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No Fun

Henry Dortman's "On the Line" eColumn, January 2009 #130 is worth reading. He comments on the lack of FUN with IT/Telecom implementations. With Henry's permission, I have included it below.Henry Dortmans is a well known telecom management professional, executive, advisor, speaker and conference chair in Canada. After 15 years as head of Angus Dortmans Associates, he is now president of Datex Management Services

PUTTING FUN BACK INTO THE INDUSTRY What are the issues?

At an industry briefing just before the holidays, Gerry Steiner, Vice President of Customer Solutions Delivery at TELUS, made an interesting comment. He said, "Implementations aren't as much fun as they used to be. Most people aren't as happy anymore."

I wondered why.

Answers from others in the room that day varied. Changing expectations. Longer delivery times. More decision-makers. Differing objectives.

So I decided to ask enterprise IT/Telecom end-user leaders directly.

I was surprised by the number of responses. Almost all agreed that it wasn't as much fun. I struck a chord, as they say, with many. The comments come from B.C. to Newfoundland, from business and government, from mid-size to large organizations. Their answers are real.

Here are just some of them. (I promised anonymity, see below).

Disappointment "Here are three reasons why it's not as much fun: we usually hear about new things much earlier than the real things truly appear; the propaganda sets high expectations so the disappointments are greater; many new things are just new versions of old things."

The 'cringe and duck' factor "Part of the fallout of all of the current commotion is that I feel incompetent. I know that I'm competent. I'm not perfect, but I do a very good job. And maybe that's the bottom line: it just isn't something that I can feel proud of anymore. Instead I cringe and duck because I know that I'm going to have shoes dropping all over the place on each project. I care about what I do; I believe in what I do."

Lack of trust "I think voice telecom implementations are worse than datacom ones because there are more parties involved and nobody trusts anyone because everyone is trying to do the least amount of work possible. Everyone is trying to offload work to others involved in the project."

More time and effort "I think companies in general have higher expectations of suppliers today but are now more skeptical about how well they'll deliver and support their products. With recent mergers, the talent pool--ranging from sales people to technical support staff--has noticeably declined."

More people involved "Networks, data, server and security disciplines have expanded and matured while telecom's role has shrunk. Our telecom staff is no longer responsible for an implementation from start to finish. With the move to applications housed on external servers, more people are now involved in the telecom-related implementations."

Demanding staff "Our end users are more demanding. They see something and want it immediately, but it takes time. Also, the vendors make it difficult. They don't always play nice with each other...In the old days, we had one vendor who provided end-to-end service and these things just didn't happen."

More suppliers "True, it's not as much fun. Implementations were fun when people rolled with the challenges, believed every problem had a solution, and that suppliers and customers would work towards that solution as a common goal. So what has changed? Many more suppliers. Some more into getting the business than getting the solution. Customers are left with thinking 'Maybe they're just not into me' mentality, while suppliers wonder what happened to the 'love & loyalty'?"

General reluctance to change "Telecom is not as much 'fun.' There seems to be a reluctance to change. And most of the technology changes that people do like don't create huge excitement. And there doesn't seem to be the internal champions of new technologies anymore."

Internal telecom staff reluctance to change "Yes and no. It is not fun because: some people in the organization still think that all they need to provide is dial tone; some people don't want to learn all about the networking technologies and new ways to deliver service; end user expectations have never been higher."

Technology simplicity "It's less fun because there was more complex work in the past. The old hardware and software made things more interesting. Today, we can mix and match almost anything and in general it just works (which is good)."

Technology complexity "The requirements list has ballooned compared to years ago. Previously telecom and network services focused solely on features and cost. We now need to include security, regulatory and legal concerns in our requirements list. This often makes a solution so convoluted or complex it becomes unwieldy. We've doubled our staff in the last few years to accommodate these new requirements, yet we're still doing the same amount of work as before."

Supplier management "The Canadian telecom industry is going through a transition. Co-operation between telecom companies seems to be at an all time low. This can be very frustrating for customers who need national services...More and more it looks like customers will need more resources to supplement services acquired from vendors."

More skills needed "Troubleshooting has become far more complex with the introduction of integration to the data network. Many more parties are now needed to identify and resolve problems. Skill sets among technical staff are still maturing via a 'learn as you go' method which is often painful."

The Great Divide "I meet with colleagues in North America throughout the year at various events and there is a lot of gray hair at the table. This situation makes me very sad as it appears we are not attracting energetic, enthusiastic young people to the profession. Oh yeah, the profession. It seems that so many think that voice is just another application on the data network. I strongly beg to differ because folks with a voice background seem to understand and are committed to customer service, not just the gee-whizzedness of making the technology work. There is still a great divide between the voice and data world."

