The Only Constant is Change

This week we have our new guest authors from TechProse who are experts in training and change management. For Oracle certified professionals, change management of skills, technology and business proceses are the only constant in life. Please provide feedback to our guest authors as they introduce a new perspective to the OCP Blog.

Here is Meryl Natchez and Jennifer Jackson discussing change management to help your organization translate to a no-surprises approach for the steering committee and help ensure the success of your team’s hard work:

“The average shelf life for an ERP system is 15-22 years.” Meta Group ERP End User Research Reports

Often technical experts focus on the intricacies of technology, while ignoring the discipline of change management. Oracle applications, as with most ERPS, is sold as out-of-box solutions. We all know that end users can sink the implementation if they don’t understand changes to their daily business process and act accordingly. People can unintentionally sabotage an implementation by failing to map existing to new business processes. How do we fix that? This submission gives a quick overview of change management techniques mangers can rely on to successfully coordinate an Oracle implementation or upgrade.

Here are 4 simple rules to guide you:

Rule #1 - Explain the true cost of ownership. As ERPs are sold as turnkey solutions, clients are rarely prepared for the cost required for training, change management, and post-implementation support. The Meta Group reports that out of 140 companies surveyed, 76% thought that that their end users lacked competency with the new system and processes. The Gartner Group notes that training is the most likely post-implementation review item identified as the single greatest determinant of success. The costs and schedule “delays” encountered when companies fail to budget for training users and supporting infrastructure can be significant. But failing to allow for the time and effort required is a disaster waiting to happen.

Rule #2 - Go live is the beginning of the implementation, not the end result. Organizations often fail to recognize that end user performance support systems require ongoing maintenance post go live. Preparing your organization for the true costs involved in orchestrating a successful rollout can be a challenge. However, without ongoing training and support, underlying data can quickly become corrupt, and hence untrustworthy, undermining the purpose of the implementation. From the Meta Group survey again, “Of the 24% of organizations claiming to have highly competent end users, 87% provided regular refresher training, as opposed to 43% of organizations with substandard or failing end users.”

Rule #3 - If you’re going global, plan globally from the outset. It’s much easier to get to where you’re going when you have a plan. Plan your structures, processes, and training to be scaleable. It almost always makes sense to start locally, but always keep the global impact in mind. In some cases, it may make sense to start in a non-North American location. For example, a client of ours with multiple U.S. acquisitions also had a fairly unified European organization. In this case, Europe faced a significant competitive challenge to their core business. There was incentive to unify their supply chain, and therefore the ERP implementation was a critical business driver. Support was widespread, and processes across geographies were fairly standardized. This made for a reasonably smooth implementation. The success and lessons learned could be leveraged to gradually roll out more diverse North American locations.

Rule #4 - Include change management professionals on the implementation team from the beginning. Make sure that your organizational development and training leads are part of your team. As user representatives, they can help you avoid costly pitfalls. Make sure they are at the table from the initial planning stage through the implementation. Training touches on many areas of the project. All implementations require resources outside the core team. These include not just end users but super users, testers, script writers, and subject matter experts. They all need to be informed and trained on discreet processes. For example, testers need training on the tool that they’re using to test the application and the process they are testing. It’s easy to overlook these components. Adequate budgeting can avoid huge time and cost overruns as the implementation progresses.

Meet The Experts: Melanie Cameron

Melanie Cameron is an Oracle EBS Manager for MSS Technologies. Melanie has focused her career on business processes surrounding enterprise management systems. Melanie has 15 years of experience on Oracle E-Business Suite, beginning on Release 9 and including Release 12, and is the author of R12 General Ledger and R12 Procure to Pay, coming out May 2009 from Oracle Press.

OCP Advisor (OCPA): Hi Melanie, on behalf of the OCP blog readers, we are delighted to have you today as our featured Oracle Expert. Please tell us something about you, your background and professional experience.

Melanie Cameron (MC): My career started in Finance but I was quickly bored with the routineness that comes with financial jobs. My first accounting system implementation was over 20 years ago. While all the data conversions at that time were manual, it peaked my interest enough to go back to school for a degree in Information Systems. From that point forward, I looked to move into IT - first doing support, then programming and finally moving into implementations and consulting. I find my accounting and business experience invaluable when working with clients. I not only know how the system works but also because I understand what the users need from the system and why. If you have never been an AP clerk or an assistant controller, it is not always easy to understand why things are asked for. To be honest, based on past experiences one can weed out the requests that are not business needs.
Outside of work, I spend my time cooking (and eating!), working out so I can eat more, doing needle arts, include crewel, knitting, and Japanese embroidery.

OCPA: How long have you been working on Oracle E-Business Suite? How do you keep yourself updated on new releases, features and functionalities?

MC: I started using Oracle on Release 9 back in 1994. I have used Release 10.7 both character and GUI, Release 11.0, most releases of 11i, and finally Release 12. With every release, the changes have been drastic, both in functionality and technology. As a long time habit, I developed of reading White Papers, Metalink Notes and more recently Blogs that helps keep me up to date on the enhancements coming out with each release. I find reading about it is not enough, so I set aside time each week to 'play' on the new releases, testing how the new functionality works and seeing how it can benefit business requirements as well as my client’s needs.

OCPA: You have recently authored two of the first Oracle EBS Release 12 books – “R12 General Ledger” and “R12 Procure to Pay” - what motivated you to write them? Do you plan to author books on other areas as well, e.g. “Order to Cash”?

