The Client-tracking Project Begins Proper

A new Operations Manager was appointed in June 2001. His role, according to the Managing Director and the company newsletter, was to “implement leading edge

systems and communications across the T.Co branch network” and “provide the technology to underpin the company’s rapid expansion”.

The new Operations Manager had extensive experience of implementing enterprise wide information systems projects in blue-chip companies. This manager came to the project with good ideas about the way forward and quickly became a respected part of the team. Several members of staff viewed him as a breath of fresh air. He had been told, by the Managing Director, that the new client-tracking system had to be in place by February 2002 and that this was his responsibility. When the project was launched, it was widely agreed that the implementation should begin in the research department, which was considered the most complex business function. As a result, end-users were made aware that a new software installation was planned for the future and they viewed this as a panacea to their problems. Quickly after it was publicised the IT Manager told me in a telephone conversation that staff were saying things like ‘the client-tracking system will take care of that’ and ‘when the client- tracking system comes, my head will stop spinning’. However, the IT Manager was aware that whichever product was eventually selected would entail a trade-off between an ideal system and the constraints of a standardised package and so in an attempt to manage user expectations, she was keen to point this out on many occasions.

During the initial meetings (comprising the IT Manager, Operations Manager, Graduate Trainee, Research Manager and two academics), the academics advised the other members of the Project Management Team of the importance of eliciting and articulating user requirements to enable a more informed evaluation of packaged

software products and help narrow down the options. Whilst team members were accepting of this suggestion, minimal effort was put into consulting end-users. However, in order to aid their own understanding of user requirements, the Graduate Trainee and IT Manager conducted a further analysis of the client journey. During this same period, a focus day with end-users was scheduled on a number of occasions. It was hoped that this would provide feedback on the project team’s understanding of user requirements and offer suggestions on future direction. The focus day never happened as staff were deemed to be too busy by their managers: “we’d love to get people involved, but we just done have the time” (Supervisor), “our staff are just too busy” (Sales Manager) or themselves “it’s the wrong time of the month for me” (Finance Officer).

In addition, much of the previous requirements gathering processes were brought into use with the idea of creating a ‘definitive’ requirements document that could be used to assess various packaged software products, by now the favoured option over developing the Filemaker Pro applications any further. Various members of the project team (especially the academics) had advised the Managing Director that custom development would be costly, although not impossible, in the light of the emerging requirements. The accuracy of this document was later verified by two end-users. The main concern of most of the project team seemed to lie with ensuring the (financial) support of senior management. This was confirmed with much of the documentation that was produced that appealed to the interests of senior management. These documents included statements declaring “Our aim is to introduce a flexible system that will streamline and improve our current business processes and speed up the client journey thus becoming more cost effective.”

Similarly, the client-tracking project was claimed to enable “T.Co to continue to provide a business class service and grow effectively in the future, whilst maintaining efficiency in all areas.”

By November 2001, the operations manager had left, but a statement of requirements had been prepared. The main thrust of the requirements at this stage were:

“T.Co are looking for an ‘Off the Shelf’ product that has excellent after Sales Support because of the geographical spread of the users. In addition, the remote users should be able to access the Client- tracking System effectively using a 54k modem, so having Intranet and Internet capability. The application should be compatible with our current infrastructure and be able to relate to the in-house Filemaker Pro Database and Sage financial database.

The Client-tracking is a Workflow application that will enable the monitoring of the journey of a client as they travel through T.Co. Different activities will be triggered at certain stages thus creating an effective and efficient journey reducing time-spans and streamlining processes.

Data that is collected throughout both stages of the journey can then be used in an intelligent manner for business decisions and business procedures at all levels. The application should have excellent action reporting capabilities, with the ability to present business knowledge, performance statistics, Key Performance Indicators that is user friendly and offered via a digital dashboard.” (T.Co Statement of Requirements, Document 38).