Information Technology Consulting

If you thought your job as an application development person is difficult, try being a consultant. I love my job as a consultant because I am able to affect change, that is, when people want it. The most dreaded phrase a consultant can hear is “that’s the way it is”. Those words have no rebuttal, no further review. It’s the organization’s way of saying “talk to the hand”! My job is to find gaps in code or process and bring them up to the client. Often times the client has fallen into way of doing things that are counter productive, or more likely, have not changed since the process was in place. A case in point, I was having a discussion with an architect about code review. I noticed that they had the Legacy style user, date, and change comments at the top of their classes. I made a review comment that they weren’t necessary, because Subversion tracks the changes for them. It was due to their work process that comments would be lost by Subversion on multiple merges. I mentioned that several high profile companies use Subversion and don’t seem to have a problem. The architect said that research was performed and it doesn’t, and if I have a better solution, I should do my own research before making a comment. I told him that software does indeed improve, and that if research has been done, it should be reviewed periodically to see if the issue had been fixed. I did research the issue, and Subversion did have bug but was fixed, and my client could use comments in their merged code. The key here is that the staff complains that changes don’t get done, but when they are in a position to make it better, they don’t do it. If anyone investigates a new technology or work process it should be DOCUMENTED AND REVIEWED! I don’t know if it will be investigated because it seems like a trivial issue, but the main problem is that the application development people complain that nothing changes. It’s our Culture. Culture is people, and all people, especially application development people can change culture. If there are deprecated methods and TODOs in production code, bring them up in your code review. I don’t accept “that’s the way it is” as a reason. You can’t change a decision for business reasons easily, but you can fix how things get done. If I don’t like the way that it is, I make it better.

See Part One here.  These deadly sins are not limited to IT Consulting in Cincinnati, but everywhere.  I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career.  It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights.  I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

5. Blame it on Rio.  And I am not talking about the movie, I am talking about pushing the mistake/error onto something else like, the Operating System, another consultant or worse, one of the client’s employees.  While the problem could very well be any of those things, your job as a professional consultant is to find solutions and to set an example in leadership and even diplomacy.  While you may see glaring errors or mistakes and perhaps your way would have been the better way to do something it is best to keep the criticism and commentary to yourself. (See #3 in Part One)

6. Bubble gum and baling wire.  Many times consultants are brought in to fix something.  The last thing you want to do is to take a shortcut that you aren't sure will last. Band-Aids are fine if you know you are coming back to make a more permanent fix. But eventually, those shortcuts will fail and will need further attention and the time to failure is an unknown. It could be the minute you drive away or months later. This is not the type of chance you want to take. It frustrates the client, and it makes you look bad.  You also don’t want to make the client totally dependent on you.  A client told me once that Peter (not the real name) is very talented; the problem is he is the only one that knows how it works and can manage it.

7. Showing up, Gotta Go. (AKA I gotta hangnail).  Once you’re on a gig, most clients want to see you on some sort of regular basis and some might have a “core hours” expectation.  It’s important for both the client and the consultant to know what each should expect.  I once heard a client make a comment about another consultant that went something like this: “Larry(not the real name) runs out of here all the time and uses sickleave for a hang nail!” 

Here is another list that has some similar ideas here.  I’m sure there are others.  So go forth and sin no more!
 

You have probably heard your parents or grand-parents talk about when they were younger and how they had to walk to school, up hill both ways.  When they shared this story with you it was to prepare you for times when things weren’t so easy and to provide you with their knowledge and advice from their hard earned experience. I wish that someone would have shared the list below with me earlier in my career.  It might have saved me a few grey hairs and sleepless nights.  I have to admit, I have been guilty of a couple of these in the past, but that’s why it’s called experience.

1. Bill for time not worked.  This will be the quickest way to end up out of a consulting gig. Make sure you bill the client only for the time you actually work. This can be tricky if your clients are friends. When you go to a job like this, you know there will be a period of time spent socializing, especially when you first arrive. Don't bill for this time. Start the billing period when you start working.  Sometimes clients will have celebrations during the day.  If you don’t want to appear anti-social, by not going, just don’t bill.  If there are any questions, ask the account manager to find out. If you are the account manager, ask your client manager at one of your one to one meetings if it’s ok to bill.  Some client’s have a culture where that is part of the expectation.

2. Negotiate rates and make deals with the client.  If you work for a consulting firm, you know there are channels for clients to go though to make requests..  Most firms have some sort of account manager to handle those issues.  Direct the client to the account manager.  I had one consultant that actually went so far as to look in the client’s AP system to see how much we were getting paid and then wanted to negotiate a higher rate with the client.  This particular action did not end well for the consultant and he has not been able to be considered for other assignments in this client even when his skill set was ideal.  Never, ever work out a side deal or moonlight with a client this can comprise your integrity and jeopardize the trust between  you, the consulting company and inevitably the client.

