that business managers and IT staff will face working with hardware and software vendors to achieve business objectives?	71	(2)
How much do you try to standardize on hardware within the organization?	73	(2)
What steps should organizations take to ensure that the capabilities of mobile applications, or at least the data they access, collect and manipulate, can be shared across departments?	75	(1)
Food for Thought	76	(1)
Mobile Mandate #6. Create cross-departmental project teams	77	(14)
Get the right people on board	77	(1)
Managing expectations	78	(2)
Roundtable discussion	80	(8)
Dianah Neff
Bob Roewer
Philip Derrow
Kevin Kammer
Who was selected to head up the team to develop your pilot project, how, and what were their responsibilities?	82	(1)
Who were the other people on the team and how were they selected?	83	(2)
How effective was the mix of people on the team, and would you make any changes in the composition of the next pilot project team?	85	(1)
What steps did your team take to manage executives' and managers' expectations of what the pilot would accomplish?	86	(1)
Do you recommend using any particular incentives to get members of the team to work with a sense of urgency?	87	(1)
Food for Thought	88	(3)
Mobile Mandate #7. Set proper parameters for pilot projects	91	(16)
Key factors to consider	91	(3)
The end user factor	93	(1)
Roundtable discussion	94	(11)
Andy Hendricks
Rich Lamers
Kevin Lillis
Warren Newman
What were the main objectives of your pilot project? Who helped establish these objectives?	96	(2)
How did you determine which category of mobile devices (i.e., PDAs, ruggedized laptops) and software to use as part of the pilot?	98	(1)
To what extent did you attempt to test for variables such as workers traveling nationwide vs. within a city or region, or some users working in daylight while others worked at night?	99	(2)
What steps did you take to make the pilot an accurate predictor of the cost and ROI of full deployment?	101	(1)
What are potential pitfalls that you would warn organizations to avoid as they plan their pilot projects?	102	(3)
Food for Thought	105	(2)
Mobile Mandate #8. Clearly identify tech-side issues of the pilot	107	(16)
Budget considerations	107	(1)
Obsolescence and other factors that can increase pilot costs	108	(1)
System management during the pilot	109	(2)
Roundtable discussion	111	(9)
Howard Stockdale
Scott A. Shamp
Raymond St-Jean
Who established the budget for the pilot project? What were some of the challenges to staying within budget, and how were these challenges overcome?	112	(3)
How did you decide which specific vendors' hardware/software/services to include in the pilot? Did you use the pilot to select between competing vendors?	115	(2)
What procedures did you use to evaluate the viability of the chosen technology to function properly as needed by the end users?	117	(1)
Were steps put in place to ensure data security on devices and on back office servers?	118	(1)
What advice would you give to others in your position to ensure that during the pilot they get good feedback on the technology from end users who may not be very tech savvy?	119	(1)
Food for Thought	120	(3)
Mobile Mandate #9. Clearly identify business-side issues of the pilot	123	(16)
Budgetary issues	123	(1)
Management issues	124	(2)
Measuring results	126	(1)
Roundtable discussion	127	(12)
Greg George
Dr. Joyce Copeland
Jim Miller
Jonathan Turner
Did the mobile devices that employees preferred to use in the pilot differ from what IT preferred? If there are differing preferences, what steps do you recommend to resolve the issue?	129	(2)
How did you select people to participate in the pilot (i.e., asked for volunteers, determined by work territory or office location, a cross section of managers and employees)?	131	(2)
How do you recommend that managers select and manage people in order to get the best results and feedback, from the pilot?	133	(1)
What steps did you take to ensure the security of mobile devices and the organization's data?	134	(2)
What procedures, paperwork, etc. did you put in place to analyze the technology's impact on your budget, resources and business processes?	136	(1)
How did you overcome resistance to the technology from employees? For organizations that have this challenge, how do you recommend they tackle this issue?	136	(3)
Mobile Mandate #10. Capitalize on the pilot-to-full deployment transition	139	(18)
Defining moment in the implementation process	139	(1)
Can you really get there from here?	140	(2)
Course adjustment -- not for the faint of heart	142	(1)
Roundtable discussion	143	(11)
Gene Smith
Dennis Stevens
Tony Rude
Drew Wilson
Chris Bailey
