This month I would like to highlight the differences between old and relatively new automation tools available in the Oracle Siebel CRM Enterprise product that supports the concept of doing more with less. During my training classes I typically identify the differences between what I call Passive versus Aggressive Business Process Adherence. Instead of letting people go who are not fully productive, now would be an excellent time to have them build new productivity tools for your community of users, helping them to more easily complete tasks.

I do not know of any company today that is not basing all IT development on Business Process logic. In many applications the knowledge of the Process is the responsibility of the user. While processes performed daily are familiar to us and burned in our brains, those that are done Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly experience higher error rates and lower productivity as we may forget and miss important steps.

In Siebel 8.x implementations it may be difficult for those guiding the CRM initiative to understand the differences between similar but different Technical features of the Siebel application. Before I highlight how I look to use different Automation Tools to solve different user needs, it is important to understand how I define passive versus aggressive automation tools.

In my last position I worked for a company that was having quality problems and decided to implement a Japanese based Quality Management program including a mechanism called Poka-Yoke which loosely translated means "Fail-Safing". As part of this initiative every employee was tasked to develop Fail-Safing tools that could be deployed in the company. One such tool I came across was the development of simple plastic keyboard templates that highlighted major steps in critical and error prone business processes. The user was responsible for reading the template and directing the application through the business process. The tool was passive as it just lay there on the keyboard with the user doing the work of following the documentation.

On the other hand some Poka-Yoke's that I reviewed included new automation tools that would force the user through the Business Process while validating data entered. These tools I label as aggressive as they are telling the user what must be done and ensuring it gets done.

In the Oracle Siebel CRM Enterprise product there are features like Drilldowns (Hyperlinks), iHelp, and custom Help features that are passive in nature while other tools like SmartScripts, Interactive Workflows, State Model, the Haley Business Rule Engine, and Task UI that are aggressive in nature as they force the user to adhere to steps in the process. For many it may be confusing as to which tool to use to solve the myriad of challenges experienced by users. I thought it might be useful to discuss these tools and identify how they can aid developers in making the Siebel solution easier to use.

Passive Business Process Adherence Tools

· Drilldowns/Hyperlinks - in the normal Siebel List Applets, Drilldown configuration displays a Hyperlink that will navigate the user to another view in the system. These Drilldown objects are compiled into the Siebel Repository File and can easily be modified to navigate users to the most common view that would represent the next step in a typical Business Process. The Drilldown object can be configured to be dynamic using a condition to navigate the user to different views dependant on data in the active Business Component. The ease of configuring Drilldowns and benefit to the user should cause Business Analysts to align the Siebel Drilldowns with the Views typically represented in the next step of the process. As the user must identify and click on the Hyperlink, I consider this to be a passive tool.

· IHelp - introduced in Siebel 7.x iHelp enables an administrator to document the Business Process with Hyperlinks to the Siebel Views supporting the process along with the ability to highlight the important data Fields needed to complete the process. The user accesses iHelp via the Toolbar or Screen Home Page Views. The user is required to move the process along by scrolling through the iHelp documentation and click on each step making the user the aggressor and iHelp a passive tool. As iHelp is administered in the Siebel client it does not require any compile or distribution of a Siebel Repository File making it a very easy way to document those difficult processes. iHelp development is relatively easy and can support multiple languages and I would recommend documenting every major Business Process with this tool.

· Since the beginning of Windows based applications the traditional Help features presented in most applications are also available in Siebel. If your users are all using Windows Operating Systems you can customize the out of the box Help files to include your custom documentation, which could include Business Process documentation. While this is the oldest form of Windows Application documentation it is also the least exciting and has little direct association to the application as do Drilldown and iHelp features. I personally prefer iHelp as a documentation tool as it adds a new Web Page frame to the existing UI rather than Help which is a separate window overlaying the UI.

· Siebel Assistants - Made up of Activity Plans and Assessments these two Client based administrative tools enables an administrator to support Business Process logic with Assessment Questionnaires that can support either Sales or Service representatives with questions resulting in a score that would aid in the decision making process included in analysis steps of a process. The Activity Plans are very useful in that Administrators can group and assign activities associated with an Activity Plan Template. User accessing the template inherits all the related activities and their assignments. Used in both Sales and Services the Activity plan could represent work needed to take action on steps associated with the Business Process. Since both Assessments and Activity Plans require user action, I consider them to be passive automation tools.

Aggressive Business Adherence Tools
· Declarative Configuration - Siebel Development Staff should be well aware that the most efficient way of implementing business logic is via the three layers of objects that make up the Siebel Repository. While these changes require a compilation and deployment of a Siebel Repository File, they also provide the ability to define logic that will enforce relationships between Business Components (Link Object), implement validation logic (Field Object), Filter data (Business Component or Applet Objects), enforce database insert, delete, and update Editing Options (Applet or Business Component), enable Required Field Logic (Field Object), or special functions embedded in the underlying Siebel C++ code via User Properties that can invoke methods or update a Field when another Field is modified. These changes are relatively easy to upgrade and have superior performance characteristics when compared with their more focused Business Automation Tools. This logic can force users to enter Required Field data or ensure entered data conforms to a bounded set of values used in a Pick List. Making it an aggressive tool. I do my best to discourage customers from extending Siebel's capabilities via code-based scripts when a Declarative Configuration or Automation Tool can perform the same function.