3. Act like a prima donna.  Yes, you’re good, that’s why you have been hired. I actually heard a consultant tell the client that their employees were stupid.  Hello? You are there to serve those employees.  You don’t know what kind of constraints they have had to work with.  Hind sight is always 20-20.  Its always far better to politely make suggestions. You may find out your brilliant idea was considered previously and there was a very valid reason for it not being implemented.  It’s much better to NOT have egg on your face or your foot in your mouth.

4. Miscommunicate or undercommunicate when engaged at a client I believe that the client should know what is going on with their project.  Many times I have had to be the bearer of bad news.  I also like weekly status reports to let the client know what I have worked on and what I’m planning on doing.  If at all possible I like to let them know a percent complete.  Years ago, I heard another consultant tell the client he was “unit testing”.  The client assumed that meant he had all the functionality done and was testing.  The reality was he had about 10% of the functionality done and was testing just that one small piece.  When the truth came out, it was not pretty.

Tomorrow I will finish off the last 3 sins.
To be continued……

There are many skills needed as an application development person to be successful, but none more important than communication. In fact, that is point of our job, to be able to communicate to our peers, partners, and customers. I believe that most organizations make money in spite of the immense lack of communication. Most of the application development people I know complain more about the policies and procedures than about anything else (although it’s always something!). Aren’t policies and procedures communication? Certainly, but it’s the internal communication that enables and drives the external communication. Everything we do has an impact on our ability to communicate. Say the wrong thing to a journalist, and you will be removed. Miss that deadline, forget about the promotion. Governance is important for the security of communication, but when do these rules get reviewed? Ask any software development person or manager why, and the answer usually is “that’s how we do things here”. The real answer is that someone set that restriction to an event that happened long ago, and nobody is willing to change things. If communication is the life blood of an organization, why would we restrict the life blood arbitrarily?  If this sounds like your organization, maybe you need to review how you are handling your communications. If you need help, STAR BASE Consulting has years of experience triaging your life blood, and making it flow easier, better, and stronger.

I am finding out things at my current client that everyone, including application development people knows; having a process is only half the battle. I have been to organizations where business workflow processes were not in place, and the productivity gains were huge when implemented. But over time, those processes stop getting followed. There are many reasons for this; the IT culture rejects the change, the processes don’t get reviewed in a timely basis and become a burden, and the players forget their role.
My client has a decent development workflow in place. Analyst get requirements from the business units, architects turn the business requirements into technical requirements, and application development people execute the requirements. Managers should manage the process, making sure that the resources are available when needed. I always wondered why top technical guys get passed over for management in favor of PHB (Pointy Haired Bosses), and now I know. It’s that PHBs know their role. Managers are managing the PROCESS, not the solution. Often, technically savvy managers want to work the issue. Software development is a very fluid process, and what works now, may not work three years from now. If you are manager for more than six months, you probably don’t know the correct solution. Regardless, your role is to make sure application development staff are available for the solution designed by the architects. Managers have a right to review the design during the design phase, but once finalized, let the architects and application development people do their jobs.
The same is true for consultants. Yes, they are using older technology, and yes it’s a pain to use, and yes it needs to be updated. Your job is to help resolve those issues within the framework of their organization. Unless you are brought in as a CIO consultant, the choice is probably not yours to make. It may be that the business has urgent needs that supersede modernization. They may not have the technical people to maintain the new code. The organization could be planning to replace the system with a prepackaged application like SAP. Or it could be that the technical staff knows their role, and is waiting patiently for their opportunity to upgrade.

This post may shock you... the Java Rocker is going to talk about legacy iSeries and AS/400! Before you panic, and call it the end of the world, let me continue. This post is about running all of the cool new Web 2.0 things on your IBM hardware. Really! Even in Cincinnati! Many people, (myself included) thought the old IBM hardware was only for RPG and COBOL (shudders). It turns out that IBM has been adding functionality to run Linux on the box. That means Wikis, Ecommerce, blogs, and web applications are now there for iSeries-AS/400 people. The catch is that your iSeries needs to be up to date, which sadly for most organizations is not. My IT consulting colleagues at STAR BASE are good with taking your tired old hardware and doing the maintenance necessary for the modernization piece. They get your hardware and software cleaned up and ready, so I can help you with all of the cool new application development projects that I have been talking about.

Happy New Year!!!  Welcome to a new year, new decade and a new beginning. 

As the recession recedes and recovery takes hold, IT executives are looking at their project lists and trying to decide what their priorities are.  Should we do application development in house or bring in an IT consulting company?  Should we consider an open source application?   What is the ROI?  What’s a company to do?   It doesn’t matter if your company is in Cincinnati, Dayton or Katmandu, the questions are the same.

