Be Careful What You Ask For

Software projects are inherently risky, and the ways to run astray begin even before the project begins. The quality of a procurement solicitation governs the results of a project, laying a solid foundation for success or creating unnecessary problems that doom a project.

Since the negative examples are often more illustrative, here are a few pitfalls to avoid:

1. There is no such thing as etcetera in a specification. Over the past few weeks I have reviewed requests for proposals that list open-ended requirements for integration, mentioning one or two specifics and then the dreaded "etc." rears its head. The result is that vendors either decide not to bid or pad the price to cover the risk of the unnamed integration.

2. Fixed price requires fixed specifications. If you choose a fixed price contract, vendors cannot determine a price without complete and detailed specifications. Fixed price combined with vagueness can result in a game of change orders where bidders price the minimum and then add dramatically to the cost and time through a series of change orders. Some integrators specialize in this approach because it is difficult to switch vendors in the middle of a project.

3. Watch out for gold plating. If you need a system for ten people, don't specify that it must scale to 10,000 users. Otherwise, you will end up with a city bus when you had a compact car in mind. Vendors will do their share to upsell and goldplate all on their own without encouragement from the solicitation.

4. Don't dictate how to get there. Encourage vendors to use creative approaches to solve your business problem. You can easily ask for more than you need and therefore pay more than you needed to pay for a solution.

5. Don't wait too long for results. Be sure to break the project into short phases with measurable results. There are many software projects that drag on for years before shipping a product, only to find out too late that it does not meet business requirements.

Writing a solicitation that is specific and detailed, without reaching for the moon and the stars, can be the start of a successful software project.

Why Information Technology is Like Exercise

I must confess that I don't like to exercise, especially when it's purely for health reasons. I haven't run far and long enough to become addicted to the runner's high. I feel better after I run for the rest of the day, but it still takes effort to get up early and get out there. For me, exercise is best in retrospect.

On the other hand, I am a huge gearhead. I like researching the latest camping equipment, golf clubs, fishing lures, backpacks and even running shoes and socks. It feels great to gear up to be ready for fitness. Sports Authority can testify to my optimism for fitness.

At the end of the day, though, the gear doesn't make you fit. You have to get out there and run, bike, swim, hike, or hit that ball or puck to stay in shape.

Information technology is similar, in that it takes more than gear and software to improve business processes. The most important ingredient is the will to change and openness to assess the way an organization works and find better processes, then automate them if necessary. Buying the latest and greatest technology does little for an organization not willing to invest the time to use the new tool.

When the will to change is absent, no amount of money, hardware or software can make up for it. The examples of failed software projects are legion, and many can be traced back to a lack of leadership or a failure to make tough decisions and tradeoffs. In other cases, the failure is in the last mile of the project: failing to train users and encourage adoption of the new system.

Over the years, we have had the good fortune to work with a large number of IT leaders who were not afraid to shake things up, take chances, and make tough decisions in order to reach their goals. We usually know at the beginning of a project whether the client has this requisite toughness, and its presence is a reliable predictor of project success.

Software Development Methodology v Reality

Last week my company held its operations summit to review how we deliver solutions to our customers. We presented best practices and discuss tools, models, and approaches to understanding, designing and implementing software solutions.

This discussion made me think back on how the ideals of methodology differ from the reality on the ground. Everyone can agree on the value of having complete, ironclad requirements before development begins, but we all know that this is unrealistic. Among the many ways that requirements fall short is that they are incomplete and inaccurate. Some requirements ultimately are thrown overboard because the cost of implementing them is higher than the business value, and others because they lead to a business process that is too complicated or otherwise unworkable.

More recent methodologies such as Agile and SCRUM are more explicit about dealing with uncertainty. Perhaps we need to be more direct in dealing with inadequate requirements, setting a lower threshold of completeness and accuracy before development begins.

Even if we could make the requirements one hundred percent complete and one hundred percent accurate, change always rears its ugly head. Seldom does the consensus of management remain solid forever, and business rules may change from exogenous factors such as changes in laws and regulations.

On the other hand, perhaps we need to cling to the abstract ideals, even knowing that in our human world we will fall short.