· Workflow Processes - A graphic programming language, Siebel Workflow processes enable a developer to create a Flowchart of business logic with properties that enable the Flowchart (Workflow Process) to execute like a standard piece of code with branching and error handling logic. In Siebel version 6 Workflow was enhanced with a User Interact step that enabled the process to wait for an event and navigate the user to another view, forcing them through the Business Process. While I consider this the first fully aggressive Business Process Adherence tool, anyone who tried to implement Interactive Workflows soon realized that the logic needed to handle forward and backward process logic required more development to handle navigation than it did to accomplish the objectives of the process. With many ways to invoke a Workflow Process it is a versatile tool that is more easily upgraded than apiece of normal code. Because the Workflow process can force the user through a set of views, I consider this to be an aggressive automation tool. The uses for Workflow are many; today it is a popular tool to use in Integrating Siebel and other Applications, and acting as an Electronic Agent, performing critical tasks in the background responding to changes in the Database. A deep understanding of Siebel and its architecture is needed to develop new Workflow Processes.

· State Model - An administrative based tool State Model can control the transition of values displayed in a standard Siebel Pick List. State Model can hide Static Pick List values that a user does not have the authority to access. An example would be that an Employee could transition an Expense Report Status Field from a status of In Progress to a status of Submitted, while hiding the Approved value the Employee does not have the rights to select. As State Model hides data only showing valid values a user can pick, I consider this an aggressive Business Process Adherence tool. This is a wonderful tool that requires no development resources to maintain.

· Business Rule Inference Engine - In Siebel 8.0 the Haley Authority Business Rule Development Tool and Processing Engine were integrated with the Oracle Siebel CRM Enterprise product. The Haley product is a departure from traditional application development as it enables Business Rules supporting Business Processes to be developed using a Natural English Language Rule Statement Authoring Tool. As a Technical person I am concerned at the time it would take to read the equivalent of a book of rules written in English and understand what logic is being implemented. I have heard from my students about projects using Haley Rule Authoring with very good results. Since Rules are developed with the Haley Authoring product they are not compiled in the Siebel Repository File making the release cycle faster than typically associated to the deployment of Declarative Configuration alternatives. While Haley can be used to define validation logic, set default values, and enforce rules across multiple Business Components, these capabilities are also available through Declarative Configuration, which will out perform the Haley Engine. The advantage of Haley's is that a Business Analyst could become a Haley Developer defining new logic. I have heard from students working in the Public Sector that Haley is quickly becoming a favorite tool enabling these agencies of the government to adapt their IT processes at the same speed they implement new laws and policies in the government.

· Administration - Data Validation - Though developers can build validation on a Field using Declarative Configuration steps to modify the repository Field object, this process requires a re-compilation and distribution of the Siebel Repository File which takes time and operations resources. An alternative is to use the Siebel Client Administration Data Validation tool to build similar logic without the need for compilation. Like the Haley tool, this enables faster response to changes in Business Logic, which forces users to adhere to Business Process requirements making it an aggressive tool.

· SmartScript - Since I started working with Siebel in 1998 SmartScripting has been available as alternative to the normal Siebel User Interface. With a SmartScript, a text based User Interface replaces the standard UI. Originally meant to reduce training of Call Center operators performing Out Bound Marketing based Campaign Calling functions SmartScripting used to require considerable development in order to save data spread across multiple Business Components. The latter versions of SmartScripts perform the same functions with development performed mainly in the standard Siebel Client with greatly reduced and in many cases no need at all to develop code to support the storage of data collected. I was impressed by the ease of development in Siebel 8.x of complex scripts collecting data across multiple Business Components. While this tool is still valuable for Marketing Campaign Calling it has greater capabilities that can also assist in Service processes to collect information and guide the user through a diagnosis or repair process that may have many steps with many conditional branches. The SmartScript framework provides for Forward and Previous stepping through the script with no additional development needed by its author. As the SmartScript progresses the user through the process, I consider it to be an aggressive Business Process Automation tool that can quickly respond to changes in process logic.

· Task User Interface - My favorite Siebel 8.x New Feature the Task Based User Interface can be thought of as a SmartScript on steroids. Like a SmartScript it replaces the standard UI with a Wizard like UI. The framework supporting the TUI provides for user progressing through the task using forward and backward navigation buttons. Like the SmartScript the data entered in the Task is only written to the Database at the end of the Task. Like a Workflow the Task is developed using Siebel Tools and is not compiled into the Siebel Repository File though any of the UI Applets or Views used in the Task must be compiled. The Task UI like a Workflow can invoke Siebel Business Services (Code packets global to the Siebel System and written in either Siebel VB or eScript), Siebel Workflows, and Sub-Tasks making it very robust and able to handle even the most complex processes. Though the Task UI is powerful, it should not be thought of as the Primary User Interface; instead it is the extra productivity tool to aid users as they perform complex processes. The Task UI has another advantage as it is administered like a Siebel View via Responsibilities giving administrators total control over which users have access to the Task. As the TUI forces the User through the process it allows a user to pause, resume, and transfer the Task to another User, making it my favorite Aggressive Business Automation tool.

Congratulations, you made it to the end. I hope this list of easily upgradeable automation tools provides ideas that will help you improve your Oracle Siebel CRM implementations making it easier for your users to deliver error free adherence to complex business process challenges.

As this is my last article and blog, I thank my readers for their kind and motivating comments and hope to keep in touch with everyone through other channels of communications.

In order to understand the danger, you need to know that I have been going online for business and social communications since 1971. My first experience aside from the rotary dial telephone was communicating via a Remote Job Entry (RJE) terminal to a central mainframe doing the administrative tasks for the city high schools of New York. As none of the school's administrative staff understood the RJE station, the Computer Science students did most of the terminal work. When not running attendance or scheduling jobs we would send messages to the other students running the other jobs in the other high schools. I now wonder if the Analyst in charge of the IT system counted on the students to aid the adults in the deployment of the system. Getting back on track, over my holiday I wound up using my free time by going online and addicting myself to one of the Social Networking sites.

