The original discussion is here:
http://tinyurl.com/48hp7dq
I can agree with the reasons cited in the attached article. I will add a couple of my own:
1) Senior leadership: Regular (more than once a week) oversight and interaction by senior management is required to ensure both direction and buy-in from the top. The most succesful projects I have seen had almost daily involvement from management within two-levels of the CEO.
2) Put the best people on the project. You will live with this system for many years. If it is well done, it will be the source of actionable data and efficient proceessing. If it is poorly structuerd and implemented, the costs over several years cannot be calculated. Make the investment now.
3) In a system-wide project, do not let accounting lead. Yes, the accounting must work. But good accounting is meaningless absent a well run business supported by a good systems infrastructure. Accounting is a support function in any business.
4) Don't let perfect get in the way of going live. Even in legacy systems, changes and improvements are made regularly. The new system will be no different. Get it online, and this way have your whole team working in one environment instead of two. They will clean up the small problems much faster if they are focussed on the new system only.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Role of Government in Innovation
These comments are in response to a thread at Linked In:
http://tinyurl.com/48jbqkg
You cannot force it, and respectfully I would submit that government efforts only stifle it. To avoid further politicization of this thread, I will limit my comments to two:
1) Approval through committees stifles innovation. The most bureaucratic committees are those formed by government. These must deliver politically desired / acceptable results, and are not disciplined by the market. Innovation not demanded / accepted by the market is useless to humanity.
2) Anecdotally, consider that the technology boom in California and elsewhere coincided with the significant reductions in aerospace and defense in the same geographic regions. Those laid-off engineers and scientists, now working outside of government dictated paths, delivered one of the greatest periods of innovation in the service of man known in recent history.
Leave it to individual human action, formed voluntarily in groups as they feel necessary, and innovation will flourish.
http://tinyurl.com/48jbqkg
You cannot force it, and respectfully I would submit that government efforts only stifle it. To avoid further politicization of this thread, I will limit my comments to two:
1) Approval through committees stifles innovation. The most bureaucratic committees are those formed by government. These must deliver politically desired / acceptable results, and are not disciplined by the market. Innovation not demanded / accepted by the market is useless to humanity.
2) Anecdotally, consider that the technology boom in California and elsewhere coincided with the significant reductions in aerospace and defense in the same geographic regions. Those laid-off engineers and scientists, now working outside of government dictated paths, delivered one of the greatest periods of innovation in the service of man known in recent history.
Leave it to individual human action, formed voluntarily in groups as they feel necessary, and innovation will flourish.
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