William Tara
What factors uncovered in the pilot determined your move to full deployment? Were there any surprises discovered during the pilot project that influenced your decision?	145	(3)
Did you have to adjust the budget figures or change ROI and other business objectives because of what the pilot uncovered?	148	(1)
Did you have to change some of the technology components based on results of the pilot, such as security products and procedures, hardware selection, wireless carrier plans?	149	(1)
What steps did you take logistically to move from pilot project to full deployment (i.e., plan updates, meetings with project team?	150	(1)
How much time was there between the end of the pilot and starting full deployment?	151	(1)
Were there any steps you took to get end users ready for deployment?	152	(2)
Food for Thought	154	(3)
Mobile Mandate #11. Leverage the short-term successes of deployment	157	(16)
IT's role in promoting the early wins	158	(1)
Roundtable discussion	159	(12)
Miguel Matias
Paul Moen
Aaron Foster
Lori Dunkin
How long did it take to complete full deployment?	162	(1)
Is your deployment happening in stages? If so, how are the tages structured (by the month, by region where end users work)?	163	(1)
Did (does) your implementation plan have benchmarks to measure incremental success? What are some examples of those milestones?	164	(1)
How did you address the office politics surrounding deployment that can derail early successes?	165	(2)
How do you collect end user feedback as well as ROI data during the early days of deployment?	167	(1)
How would you recommend organizations address the rapid technology changes that occur during or shortly after deployment?	168	(3)
Food for Thought	171	(2)
Mobile Mandate #12. Keep total cost of ownership (TCO) under control	173	(18)
How spending too little can cost too much	173	(1)
Roundtable discussion	174	(15)
Dr. James Thompson
Tom Kilcourse
Steve Goldman
Was TCO for your organization greater or less than what you expected the full cost of the implementation to be?	176	(3)
How do you effectively budget for TCO? What steps would you recommend organizations take during the pilot to identify TCO and minimize it for full deployment?	179	(3)
How can organizations prevent or minimize the creation of silos of technology?	182	(2)
Are there vendor factors (i.e., size of vendors' business operations, experience in your industry) that can influence TCO? Is technology obsolescence a major factor in your TCO equation?	184	(3)
Did implementing the application create any business management challenges (enforcing security policies, business disruption, enforcing compliance with business policies, etc.) that cost time or money?	187	(2)
Food for Thought	189	(2)
Mobile Mandate #13. Beware the Threats to a Successful Deployment	191	(18)
The terrible twos	191	(1)
Guidelines to better project management	192	(1)
Guidelines to managing expectations -- a never-ending job	193	(2)
Roundtable discussion	195	(13)
Drew Mazeitis
Greg Lush
Randy Decker
What can you do if poor project management threatens the deployment?	196	(3)
How do you engineer change to your business operations to maximize the benefits of the technology?	199	(4)
How can an organization avoid becoming a ``victim of its success'' with an implementation that delivers the promised benefits, but overwhelms other systems with the positive results?	203	(2)
Does deployment of the technology lead to demands for greater software application development?	205	(1)
If there are other unexpected costs arising from full deployment, how do you resolve these issues?	206	(2)
Food for Thought	208	(1)
Mobile Mandate #14. Always measure how far you've come	209	(17)
Looking for ROI in all the right places	209	(1)
Did you achieve the planned ROI?	210	(2)
The unplanned benefits may be the greater ROI	212	(1)
The future factors into ROI	213	(1)
Roundtable discussion	214	(12)
Bill Miller
Cameron Herold
What is the ROI your organization achieved with its mobile or wireless implementation?	216	(3)
What mechanisms did you use to track ROI to make sure you were staying on target (i.e., spreadsheets, written reports, analysis software)? What recommendations would you make to others to help them track ROI?	219	(2)
Who within your company played a role in estimating ROI before deployment, and determining ROI a year later?	221	(1)
Were there any post-deployment expenses -- planned or otherwise -- that impacted ROI?	222	(2)
Did you have to adjust ROI expectations in the early days after full deployment?	224	(1)
Was the ROI generated after a year what you expected based on the results of the pilot project?	225	(1)
Food for Thought	226