Now I have been talking about social networking without defining it, and as the video mentioned that Wikipedia has become a reliable source for such definitions, I will reference their definition:

"A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of network theory about nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. The resulting graph-based structures are often very complex. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.

In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant nodes between all the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to measure social capital -- the value that an individual gets from the social network. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines."

At present it common to see in any major city a middle class household with children that is connected to the internet via a Mobile Phone or PC with someone in the house connected to a social network. Based on my three week indulgence on one social site, I came to the conclusion that much of the technology used in social rather than professional products sucks up a person's energy with little practical return.

Before I talk about Social Networking and CRM, I would like to relay a personal story. While I originally joined one site to understand how my teenagers where keeping up with their friends online, a recently retired associate of mine invited me to participate in his online mafia family. I had several weeks ahead of me with time to fill and my NY roots calling to me I accepted the invitation.

The first thing that I realized was the site that hosted the game was a hosting platform for many applications. That means they are setting application development standards, a fact that few people are discussing when talking about networking technologies. Unlike other game experiences I have had, there is no way to spend an hour dedicated to the game, instead the game is oriented to having you come back and check every few hours your progress (marketing people take note). In essence they have motivated me to check in on the site, which grew from checking in on 1 game to multiple games and other social minutia. In addition to games I took silly surveys to find how well I remembered Marx Brothers Movie Trivia and Brooklyn Trivia (my home town and I was on holiday). What I found most intriguing was the personality profiles that were available. While I have taken many such tests in the past, the results were never before posted to a general community or captured in a social database. The implications for how the information is protected and disseminated has already become a worldwide news item as some governments want access to the habits of their citizens.

In addition to hosting applications and retaining very personal information the service I was on provided the ability to buy game items, donate money to charitable organizations or purchase products using a number of reliable payment services, making them more than a social site, they are a marketplace for real as well as virtual products (talk about a way of making money virtual gifts). This represents a new market many traditional companies are not taking advantage of or even aware of. We are already seeing some governments trying to scramble and determine how to tax or if they should even allow the converting of virtual products into real money. Stories of rooms filled with people playing games to earn rewards that they can sell as gifts to other players is already being hailed by the media as a small industry doing well in Asia.

Aside from all of the personal information that can be mined from social sites the opportunity exists to tie Sales, Service, and Marketing processes with Social Network capabilities. Imagine the following scenario's.

I was having a problem with a new home network device and was not sure if the issue was in the operating system, drivers, or hardware. I had to go to several websites searching for a solution. Each vendor told me the problem was with the other company. I had to rely on social networks to find a solution. I burned many hours doing this and have avoided buying new products from both companies as their service support was unacceptable. If vendors consumer support sites tied into social networking sites, not only could customers more easily perform self service accross vendor boundries, vendors could also keep track of problems with products not being reported. Currently I rely on my social network to find and fix a problem and have less valuable contact with the actual vendor of my home products (and less future sales for them).

Once I have found solutions to my technical problems I went out and purchased additional hardware. I used the recommendations from the network to find the products that would suit my needs the best. In the past I would go to the individual vendors websites first and then pick the product. Now because many vendors are not providing adequate services and the technologies are getting more complex, I go to the network, get a recommendation, research that product, and make my purchase. The social network has become more trustworthy than the vendor having significant implications for sales departments if I am not unique.

Finally anyone in marketing not looking at how social networking sites work, is missing a huge opportunity to get their message out to a new generation of consumers. Understanding how users of a social site bounce between interests yet stay on the site presents new opportunities to conduct surveys, market research, and even promotions.

As is the case of evolution new products and services emerge some survive and many fail. Over the next decade the rise of new user interfaces made available on social networking sites will replace older technologies requiring a vendor to build the entire infrastructure supporting sales, service, and marketing functions and instead will tie their future to social networking platforms and integration standards.

The good news is, the move by large organizations to cloud computing and Service Oriented Architectures will make it easier to integrate traditional applications with new distribution channels like Social Networks. Strategic Analysts responsible for systems that touch a customer should become familiar with the opportunities available today so that they can capture the market before their competitors do.

To finish, I did a survey of my teenagers friends hanging out at our house and determined, they and their friends all participate in social networks. They are more than receptive to using the technology in more than social pursuits (I described a game idea that would teach them IT skills). They represent the consumers of the future and how they buy will be heavily influenced by the communities they participate in. My holiday is complete, next week I start a new class, and I am currently weaning myself off of my social network addiction. Or maybe I should start up a discussion group for other social network addicts.

· A lower cost, read only version of Siebel Tools for Business Analysts would be welcome

· A Data Mart tied to the Siebel Repository used for Application Object Management Dependency Analysis would be welcome and save time on current projects

· A Requirements Gathering and Tracking Tool will meet strong resistance until a Business Process Diagramming capability is available and it will continue to meet resistance until there is a single application framework in use.

The Prototype for the above products done in my spare time has been well received and a good use of my energy. The Prototype has also opened the door to Oracle's Siebel Product Development team who are now contemplating the release of the Client based Repository and Data Mart Views.

For whatever the reason, during my career I have been either shunned as the guy with the strange ideas or welcomed as the guy with the strange ideas. As a consultant my strange ideas were welcomed and revenue producing. As an employee for large companies it has always been more difficult to implement innovation and present my strange ideas. So what do you do, when you have an idea, and want to develop it as an employee. I laughed when other employees in various levels of management asked why I did not leave my company and develop the idea independently. As I am currently happy with Oracle I wanted to stay with a company that has the leverage to take my idea into the marketplace.

