Leadership – Page 321

Tales by the campfire (first appeared in InfoWorld)

By: Bob Lewis|In: Leadership|Last Updated: January 21, 2002

Internal customers aren’t.

Customers make buying decisions. Those who use your products and services are “consumers” or “end-users.” The distinction matters, and in my consulting practice I advice clients to reject “internal customer,” which turns IT into a separate service provider, in favor of a more integral, strategic relationship.

Which is way too abstract to be useful.

Relationships must be designed. To help clients design their relationship with the rest of the company I’ve been using a nifty technique with the expensive-sounding moniker “scenario-based design.” Once a client agrees, though, I switch to its other name: “Tales by the campfire.”

The idea: Examples communicate better than abstractions and generalities. Telling tales by the campfire means using specific examples to explain what you want the relationship to look like in action. It’s an excellent starting point for redesigning a relationship.

It only takes a few hours. Ask each member of your team to describe a specific interaction between IT and the rest of the business — both how it happens now (a scary campfire story) and how it should happen (a heartwarming tale of courage and wisdom). Here’s one example:

How it happens now: “June Summers in Accounting called LAN Support because a new employee was starting the next day and would need a PC. Jack Frost in LAN support asked June for the exact specifications, and explained that the standard delivery time for new PCs is three weeks. June got mad because her new employee was starting the next day; Jack got mad right back because June was being unrealistic, and the whole thing became a giant mess.”

How it should happen: “When June first notified HR that she was going to hire the new employee, HR immediately e-mailed LAN Support with the details. Based on the e-mail, Jack Frost contacted June to verify that the standard configuration for that profile would work for the new employee, got the new PC on order, and then configured it, tested it, and installed it on the new employee’s desk before the new employee started.”

The telling of one anecdote is just the start of the process, of course. Tune in next week for another exciting episode of “Redesigning IT’s relationship with the rest of the business.”

And now, this word from our sponsor …

Strategy and tactics (first appeared in InfoWorld)

Hitting a pitched baseball is the most difficult job in professional sports, or so I’m told. According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, only about 1% of the strike zone yields a solidly struck ball, and the batter has less than a half second to get his bat there, swung hard enough so the ball at least clears the infield.

It isn’t easy, which is why anyone who can do so a third of the time receives a lot of money to play a game.

A recent column likened this task to customer relationship management (CRM) or supply chain management (SCM) projects, suggesting that the 30% success rates reported for them aren’t all that bad. Quite a few readers objected to the comparison. They’re right, too: CRM and SCM make hitting a baseball seem easy.

CRM and SCM require strategic change. As I use the terms, tactical change results in business improvement — your measures get better — while strategic change redefines your goals, and as a result changes what you measure.

Strategic change is much, much harder. Why?

Tactical change involves three organizational dimensions: Process, technology, and employee skills. Typically, you begin with process redesign, then design the technology the new process will need, and finish with a training program for all affected employees.

That’s hard enough. But it’s far simpler than strategic change, which may involve as many as seven other dimensions of change as well — all interconnected and interdependent.

Strategic change looks outside the company as well as inside. Looking out, you may need to redefine relationships with customers and vendors, along with your products, and pricing. You need to anticipate how the marketplace you operate in will evolve, and you need to pay careful attention to your “messages” — communication through all media, from advertising to conversations between customers and your call centers.

Internal change gains complexity, too, because you can’t stop with process, technology and skills. Usually, strategic change leads to structural change as well — how you’re organized, your compensation system, and the criteria and paths by which you advance employees. Nor can you ignore the corporate culture.

Some companies say they’re implementing CRM when what they’re really doing is installing a contact management system. That’s a tactical change, and isn’t really all that difficult. True CRM, or SCM, or any other strategic change is a whole lot harder.

In fact, it’s a whole new ball game.