Henry expects to deal with these comments in his next eColumn. As a hobby, he writes the column, On the Line, about real-life experiences and read by many. To subscribe to the free of charge email edition, visit http://www.henrydortmans.com/index.shtml.

At an industry briefing just before the holidays, Gerry Steiner, Vice President of Customer Solutions Delivery at TELUS, made an interesting comment. He said, "Implementations aren't as much fun as they used to be. Most people aren't as happy anymore."

I wondered why.

Answers from others in the room that day varied. Changing expectations. Longer delivery times. More decision-makers. Differing objectives.

So I decided to ask enterprise IT/Telecom end-user leaders directly.

I was surprised by the number of responses. Almost all agreed that it wasn't as much fun. I struck a chord, as they say, with many. The comments come from B.C. to Newfoundland, from business and government, from mid-size to large organizations. Their answers are real.

Here are just some of them. (I promised anonymity, see below).

Disappointment "Here are three reasons why it's not as much fun: we usually hear about new things much earlier than the real things truly appear; the propaganda sets high expectations so the disappointments are greater; many new things are just new versions of old things."

The 'cringe and duck' factor "Part of the fallout of all of the current commotion is that I feel incompetent. I know that I'm competent. I'm not perfect, but I do a very good job. And maybe that's the bottom line: it just isn't something that I can feel proud of anymore. Instead I cringe and duck because I know that I'm going to have shoes dropping all over the place on each project. I care about what I do; I believe in what I do."

Lack of trust "I think voice telecom implementations are worse than datacom ones because there are more parties involved and nobody trusts anyone because everyone is trying to do the least amount of work possible. Everyone is trying to offload work to others involved in the project."

More time and effort "I think companies in general have higher expectations of suppliers today but are now more skeptical about how well they'll deliver and support their products. With recent mergers, the talent pool--ranging from sales people to technical support staff--has noticeably declined."

More people involved "Networks, data, server and security disciplines have expanded and matured while telecom's role has shrunk. Our telecom staff is no longer responsible for an implementation from start to finish. With the move to applications housed on external servers, more people are now involved in the telecom-related implementations."

Demanding staff "Our end users are more demanding. They see something and want it immediately, but it takes time. Also, the vendors make it difficult. They don't always play nice with each other...In the old days, we had one vendor who provided end-to-end service and these things just didn't happen."

More suppliers "True, it's not as much fun. Implementations were fun when people rolled with the challenges, believed every problem had a solution, and that suppliers and customers would work towards that solution as a common goal. So what has changed? Many more suppliers. Some more into getting the business than getting the solution. Customers are left with thinking 'Maybe they're just not into me' mentality, while suppliers wonder what happened to the 'love & loyalty'?"

General reluctance to change "Telecom is not as much 'fun.' There seems to be a reluctance to change. And most of the technology changes that people do like don't create huge excitement. And there doesn't seem to be the internal champions of new technologies anymore."

Internal telecom staff reluctance to change "Yes and no. It is not fun because: some people in the organization still think that all they need to provide is dial tone; some people don't want to learn all about the networking technologies and new ways to deliver service; end user expectations have never been higher."

Technology simplicity "It's less fun because there was more complex work in the past. The old hardware and software made things more interesting. Today, we can mix and match almost anything and in general it just works (which is good)."

Technology complexity "The requirements list has ballooned compared to years ago. Previously telecom and network services focused solely on features and cost. We now need to include security, regulatory and legal concerns in our requirements list. This often makes a solution so convoluted or complex it becomes unwieldy. We've doubled our staff in the last few years to accommodate these new requirements, yet we're still doing the same amount of work as before."

Supplier management "The Canadian telecom industry is going through a transition. Co-operation between telecom companies seems to be at an all time low. This can be very frustrating for customers who need national services...More and more it looks like customers will need more resources to supplement services acquired from vendors."

More skills needed "Troubleshooting has become far more complex with the introduction of integration to the data network. Many more parties are now needed to identify and resolve problems. Skill sets among technical staff are still maturing via a 'learn as you go' method which is often painful."

The Great Divide "I meet with colleagues in North America throughout the year at various events and there is a lot of gray hair at the table. This situation makes me very sad as it appears we are not attracting energetic, enthusiastic young people to the profession. Oh yeah, the profession. It seems that so many think that voice is just another application on the data network. I strongly beg to differ because folks with a voice background seem to understand and are committed to customer service, not just the gee-whizzedness of making the technology work. There is still a great divide between the voice and data world."

Henry expects to deal with these comments in his next eColumn. As a hobby, he writes the column, On the Line, about real-life experiences and read by many. To subscribe to the free of charge email edition, visit http://www.henrydortmans.com/index.shtml.