So what do you do, when you want to push an initiative forward. It is my experience that new ideas either fix current problems, reinvent ways of doing the same process, or change the way we think. Whatever new concept you want to bring forth must either improve someone's productivity, increase the volume of business, or improve the company's general profitability Understanding the business environment is the first critical success factor.

I started my campaign for a Business Analyst Tool over 5 years ago by writing a white paper describing the need for a new tool and data to help Siebel Project Teams. At the time many fires were burning at Siebel and the smoke put everyone into firefighting mode with all resources focused on short term revenue production. My manager and his manager had no interest in the idea as it was not going to produce any new revenue for their departments. In other words I hit a brick wall.

At the time my network did not extend to those in positions most likely to see the revenue benefits of a tool for implementation teams, and I remained stuck at that point, happy to have a job after the merge with Oracle. Still, I could not get the idea out of my head. The concept as many I have had in the past, wanted to be developed.

The most successful approach I have learned in my career is that a functional but inexpensive prototype can prove a concept and help secure funds for full development. In the 1980's I used a product named Dan Bricklin's Demo to build non-functional but visually accurate IBM CICS prototype screens. You may remember Dan Bricklin for his more memorable contribution as the developer of VisiCalc the world's first commercial Spreadsheet program.

In the 1990's I was able to model complex new data structures and build a consolidated workbench of data for Marketing Managers using Microsoft Access. Showing how the flexibility of data relationships could assist management in their decision making process. I did not know I had designed my companies first Data Warehouse. The next generation of the prototype was in Watcom and the final version was implemented in production as an Oracle database.

Several years ago I decided to use Siebel Tools to build my prototype for Business Analysis information processing. Yet after constructing my new tool I needed to get the word out. I started showing it to others, I started working up the ladder of management to disinterested managers, but I got the word out that I had something. People liked the idea, though no one was interested in pushing it forward. I was recently surprised and happy to hear from a Partner who is also using Siebel Tools as a platform to do new development to solve customer requirements.

As chance would have it, one day while on a smoking break, I was told that a guest Siebel speaker was presenting and I was provided an introduction to my first contact in product management. Finally all my networking paid off with a lead. Over the years working with sales people I have seen the importance of maintaing contacts and networking and like many good sales people, I have come to realize that growing relationships resulting from leads may not always show short term results, they may instead reap longer term and more significant rewards. Like many in sales I have found ways, usually through emails or elevator chats to keep my network informed of my progress and solicit assistance when needed.

The ability to persevere despite brick walls and despite setbacks it critical to being successful. The ability to preserve your network over time is critical if you are going to bring together your resources and break through obstacles. I give a lot of credit to highly successful people as they bring enough energy to survive through the selling cycle, excel in the development cycle, and build the support structure to keep their ideas growing.

Finally you need to be flexible, it will be a rare occurrence that gives you all the resources and funding to develop your vision. The ability to hear what aspects of you vision are best received enables you to adjust your planning and development to prove your concept. More than once it was only success that turned my detractors into supporters. If you are lucky you can then turn your energies from selling into developing. Getting your foot in the door with your first funding is many times the hardest objective to meet. Once you have accomplished this yand gotten your funding your next challenge is to ensure you can demonstrate the benefits of your work and justify the trust placed n you and the project..

As I have said before, it is all in relationships. As a technical resource, learning the skills of relationship management will help you sell your ideas and positively affect how your company does business. We are entering a period of time where innovation will be critical to the survival of many businesses. It is my hope that companies will make it easier to test innovative ideas.

With the new season comes the introduction of the new Oracle Siebel CRM 8.1 Technical courses. The technical differences between the 8.0 and 8.1 releases appear to be minimal with many of the advancements associated to functional aspects of the product. My intention this month is to discuss the new direction in courses, and provide an opinion or two.

The changes to the curriculum revolve around the Core Siebel courses that lead to certification. I believe that those of us holding Siebel Consulting Certifications benefit through higher utilization than non-certified resources. I also believe that the true benefit of certification is for the customer receiving a higher quality of work with an appreciation for building sturdy solutions that can last the test of time.

If the options available are a bit confusing, it may be due to the fact that the 8.0 and 8.1 courses represent two different training philosophies. The 8.0 curriculum represents a direction the courses have taken for almost a decade. The Role Based objectives of the course is to prepare a well rounded resource capable of completing development tasks with an understanding of the dependencies and considerations needed to successfully complete the project stage. The 8.0 curriculum includes a week long Implementation Case Study Week designed to significantly improve the students learning curve and productivity in the field.

The 8.1 Curriculum is not as Job Role based as the 8.0 and seeks to go into the depth missing from the Siebel 8.0 Essentials training. The 8.1 Curriculum replaces the Case Study component of the course with an additional week of traditional training combined with Self-Study Media Based On-Line courses. While the 8.0 program is meant to be completed in three consecutive weeks, the 8.1 program is designed as self study combined with three weeks of Instructor Led Training meant to be taken over a longer period of time.

The new 8.1 courses are exciting in that they present topics like the Siebel Management Server and Siebel Application Response Measurement system in more detail. A proper treatment of how User Authentication technologies are implemented in production systems is part of the new Installation course. The diminished coverage of installation in the Siebel 8.0 Essentials Course and Day One focus of installation in the Case Study course receives two days of treatment in the 8.1 program.

In the new Siebel 8.1 Tools course students have more time to better understand the core of the Siebel Architecture and how to use Declarative Configuration (Modifying object definitions to define application functionality) to solve user design requirements not available in the Out Of The Box product. The new Siebel 8.1 Business Automation course still keeps students busy with the inclusion of SmartScript and Inbox configuration in addition to the traditional topics of Workflow and Assignment Manager.