MC: The biggest motivation to write these books is the lack of detailed information on setups and their impact on the system and how to process transactions. At times, I find the Oracle Manuals more confusing then helpful. I feel that users and support personnel alike should not have to discover how Oracle works through trial and error. This should be commonly available knowledge. OCP blog readers will be happy to know this these two books are part of a four book series with Order to Cash and Manufacturing being the last two topics. I am trying to a explore the feasibility of expanding the series to a book on Assets and another on Self Service Applications.

OCPA: Your books will surely be great reference material for Oracle Certification candidates. What advice do you have for candidates before for Oracle EBS certification exams?

MC: I think the biggest thing to know is not just how to do a specific setup or transaction, but understand how these are integrated with each other. For example, "What setups are required to process a check payment batch?" This is vastly different from "How do you setup payments?" and "How do you process a check?"

OCPA: Oracle Release 12 has introduced several new features that radically change the foundation concepts (e.g. 3 C’s for SOB). Do you also advice/consultant organizations that are migrating / upgrading to Release 12?

MC: The topic of upgrades and versions is one of the most common topics that come up with my clients. "Should I upgrade to R12?" "What will this upgrade take in effort and dollars?: Once that is determined, "What will our organization get out of an R12 upgrade?" These answers are very different for each organization and should be asked and analyzed prior to engaging in an R12 upgrade. If you are a small organization without in-house Oracle support, R12 may not carry as many immediate benefits to outweigh the cost of upgrading. While a large, multi-national organization will greatly benefit from the new features, allowing them to realize a substantial ROI in a shorter period of time.

OCPA: From your Release 12 experiences, which features / functionalities excite you the most? Which features may be the most challenging for an organization to implement?

MC: There are two features that really excite me and both will prove to be the most challenging to an organization, both in terms of implementation and troubleshooting! This is always the way - the more functionality that is available in the system, the more complex the system will be to setup and support. The more I work with the new Payments module, the more the new features thrill me. Many of the functions now available within the setups had to be dealt with manually with programming in the past.

XML Publisher can now create all types of payment formats, while communication features are built right in for transmitting information to banking institutions as well as suppliers about payments. The ability to combine multiple formats into a single payment batch. It almost makes me want to be a Payables clerk again!

Oracle’s ability to handle multiple financial reporting requirements, whether it be in multiple currencies or by accounting for transactions in different ways for government reporting requirements is something I never thought I would see in a system. My first experience doing this was at an organization were we were going public, and I had to do the consolidations, reporting differences, and currency translations all in MS Excel. The new features in Ledger with Secondary ledgers and reporting currencies, combined with Subledger Accounting, is about as complex as it comes, but so very much needed in our global economy of the 21st century!

OCPA: Can you please let us know one habit that has contributed most to your professional success?

MC: I would have to say the drive to always step outside the boundaries of my job, poking my nose around to corner to see what was going on and how what they did effected my work, or how my worked effected them. While many people become experts in their given areas, they often fail to understand how their area effects other departments as well as the business as a whole. Having worked for both large and small organizations, as well as a co-owner of my husband's business where we are the only 2 employees, I tend to have a unique understanding of how the different areas fit into the puzzle of business, and the upstream and downstream effects of processes. While I am not an expert in all areas, I understand the part they play and their interconnections. This helps me not just be an Oracle consultant, but someone who can advise on how Oracle as an integrated system that can assist a business meet their company wide goals.

Are You One in a Million?

The world population clock hosted by the United States Census Bureau works tirelessly updating our global numbers every second. At 7.26pm GMT on Easter Sunday we are 6,772,892,907 strong and thriving. Well some amongst us are, while the rest of us are barely managing to have our head over water!

As per my estimates (not confirmed by Oracle Corporation or any other sources), there are more than 6,773 candidates who take the Oracle Certification exams every week. This coming week, beta testing period for these three exams are ending:

• 1Z1-215 Oracle EBS R12: General Ledger and Payables Fundamentals
• 1Z1-216 Oracle EBS R12: General Ledger and Receivables Fundamentals
• 1Z0-244 Oracle EBS R12: Advanced Supply Chain Planning

Are you planning to take any Oracle certification exams this week?
Did you realize that you are a precious and rare gem amongst our human population - you are indeed One in a Million*!

* For the mathematically oriented, One in a Million was calculated as 6773 / 6,772,892,907

Oracle OpenWorld Promises To Be Truely Open

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 - the world's largest application software conference promises to be a truely 'open source' conference this year. For the first time in nearly a decade, the conference organizers have thrown open the call for papers to everyone - customers, partners and consultants.

Share your recent Oracle innovations or a successful project implementation with the global Oracle family at Openworld 2009. Click on the link below to showcase your talent:

Oracle OpenWorld 2009 Call for Papers

It will take less than 10 minutes to submit your presentation proposal. Create your online profile and the paper submission form asks you to submit the following:

• A title of 80 characters - about 10 words
• An abstract of 750 characters - this is less than 100 words!
• Categorize the papers as per primary and optional track so that it is easier for the selection committee to identify the content easily and quickly
• Add up to 5 tags to make your proposal easily searchable

The last date for submitting presentation proposals is April 19, 2009.

Just two more weeks and you will be on your way to becoming almost famous!