Lotus Notes Migration to Dynamics CRM

I can't explain why, but over the past few weeks my company InfoStrat has seen increased interest in Dynamics CRM as a tool to help migrate from Lotus Notes to the Microsoft platform. It turns out that many Notes shops have custom Notes apps that don't map easily to SharePoint, and Dynamics CRM fills the gap by allowing rapid development of solutions that rely on structured data.

We provided training along with Microsoft to a group of Federal customers who were looking for ways to migrate to the Microsoft platform and also find a tool with which former Notes developers can be productive. Many Notes developers who are not interested in becoming Java or .Net programmers can quickly become proficient with Dynamics CRM because it offers quite a bit of power and flexibility without writing code.

Watch for a forthcoming whitepaper on Notes migration on www.infostrat.com as well as a video on this topic.

Stimulus360 One Year Later

It's hard to believe that a year has passed since we created the Stimulus360 solution for Microsoft. When the American Recovery and Revitalization Act (ARRA) passed last year, few could forecast the impact on state and local government. The program was unprecedented in scope and pace, and required state, county, city and federal governments to quickly design and implement systems to track the funding and make information on grants available to citizens.

As it turns out, probably no solution was more widely adopted for ARRA tracking than Microsoft Stimulus360. In its first year, Microsoft Stimulus360 was adopted by over twenty governments across the country, including six states (AZ, CA, IL, MO, MS, WI), cities including DC, San Francisco, and Seattle, and large counties such as Harris County (TX), Los Angeles County (CA), and Cook County (IL). All together, governments using Stimulus360 account for over 100 million of the U.S. population and 2,000 grants worth billions of dollars.

What were the lessons learned?

1. The time has come for hosted solutions in government. We learned a great deal about hosting Dynamics CRM in the past year. Offering a hosted solution saved us and our clients several times. Without the hosting option, it would have been difficult to serve smaller customers, and hosting made it much faster and easier to make changes to Stimulus360.
2. The federal government can move quickly when motivated. The pace of ARRA funding really was impressive, and many of the rules and policies had to be worked out on the fly.
3. Flexibility is paramount, even for complex line of business systems. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform in particular helped us respond as reporting requirements were changed by federal agencies.
4. Partnering helps projects in many ways. We were fortunate to find teaming partners across the country to extend our geographic reach and provide complimentary technical skills. Working alone, InfoStrat could not have reached nearly as many customers.

We expect that some of the principles used in ARRA will expand to other government grants, and there is no visible slowing of government transparency efforts.

InfoStrat Teaming with Infinite Group, Inc.

InfoStrat is proud to announce its partnership with Infinite Group, Inc., delivering Microsoft Stimulus360 to state and local governments.

"Stimulus360 is all about making sure that public sector agencies are in line with the most current reporting requirements for ARRA dollars," said Michael S. Smith, President and CEO of Infinite Group, Inc. "Our partnership with InfoStrat means that we can deliver Stimulus360 solutions with more accurate and highly compliant reporting, thereby eliminating red tape and helping the country put the Stimulus into action. Our team is curently implementing STimulus360 for the state of Mississippi."

For the full press release, click here.

Lessons from Stimulus Reporting First Round

Now that October has passed, recipients of ARRA Stimulus funding can put their first reporting period behind them. The data is now in the hands of OMB and other federal agencies, and will soon be displayed in all its glory on www.recovery.gov. So, how did it go?

Overall, Stimulus360 proved to be a flexible and responsive platform for tracking and reporting ARRA funding. The flexibility was tested by changes in reporting requirements that continued nearly until the day that reporting was enabled. The schema was changed several times, but all our clients using the system were able to submit on time. One of our clients said that with Stimulus360 she was able to "do in 20 minutes what would have taken her two days."

What will happen next? We anticipate that OMB will refine the process a bit and make it simpler to report in January, especially for recipients of large numbers of grants. No doubt there will be many lessons from the first round of reporting and the website will be improved both in terms of user interface and performance.

The number of grants will grow significantly between now and January, as grants flow through the approval process. One of our clients estimated that they will need to report on four times as many grants in January than they did in May.

On the transparency front, states, counties and cities will find out which presentations of data are most effective for their constituents. New visualizations and analysis tools will be applied to the data to make it easier to understand.

Only time will tell how long the stimulus efforts will continue, but it is safe to say that this effort will change how government works for a long time to come.