What I like best about the new 8.1 curriculum is that it satisfies a gripe I have had over the last 10 years which is, where are the advanced classes. The Siebel architecture is so large that many topics never got into the curriculum as there was only so much you could pack into a 10 day training and 5 day case study. With 8.1 there will be other exciting courses covering EIM in the detail it requires, advanced Tools classes covering Chart and Tree Applets will also soon be available.

Oracle University is recommending that new students follow the 8.1 curriculum as a path towards certification. If you choose to follow this recommendation please pay attention to the Pre-Requisite Self Study courses and in my opinion treat the Recommended Pre-Requisites as critical courses for the student to follow. The Self-Study materials cover topics that are part of the 8.0 Instructor Led Courses and are critical for the student to truly understand how Siebel CRM works. In my opinion, they should be taught by an Instructor which is why I still favor the 8.0 program.

As a Project Manager looking to get resources trained, certified, and productive, the 8.0 program represents the lowest cost in time with the maximum exposure to what customization is possible at the lowest cost with highest reliability. The 8.0- program is better suited to the typical student coming into my classroom who is entering into the IT profession from the Business Sector. Many of these students do not have the technical foundation in Programming, Operating Systems, and Database Technology, and they struggle with technical topics in the lighter 8.0 program.

I believe that the 8.1 program is perfectly suited to the more technical project resources working with the Siebel Core team. Installation and Systems Administration is all many administrators need to know and they do not enjoy sitting through the configuration topics stressed in the 8.0 curriculum.

I will not hide the fact that I am disappointed that the Case Study is missing from the 8.1 program and believe it is still the one week of training that students appreciate the most, learn the most, and enjoy the most. It is my opinion that the Case Study is needed to bring all the numerous learning objectives of training to the point where students understand the materials. I believe that mixing the 8.0 Core Consulting Course and the more advanced 8.1 topics as well as the new 8.1 Loyalty Application focused course is the best long term investment with a shorter startup.

I look forward to seeing you in the classroom.

It is not surprising that we fail in our communications. I, as you know from previous articles, am dismayed at how little some technical people want to know about the project they are part of. During every project, critical decisions must be made. When we make a critical decision without a vision on the finished product we many times make the wrong decision. I have seen many attempts by management to communicate vision down to their employees. Many time I hear and watch a presentation and wonder what they are talking about as the vision is too vague for my bottom up style. I am unable to reach the point where I can see the vision being realized. When this happens my mind wanders to more practical matters and the lines of communication stop.

Some stereotypical Sales people prey on customers by creating wonderful visions of what the future holds when you purchase their product. Many customers have been disappointed by these emotional purchases as they bought the goods, and never reaped the benefits. I have a good example from about 10 years ago. I was researching Product Configuration software for my companies CRM initiative. After going to the industry leading vendor I set up meetings to investigate the product. As a matter of course, I asked for references.

I don't know if it is just me, but I usually expect to hear a good story from a reference. My salesman must of thought I would never check as only 1 of the 3 references ever implemented any aspect of the product solution (a failure in his CRM solution). Working with someone else in my company we made appointments to visit the vendor reference companies as we were very interested in the product. After traveling several hours from New York to Denver we entered the office of the reference, the head of this companies IT department.

It was a mid-sized company in an executive office space, they manufactured very high tech circuit boards. Our host looked over worked, his desk filled with files and his face turned sad as he explained to us that while he was away over the last Christmas and New Year's holiday, the Product Configuration vendor sold senior management on the vision of defect free orders and had them sign a contract.

This poor Bottom/Up Thinker found new software and contracts worth well over half a million dollars on his desk. Needless to say 9 months later when we visited, the software was returned back to the box, collecting dust, as they were unable to build the model needed to make the software of any value to them.

Having reviewed the product in great detail, we met with our management to explain the time and resources needed to make their vision for our company happen, and together we agreed that our chance of success would be minimal and we scrapped the project. The project needed Object Oriented Modeling skills combined with an understanding of our products and their model based breakdown. Basically we needed very special skills already in great demand within the company combined with OO skills that did not at the time exist in the company. What we needed was a Top/Down, Bottom/Up Thinker.

Our management was able to understand this hard to find requirement because in my final presentation to them, my teammate did the talking as his track record went back much further with the management team then mine did, and while I ramble and speak in tongues, he was able to describe the problem with terminology our management team understood. It was my first time meeting with this team and I was impressed and felt we had succeeded even though we shelved the project.

What we were able to do was to integrate the Top level thinking of our management with the bottom level details needed to realize the vision. We worked well in coming up with a decision to avoid the problems non-integrated thinking companies experienced. My teammate was the glue between the technology and management teams.

In order to make this happen my partner and I had to understand what our management team was trying to do. We extended their thinking by not just looking at the technology to configure a product, but also the technology needed to deal with re-orders based on a current configuration and change order management issues. When we put this on the table, management understood that their vision had to be expanded if they were going to get the desired results (Defect free orders).

The communication between management and the technical team grew over time based on mutual trust and a willingness of both parties to listen to each other. Through smaller projects like a Data Warehouse prototype that management did not even imagine was possible, they were willing to spend more time (and money) integrating Top/Down and Bottom/Up thinking.

When I felt it was time to leave the company, I was part of a team that integrated IT and Operations Management. We built small teams that went on to work on other projects where management supported the team and felt confidence in its members. As a result, getting promotions and raises for key team members was supported by senior management creating valued loyalty from our employees.

It was a Win/Win situation and for me, a good experience working with Top/Down Thinkers. I believe that CRM is a vision based initiative for many organizations. Failures in integrating the vision with a practical first implementation and a plan for the future combined with communications breakdowns amongst management and implementation teams is a key factor in project failures.