Last month we did a pulse survey to see how IT leaders are managing ROI measurement.  The results were surprising and sparked a lot of conversation here at STAR BASE, Inc.  The thing that surprised us the most was the number of companies that did NOT look at ROI before doing a project.   Most of our respondents (58%) do not.

Some of conversations we have had revolved around the idea of doing a project or installing an application just to stay in the game.   Could you imagine a company of any size today functioning without email?  I could argue that there is negative ROI with amount of time managing my email in box takes! 

For those that measure ROI, only about half see the actual ROI align with the projected ROI most of the time.  The other half report that they see the actual ROI align with the projected ROI less than half the time and most said seldom or never.  I have often said that if management knew how much it was really going to cost to install that new ERP system before they started, they probably wouldn’t.

Since most of our respondents don’t look at ROI and of those that did, half said the ROI did not align, my question is this:  How do you decide what projects to do?  Are most companies spending money on IT because they need to “keep up with the Jones’ “?  Is it because installing that new ERP will look good on everyone’s resume?

Get your copy of our ROI Survey results by going here.

I was reading this article and as a Cincinnati based IT consulting firm owner, found it interesting.  Social networks are influencing our everyday lives more and more each day.  This research was conducted by Don Bulmer from SAP and Vanessa DiMauro  According to them, there were six key findings:

1. Professional decision-making is becoming more social - enter the era of Social Media Peer Groups (SMPG).
Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online; however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.
2. The big three have emerged as leading professional networks: LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.
The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks.
3. Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools.
Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users.
4. Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person.
Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% - combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust).
5. Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years.
Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions
6. Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational affiliation.
Younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.
There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet.

After reading this, a Bad Company tune came to mind, “Run with the Pack”.  There is certainly safety in numbers.  My question is this:  If everyone is doing the same thing, are they giving up any competitive advantages?

 

I recently read an article about the state of the IBM “i” and the amount of complaining by IBM application development and business partner folk. I know several RPG application development folk, and it sounds familiar. That made me think about my Java Application development and career. Are there things to complain about, and uncertainty about the future? Yes, but there are 2 reasons why the Java community is in a better place; the business model and the community. Before the IBMers call for a holy war, I said COMMUNITY! I am not talking about the strengths or weaknesses of the hardware or software. The business model for IBM is that they make the hardware and software, and partner for the sales and service. I think that is a viable model until IBM competes in the sales and services with their partners. If a lead is brought in by a small partner, they are awarded by giving the business to someone bigger. This sets up a confrontational relationship between IBM, the big partners, and the little partners. IBM can also decide whether or not you are worthy to be a partner. Why does this affect the software application development team? Because most consulting firm are selling SERVICES not HARDWARE. If they are not seeing business because of political fighting, they don't have to sell it. There are viable options on other platforms, where interference does not happen. IBM never fostered a community, they created a hierarchy with themselves as the head.

Certainly Sun has done some things that made myself and others unhappy. Besides, complaining, we actively pushed to remove barriers in our path. We do have an open source Java. Is there a IBM community that can work with RPG to make it work for them? I also think its about scale and timing. It's not like IBM software developers have their own AS/400 at their home. It's easy for me to create and use nearly any kind of application at my home in Cincinnati, and pretty cheaply. It makes it fun to tell non-technical people about my application development. Nobody but accountants want to hear about accounting programs. Java, and newer languages have grown up with the Internet. I have friends from all over the globe that have similar interests. If I have a problem, I can go online to a forum, friend, or web page to find what I need. I can read and write blogs to voice my opinion (like now). These things are not ingrained in the Legacy community, and in fact, have been actively campaigned against. It is my belief that any software, hardware, or service will die when there is no vocal community to support it.

As a consultant and application development person, I have to learn new things all the time. Take for example, my work with JavaFX. The language does have some familiar aspects, but there is a lot new there too. How do you go about learning something new? I have come up with some guidelines that I use in learning new things (in this case a language):

• Read as much about it as you can first. No one wants to wade through tomes of technical information, but that is where you learn. I try to get a feel for what problem the new thing is trying to solve first.
• Understand the core elements. Whether it's a programming language, a car, or a philosophical construct, knowing how it works is the first step. I know it's time to go to the next step when I have some ideas on how to use the item, and I start formulating a project.
• Examine and breakdown examples, if you can. You would be surprised at how many application development people think they're “smart enough” to figure out how things work just by following a few examples. I don't know about you, but I don't figure out a complex things just from a few simple “Hello World” examples. That being said, seeing how things works is the quickest to way get a basic understanding. Couple that with knowledge you acquired by reading the manual, and you get the “why” of how it's put together.
• Create your own knowledge base. I like to Google more than most people, but things do need to get done. I will create a separate folder to contain links to examples, other application development team members' blogs, white papers and other documentation. If you can, create a “how-to” WIKI. Having a centrally located repository makes it simple to answer questions.
• Create a test project. I do this especially for languages. I create a test project where I can test specific “how do I?” questions. It keeps you from removing code, adding unnecessary functions, and commenting and uncommenting code in your main project. Figure it out in its own project first, then transfer the code and knowledge to your main project. It is always good to revisit it after a period inactivity.
• Write or teach what you learned. As application development people, we tend to get blinders on when doing something. Having a different set eyes, or different questions being asked makes you examine what you actually know.

