The Goal Getters

It’s next to impossible to measure performance or, effectiveness on a project if you do not have a “measuring stick”. Quite simply, the measuring stick on any project is your client and their expectations! Therefore, capturing client expectations becomes the most critical task at the beginning of any project. After the project is underway, being able to measure against those expectations means you can guide the project and help make effective decisions. The more you know about your client’s expectations the easier it becomes.

The place where I like to capture client expectations is in the Project Scope and Charter. This document is closely linked to the workplan. The workplan is where expectations are turned into tasks, deliverables and milestones that will help meet those expectations. There isn’t a sequential order implied between defining the work and building the schedule and budget. Therefore, you can work on the Project Scope and Charter and the workplan simultaneously.

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Can it be done; absolutely!  However, to meet this timeline you won’t get ‘everything under the sun’ and you’ll have to strong change control to stick with the plan.  I know what you’re thinking, “sounds too good to be true”.  Right?  Maybe not.  Think about building a house in 90 days.  Can it be done?  Yep, I’ve done it (minus the foundation).

But it required a pretty specific plan and we had to stick to the plan even though we knew we wouldn’t be looking at the end product in 90 days.  In it’s basic form we had i. a plan with critical milestones and ii. what I’m calling “building blocks” (i.e., framing, plumbing, electrical etc).  We had to make sure that each of the building blocks was fully defined ahead of time (i.e., framed walls went here and not over there) and mapped out on the timeline to fit it in the 90 day window.  Since I was the one managing the workplan I actually ended up switching the tasks around and going against the traditional order followed in construction.

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Application Management Outsourcing (AMO) refers to the ongoing maintenance, management, and support of an application software portfolio by an external company. It’s a hot topic these days with shrinking IT budgets. But how do you know if outsourcing the administration is right for you and your company?

First you have to identify the applications that are suitable for developing and maintaining remotely. Not all situations will fit this criterion due to security and procedures around administering certain applications and/or environments. I’d say 95% of the time this is not an issue however; I’ve been at some financial services clients where AMO was not an option.

Second, you need to know the company you outsource too. More importantly they need to know you and know your business. Outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing or, saving money is in my opinion short sighted and misses the concept of outsourcing all together. Most Hyperion Financial Management applications are considered mission critical due to the impact they can have on the close cycle of a company and therefore, share price. Do you really want to hand that responsibility over to ‘cousin Vinny’ because he’s 10% less than a more reputable firm?

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Welcome to The Goal Getters Blog!

The Goal Getters is a software and accounting consulting firm that specializes in Oracle / Hyperion Business Intelligence software implementations, software development, support, and hosting. We are a small dynamic organization that includes a variety of talent including CA’s, MBA’s, and Engineers. For more information on the software we specialize in please visit our Solutions section of our website.

The purpose of our Blog is to provide a variety of information related to the Industry as well as specific technical entries regarding the software we specialize in. From time to time we will also post some highly technical examples of the code behind some of our software we build to help our clients.

The Industry we operate in has a tendency to keep it’s information behind closed doors. The Goal Getters aims to open the flow of information in the Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) consulting and software industry. Our Blog is a small first step in developing a more open community.