Always remember that Customer Relationship Management starts with good Internal Relationship Management. And my final recommendation, why not use the CRM product you purchased to improve the Internal Relationship Management that needs to occur to make the vision real.

Having reached this milestone, I sat back and asked myself, what else do we need to help reduce the cost of Design and ensure the success of our projects. The simple solution made me wonder, have I been asleep all this time, as the answer was so obvious. The Siebel CRM Application Suite is meant to improve the relationships between Company and Customer, why not use the same technologies to improve the relationship between our Project Teams and our Information Technology Customers, the End User.

Embedded into the Siebel CRM Applications are communications tools, marketing tools, survey tools, task generation and dispersal tools with tracking and issue resolution aids. We have tools to help automate Business Process logic and track related materials storing them in either a transaction oriented database or file related content management system. Data warehouse technology is embedded to help analyze and communicate progress, analyze risk, and facilitate collaboration.

It seems to me, that even today, in our fourth decade of computer technology supporting our companies operations, we still run projects in the same way with the same risks and the same percentage of failure rates we saw in the 1960's. To prove this statement just poll your user community and you will typically find the same negative perception of the Information Technology teams.

The problem many of us face is that there is not one system to handle the varying type of information in the different media formats, each satisfying a specific need of the team. We have separate software for our Lists be they Wish Lists, Bug Lists, Requirements Lists, or Task Lists. We need Project Management Data with estimated versus actual accountings. We create Documents, Presentations, Newsletters, Surveys, and other content that is communicated internally and externally. We have Approvals that need to be tracked with Signoff's that need to be accounted for. Work needs to be broken down and allocated to people by skill sets. We need to be more productive and manage our productivity.

Funny, but each of these needs are needs of our Sales, Service, and Marketing departments with supporting solutions in the Siebel CRM solution. We use Sales Assistants to generate lists and activities to track our tasks, including the arrangement of our calendars. We use Service Requests to track issues. We use forecasting and compare estimated productivity versus actual productivity. Approval processes can be aided and automated with Workflow customizations. Content Management tools identify and track what materials distributed for internal and external consumption.

What I find to be the funniest bit of irony is that in addition to all the capability matches between Siebel CRM and the needs of our Project teams, is the fact that we probably own the licenses needed to use the CRM solution to help the Project Team Relationship Management needs. I have always loved a bargain and using tools that are available to solve problems in a creative way.

Over the next few months I will be working both internally and externally to advocate the use of our existing technologies to aid project teams and reduce the risk of project failures. The challenges are many as whatever platform we decide on must be integrated with the tools and data maintained in our distributed project based application software. With the potential benefit as being great, the risk of allocating one senior level Siebel CRM Database Administrator to gather and integrate the dispersed data does not seem unreasonable. Getting Business Analysts with free time to document the Business Processes implemented using tools that integrate graphic data and Siebel Repository Data would be appreciated before an upgrade or major implementation initiative.

Yet even with the distributed nature and specialized meta data and application code library requirements we see a solution to this problem already in use by our business departments. Tools like Oracle Fusion Middleware are bringing together applications and their data so that it can be shared and accessed across many applications and users. Can't we use our integration technologies to bring together IT related data. I know we can break a lot of our data into categories of process, entities, attributes, and relationships. I know the challenge and the creative ways needed to consolidate business data into a Data warehouse and believe that the same thing could be done with project data.

With the advent of Out Sourcing we see project teams dispersed and many times partnering with external resources. Oracle Siebel CRM solutions provide the diversity of communications channels enabling us to integrate our geographically dispersed resources. Siebel Partner Management features allow us to segment data and maintain privacy. The consolidation of these resources into one tracking system where data is not lost at the end of a project would mean that we could actually view the productivity of our developers with the same rigor that we do for our marketable products and services. Maintaining profiles of our developers would help us understand true learning curve productivity estimates when we add junior or senior level resources to our next project. As more companies are going green by reducing travel, standardization of project data would enable vendors to offer new Design and Support services to the project team integrating through the project management system without having to travel and incur the cost to the environment and project budget.

Many of you will look at the initial cost of setting up a system to consolidate all project data and will be scared away from the attempt. As vendors we will need to add capabilities to existing products to enable them to natively support the needs of the project team and we will be scared away. As is always the case, some of us will not be scared away from an initiative that can have long term positive benefits, and they will be the companies that will prosper during the economic winter and be ready to take the market when the climate warms again.

I am anxious to hear from others who share my vision or oppose the concept. I hope to meet some of you at the end of March at my first Oracle Benelux User Group meeting.

http://www.obug.nl/2009/

The selling tactic of this store Santa was to refer customers to other stores when this city institution of shopping could not provide the product asked for. The loyalty customers returned in response was so positive that other stores started offering the same service and many wondered if the store Santa was truly Saint Nicholas.

Many times I wonder if we lose sight of our own CRM initiatives focusing too much on the larger technology challenges before we implement simple tools or processes that would provide our customers the services that will keep them coming back.

A personal shopping experience is a good example of what I mean. After having waited a year for a new mobile phone handset to become available on the market, I saw it posted on a local wireless companies web site. The device was not orderable and I was told that I would be informed when it could be shipped.

Of course now anxious for this new toy, I checked their site and their competitors site weekly to determine when it would be orderable. Having not received an email back, I saw the device posted on the site. This was an opportunity for the company to have lost my business which they eventually did as I was willing to buy from the first reputable vendor offering the handset.

I always try and buy from companies that buy from my company so I checked the Web site before all others. Now dancing for joy the toy was available, I got out my credit card, ordered online receiving an online discount, all well and good. I was impressed when the package arrived as the modern delivery service used a wireless device to capture my electronic payment before handing me my phone.

