What "TechnoFunctional" Consultants are (or will be)

Recently I found on my keep update duties a not very common job offer. What makes that offer different from others? Two topics, the first is the avalaibility of select the way you want to work with them (This topic deserves its own complete post), and the second one a brand new concept “Technofunctional Consultant”.

But, what is a Technofunctional Consultant? For introducing this role we need to define Functional and Technical Consultant previously. As Technofunc says: “Functional Consultants are the experts having understanding of the business processes and data flow on one hand and has the capability to fit these business requirements in the vendor ERP product, analyzing gaps, if any.” and “Technical Consultants are the experts having knowledge of the code, coding standards and implementation life cycle. Technical Consultants need not be any domain specific like Finance,…” .

From the definitions above we may find a middle point which is poorly covered between the Functionality and the technology beneath. And for solving the problems which may appear on this middle zone Technofunc  offer us the Technofunctional Consultant professional.

Formally we will define Technofunctional consultants as “experts who have the knowledge of the technical side of the ERP like coding, database etc and who also understand some product specific configurations for some modules by virtue of self-study or experience”.

The company behind this idea is TechnoFunc.

Effective Project Sponsors Needed: Relevant Experience and Education Definitely Required

In the link below I publish a post which fits up several and complex situations and experiences about when your sponsor fail in your project support.

Project Management | Effective Project Sponsors Needed: Relevant Experience and Education Definitely Required | Articles

Topics and sentences for summanrising:
* "One solid, engaged, accountable project sponsor is very good. Two solid, engaged, accountable project sponsors are OK but more difficult to manage. Having more than two sponsors isn’t effective at all."
* "If your kickoff meeting is likely to be nothing more than a social occasion, or if the project sponsor will simply sprinkle a little holy water on the project and then disappear, don’t bother having one. Here’s a warning sign."
* "some people think that a project sponsor might be able to do that job without any training at all."
* And the best one :"“OK, now that I’ve heard everyone’s input, I’m going to make a decision, ‘cause that’s my job as project sponsor. The decision is option A. The decision is not option B. Does everyone here understand that I’ve decided on A and not B? Please nod your head to show that you understand."




Please, leave your comments below.

A hopeful video for burnning out programmers

For encouraging all those current dissapointed programmers (we need you more than you think).

Wall Street firms put their money on poker expert - latimes.com

After my college years I got, aside of my degree on coputer engineering, several "extra-curricular" skills which allows me some networking now. Who might know that one of those skills is a key point at job interviews:
Wall Street firms put their money on poker expert - latimes.com

Moral: only a degree is not enough

Next steps on Dynamics NAV for mid-size companies, fine enough?

Last march a new Statement of Direction (SOD) was issued by Microsoft for its Dynamics NAV solution. On that document, Microsoft updates for customers and partners on the broad strategy for NAV and specifies the roadmap for its next NAV release (“7”)  on 2011 and the next expected ones (“8” and “9”).

As any of the previous SOD, this one has a huge strategic component with some expected news long ago demanded and no surprises. Microsoft strategy will still focus on simplicity, productivity, user experience, taking advantage on the rest of Microsoft technologies and  rapid time-to-value. A clear message is sent by Microsoft, everything will be “Rapid”-“Quick” for mid-size enterprises for developing a successful experience based on the elapsed time between choose NAV and its starting up.

For achieving those strategic goals will provide improved functionality across the whole solution and adding key point such:

• Removing Classic client, native database and forms. Microsoft suggests SQL server (also said on previous SOD) and role tailored philosophy.
• Introducing web services as previous step for cloud computing upgrade.
• Connector between Dynamics CRM and NAV.
• Software-plus-services plan for hosted NAV.
• Easy interaction among the whole Microsoft Technology platform (SharePoint, SQL Server, CRM, . NET, BizTalk, Office,….)

Is Microsoft Quick answer to mid-size companies a definitive strategic goal against their competitors? Definitely I believe in it. My opinion is based on a clear trend against current on-premise infrastructure bought for NAV and its maintenance, and “Role Tailored” allow easy and cheaply a closed work process (avoiding problems of unused forms, out of the process screens and not allowed access forms). I bet as well, Dynamics NAV will suit in this year reduced budgets fitting up on their current IT staff or even simplifying it.

CRM connector is a good and waited notice but, after reading, I do not feel like a strong and powerful merge tool which is actually wished by NAV customers (“only some well known scenarios”).  

At the following link you will see a Microsoft case of study about its huge success Software-plus-Services plan with Coca Cola (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000004569).

Moral: “Microsoft arrives late on SaaS but with a good plan which can fit up on current budges for NAV and mid-size companies. Still remain a lot of things on NAV like mobile features, web services, IFRS, electronic signatures and so on, but Microsoft is building up the strategy from the base and in realistic market situation.”

Will Microsoft increase its numbers? Will improve its customer experience?What do you think?

Future of baking?

Do you imagine how easy would be interact with banks in this way?
http://tinyurl.com/y8c4vmp
Banks identifying customers just incoming, customer info and agenda access to bank clerk, easy and quick report and commitment,.... and happy customers. That's bank customer's experience on Microsoft View.

Do you fancy?

A different view from google

Hello

Searching on internet (googleing) I accidental found a quite interesting and laughing video series with IT as topic.That video series was "The Hungry Beast".

On the link below you will see a short movie about what is Google working on, It's strongly recommended for those who loves and hates (undecided people as well :) the whole Google corporation.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfV6RzE30&feature=player_embeddedfound

Is Google following a full IT control strategy or it's just paying innovation progress price?

Ramble on writing your comments below.

Writing Better Project Charters

Simon Moore wrote some simple steps and examples about starting project charters (Writing Better Project Charters).

I strongly recommend this lecture.

Crisis, Innovation, Leadership, Change,....only words with nothing left to lose?

Hello

The subject of this post arrives from the confrontations from my day-a-day work and data provided by several reporting companies. Accenture has reported a survey about the reports, KPI's and their fellowship inside companies (http://tinyurl.com/yb352b8) with several conclusions on different fields (strongly recomended J.Keith Dunbar's blog for HR topics).

After read it, I have just reviewed  webminars, speaches and linkedin discussions I was involved trying to find a milestone in that well-accepted roadmap for solving mistakes from the past and get out of the crisis and I found:
*  We are at the same IT point in terms of use. After more than a year speaking of accurate indicators and dashboards, ERP savings, CRM expands and so on, we found in that report most of  decisions are "gut feel" and  "soft" factors such as consultation with others, intution and experience.

* We are still found garbage on transactional data. Isolated, flawed and not accurate information are the aswers to their quality evaluation reporting meanwhile the lack of analysis is pointed out as the cornerstone of improving performance.

Finally I would like to underline this sentence: "Despite the apparent current lack of analytics capabilities, the companies surveyed are committed to developing these capabilities".

IMHO, we all know where we are right now and how to provide better analytics but we do not come along to these features. Companies are not reducing decision risks in these times and they seam more worried about profits rejecting investments and improvements, than future earnings based on a good performance.

What do you think?, ramble on

Project management Hero

Hello

Recently I found a tinty smart game called "Project Management Hero" (http://ppmhero.com/). It consists in how a hard worker (analyst, programmer, consultant?) becomes suddenly the project manager of his current tasks, collegues and partners. What a surprise! and surrounding you there are the stakeholders, deadlines, personal .....almost real.

Seriously, It's strongly recomendated play with this game for enjoying a little bit about your work (even if you currently are PM, sure!) and specially if you dare to rise at your job.

Please, Ramble on!!!!