   

So there's my “Secret Sauce” for learning. You still have to come up with ideas on how to utilize you knowledge though.

In part one; I talked about some of the IT Strategies and business strategies that were discussed at the Techserve Alliance conference we recently attended.  I’ll admit I’m a sucker for quaint sayings and one of the speakers had a good one:  It’s time to take the Basset hound to the farm.  So what does that have to do with IT Strategy or business?

Plenty, takin’ the basset hound to the farm means it’s time to re-think what you are doing, why you are doing it, and who is doing it.  It’s time to eliminate products, services, processes or people that are not delivering value to the business.  This is not just an IT strategy, but an important business strategy as well.  It is critically important to make sure both business and IT are aligned. 

The trick is to figure out what your basset hound(s) are.  Every business that has been around for any length of time has one or more of these.  It may be a line of products that are kept in stock because it “rounds out the product line”, when the reality is the items are not that important.   It could be a service that our “customers really want”, but in reality  the service does not deliver value or it could be that “special process” that you do “because we have always done it that way”.  Then there is Bob.  Everybody likes Bob. Bob has been around forever and knows everything.  The problem is Bob doesn’t really do anything.

It’s always better to take the basset hound to the farm on your own terms rather than be forced into it by circumstances.  Take for example the company in New England that manufactured parts for submarines.  When the ship yard closed a few years ago, they were forced to change.  They redeployed their manufacturing expertise and now make parts for the medical industry.  What could they have accomplished if they had manufactured both parts for submarines and medical devices?  Could the business have been double the size?

That’s where an outside consultant can help.  They can be objective and bring an outside perspective to your current business and IT strategy.  STAR BASE is in a good position to teach old dogs new tricks”.  (Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?!)

People outside of Cincinnati may be shocked to know that I work with languages OUTSIDE of Java! I don't know any application development person, especially one who does web application development who doesn't use several languages. I have recently been working on Magento. What is that you say? Magento is an Open Source PHP ECommerce application based on the Zend Framework. You don't need to download Zend, just the Magento PHP files. We actually have Magento internally setup with a LAMP package, but I already have MySQL and Apache on my local machine, so I thought I'd tackle and individual install. The verdict? Well after a couple of small hiccups (don't use the Windows install for PHP, just unzip, and localhost needs to be a virtual host), setup was a breeze!  Fortunately, STAR BASE, Inc. has enough experience to over come these issues.  Magento is easy to customize products and catalogs, and would be a good choice for organizations to create their own ECommerce site. Magento is easy enough to implement without an IT Consultant, but an experienced consultant can save you time and frustration.

Seems like it has been a while since I have had a chance to do a post.  For the last 3 weeks things have been absolutely crazy in our IT consulting world, but in a good way.  We had a chance to go to the Techserve Alliance national conference in Las Vegas.  I have heard all the jokes, including the one about it staying in Vegas.   We did learn that just because you are pre-checked with the airline, does not mean that your bags are.   We got our bags checked with literally a minute to spare and fortunately all made it back to Cincinnati.

Upon return, we signed a support contract for a new customer.  They trust us enough to outsource their entire IT applications support to us.  We have a real life example of an IT Strategy that was discussed at the conference (See #3).  Not only was IT strategy discussed but business strategy as well.  Here are some highlights:

1. Market Differentiation - customers have lots of choices, how will you stand out?

2. Improve Systems and methodology for delivering service- excellence, efficiency, depth of service.

3. Outsource what you can-eliminate the busy work that does not add strategic value.

4. Deal with the economy being slow to recover till 2012, spend your money wisely, hire wisely, fire quickly, and refine what is working, stop what is not.           

5. Build Alliances with like minded providers in different industries and sell collaboratively to serve the customers' need.

My favorite of these five is number four.  Said another way, its takin’ the basset hound to the farm.  I’ll expand more on that in my next post.

Its good to see Cincinnati and Dayton area companies starting to embrace open source as an alternative to custom application development.  As an IT Strategy consultant, I can say there is a place for both.

STAR BASE, Inc. just landed another Magento project.  I have written about Magento before and this post has links to several others.   These are not your father’s shareware packages. The packages we are working with are what I’m calling Commercial Open Source. 

I’m curious, why have you or your company not implemented an open source option?  Is it because the light at the end of the tunnel looks more like a train?  Maybe we’re just ahead of the curve again and I need a little bit of Patience.