Now those of you who know me will appreciate my frustration at the next stage of my adventure. Living in the Netherlands for over 6 years, I have still not managed to learn the local language. Opening the box, turning on the device for the first time, it started up in the Dutch language, my regions local language, and one I do not speak. All other phones were in multiple languages, but not so for the one I had waited so long for. After calling support, also very easy and friendly, they determined that I had to return the phone and order another.

But no English versions were available from the online store, I would have to visit the retail store and they could not tell me if the phone was in stock at any location. Of course the consumer store did not sell the phone in English and they sent me to the Business Center where I was told I could get the device.

The return policy was very easy, and I was still motivated to buy the phone from the business center. Capturing the address of the nearest store and putting it into my GPS navigator I set out to hunt my pray. Located in the middle of nowhere, I used my Saturday morning to wait in line only to find out that they had no product available and could not order any.

Now I was unhappy, my loyalty was greatly diminished as I traveled on a wild goose chase around the city only to be disappointed. They could have told me over the phone that they could not help me, but they did not. They did not investigate the potential loss of my business to a competitor or understand that it includes the members of my family as well. Instead they were happy to see me leave their store.

Getting back in the car, I went to a competitor. I was not surprised to find out that the phone was not popular in the English Language and that they had no handsets. What they did have was a desire to win my business and they took the time to order a phone that met my needs, winning a very lucrative service contract and the future business of myself, my partner, and her two teenage children still living in the house with us.

I am now a satisfied mobile consumer connected to the world,happy with my new purchase. I believe very strongly that if Customer Relationship Management starts with the Relationship before the Management it can be of significant value to a business. Sometimes the willingness to be of service rather than the service system is the difference between keeping a customer and losing one.

My experience has shown me that the root cause of the tension between IT and the Business Units is that we speak two or more different languages and have trouble communicating with each other. In the late 1970’s a book called “The Psychology of Computer Programmers” highlighted the fact the IT professionals in many cases are not the most social of creatures on the planet. I remember as a child my father making jokes and calling me Mr. Anti-Social illustrating my own challenges in this area.

In the early part of this decade Siebel realized that User Adoption/Acceptance of the CRM solution was a key success factor of the implementation project. Improving User Adoption requires that the Development Team improve the Communications it has with the Users/Business Units. Before the Development Team can improve its communications with the Users it must improve its communications internally.

In order to assist IT Departments improve their communications with the Business Units Siebel started a User Adoptions Services team offering user rather than technical services. I personally believe very strongly in such activities. Prior to joining Siebel I was implementing a new solution for my companies Sales Representatives. They did not want to be automated, they did not want to be tracked, and they did not want to hear me beg them to keep their customer data synchronized. This may be a problem familiar to many readers out there. I quickly realized that I had an up hill battle. I knew what I developed met severe User Adoption Issues. By the way, I had to implement this solution in 20 countries.

I am more fortunate than many of my peers in IT, having had a major Burn Out after running my own consulting company for 10 years, I had enough of IT and the stress, and the complaints by users, and the tight project time lines. I decided to change careers and became an Industry Marketing Specialist. As I said, I am very lucky. The first thing my new employer did was send me to a solution selling methodologies course. They taught me how to sell, which I see as how to communicate and persuade others. This class also taught me about how sales people work. It taught me the Business of Sales. When my company was looking for someone to head the Sales IT team, I decided to go back into IT and use the skills I learned of the business and integrate it with the IT skills I had maintained. It gave me the language to communicate with my users and understand their business challenges.

When I had to implement a new Sales Application Solution, I took elements of the solution selling methodology which taught me that you can not solve anyone’s problems, you can only aid others in solving their own problems. I built my buying team and requirements and design team from Sales Representatives, Administrators, and Managers who would be my end users. They took ownership of the solution. I advised them of the IT implications of their decisions and we negotiated together and with the vendor to implement a solution that worked for all of us.

I used this peer group to not only pick and design the solution but to also help sell the solution to the rest of the sales teams. In other words, we communicated. I knew and understood their products, which is important, as some products were bundled products. Some products had dependencies on other products. They gave me the insight on what they needed when quoting prices and discounting for products they sold.

Without this understanding and communications, it is no surprise why many projects fail to meet user expectations or needs. I have been encouraged by the move of many customers to focus Business Analysts on key segments of their business. Having the tools to talk to users and IT staff they act as the glue bringing together the knowledge needed to implement CRM solutions.

From my own situation, it was a bit of luck combined with the curiosity of a cat that combined IT and Business knowledge, for others, this can be accomplished through training. Teaching Users how they can participate more fully with the implementation team and training of the IT staff on business and communications skills. A recent student was lamenting on how the business people he meets when smoking look at him strange and avoided interacting with him. This came up as I encouraged him to interact more with his users and not assume that he understands what they request of him. He wished his communication was better but not aware of how to improve it. A well-educated person, he never thought to investigate the soft skills classes available in his and many of our companies designed to improve communications, negotiation, and team building skills.

I believe that Customer Relationship Management starts internally; it is a culture that needs to be nurtured and exemplified by our Senior Managers. Even training cannot help when a culture of unilateral decision-making exists.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to teach a 1-day class combining IT and Business Sector staff of the same company. The class covered in the morning how the 2 groups could more affectively communicate requirements by using Business Process Workshops to capture requirements. In the afternoon we took a real world Business Issue and I hosted the workshop. When my workshop attendees quickened the conversation by discussing issues in their native language, I waited, and then asked them in English what the consensus was, documented it and moved on. It was a wonderful success as the two different groups interacted with each other. Unfortunately falling into old habits, IT took the results of the meeting, which required a management decision on the multiple options we identified, and instead of communicating and discussing what managements decision was, IT implemented the decision. A few months later the Business staff when presented with the finished solution, felt that the entire effort was a waste of their time as the were never told what managements decision was and felt estranged from the process and resumed their antagonistic relationship with IT.

Bottom line, Technology alone cannot solve problems. Combine technology with good business practices, good communications skills, and a culture of service and you can change the world. In order to improve our relationship with our customers we must first have a good relationship with our internal staff from the sales, service, marketing, and technology departments. As the economy challenges all our businesses a culture of service internally and externally will improve the loyalty our customers give us and improve our productivity, which will help, contain costs. Training combined with policies and processes can improve our communications and help retain our customers.

To all my readers, may you have a happy and healthy new year

It was a late meeting, on a Friday afternoon.  The New York City population was beginning their weekly summertime migration to the beach.  I was greeted at the door by a very professionally dressed Sales Consultant and introduced to her pet Iguana as I walked into the office.  The two of them were getting ready to leave the office and begin the trip to their weekend beach house.  After saying goodbye to the Iguana and owner I was treated to a tour of the Call Center Application, Siebel Tools and a lesson on its capabilities.

What I saw in the demonstration was a way to describe application functionality without the need to write program code.  My 35 years in the Information Technology industry taught me that program code based applications have a short life span with a very poor ability to adapt to change.  I became convinced in the power of the Siebel product, but at the time I did not really understand all that I had seen. 

Soon after beginning my employment with Siebel I was sent to California for three weeks of technical training.  My time in the office before my trip was spent pouring over technical manuals so when I sat in class, many terms were already familiar to me.  While in class I drew diagrams in order to visualize and understand the materials presented by my instructors.  I was nervous as I knew that the Monday after my return home I was scheduled to be a senior resource on a high profile project.

During my three weeks of training I got to know the 19 other new employees attending training.  It was an interesting mix of people with varied technical abilities and future roles in the company.  What would become a continuing trend in my Siebel career, there were people joining the company with skills in a product whose company was acquired by Siebel and they were hired to assist in the integration of the products database models.

I was very critical regarding the fact that the training was disjointed with many instructors and no guidance during the case study week we participated in.  As a result I sat down with the program director (who would latter become my manager) to discuss potential improvements to the three weeks of training.   For me the most beneficial day of training was the final day of the case study.  On that day we were required to present our solutions.  In the meeting sat some managers that our direct managers reported to.  These experts were there to critique our solutions and progress.  No pressure.

My team totally missed the point early on and followed a path that had us do a long and impressive presentation and a very short and dysfunctional demonstration of the working product.  Another team completed many more objectives than we did, but during their presentation the solution fell apart as it did not adhere to best practices.  It seems that the second team accomplished all the objectives by writing Visual Basic code to extend the application and satisfy the requirements (we were not supposed to write code).  The chief programmer on that team got into a heated discussion defending the solution with several of the senior managers. It was painful to watch him defend himself while missing the point of the criticism, yes it worked, but it was a dead end and not maintainable.

He argued, the solution worked, what’s the problem.  What he did not have an answer for was, would he be available when the application needed to be modified, upgraded, or enhanced.  Like many who do not consider the long haul, as a technical rather than a business person he was willing to trade the high future costs of maintenance for a working solution today. While Oracle Siebel does enable programmers to extend the application writing complex code segments, it is an option that should only be used as a last resort. Instead, developers are encouraged to extend the application by manipulating objects in Siebel’s three layer Object Oriented repository. Oracle Siebel CRM also provides many Business Automation tools to help route data, implement sophisticated business rules all without writing program code. These alternatives to code/scripts are more easily and cost justifiably maintained and updated.

As Karma would have it, a week after I began on my first project, this coding genius whose technical capabilities I had a deep respect for but whose business decisions scared me, came on to my project as one of its lead developers.  The customer, a major bank, who in 5 years had gone through 6 significant mergers, decided that two pilot programs would decide the future of Siebel at the bank. 

The Project Manager running the Call Center pilot including integration to the CTI environment was required to say yes to all customer requests.  No one wanted to jeopardize the big potential Branch opportunity.  We were all encouraged to keep the customer happy and give them what they wanted. The customer at the end of the project wondered why the project was behind schedule and above cost estimates.  The second pilot was run by a third party consulting team only one of whom had been on a training course.  Though the second project personnel did not understand the product they were implementing, we managed to keep the needed changes to a minimum and implement with mostly out of the box functionality.

My job was to support both Pilots, keep them aligned, and lead them to a future integrated architecture including workstations in each of the banks branches.  After spending 6 months trying to accomplish the impossible, and managing to negotiate the possible with the customer and implementation teams, I jumped at the chance to join the Curriculum Development department and help transform the three weeks of internal training I was so critical of, into a flagship program for our implementation partners.

For the last nine years I have focused my attention in the education department, sharing my experiences with my students.  I have been asked to write a monthly article for this new publication.  My future articles will start by covering topics describing the different stages in the life cycle of an Oracle Siebel CRM implementation.  I will present topics covering implementation project and development best practices as well as interviews with people in the field, working with the product.

Next month starting at the early requirements gathering and design solution stages of a CRM project I will share the best practices I have learned, experienced, and have collected from others.  I am eager to cover topics of interest to our readers and can be reached at harvey.saks@oracle.com with requests.   Future articles will also include interviews with Field, Sales, and Development personnel working with the Oracle Siebel CRM solutions.  If you are interested in hearing more about how we managed to generate over 9,000 lines of program code and still be successful, then look for next months article.