As a business strategy consultant, I have seen many organizations spend lots of money and time choosing information management systems but very little time proactively identifying the long term impact of those systems on operations. To overcome this tendency, organizations can take steps to minimize the devastating impact of an implementation that was not planned well operationally. The most important rule when implementing any new system (whether IT or manual) is to spend the necessary time to complete a thorough requirements analysis. At minimum, the following items should be investigated before any money is spent or resources are assigned. In this article, I am addressing the process portion of an analysis.
1. Strategic planning is more than an annual exercise–it is the intentional and deliberate thought processes that provide the foundation upon which businesses grow. As such, it needs to be conducted regularly as a part of normal operations. Through strategic planning, the organization will know where it is, where it is going, and how it is going to get there. Properly conducted strategic planning will result in an actionable plan that provides direction to leadership and staff. Operations can be impaired or temporarily shut down when more time is spent on execution of a change rather than on the initial strategic planning process.
2. An operational assessment will identify the key people, procedures, human resources, and equipment that are currently working well, along with those that are not. Reviewing operations from an objective viewpoint allows an organization to see itself from a fresh perspective. However, it is quite a challenge to look at one’s own organization objectively, so this may be a task for which you choose to bring in an outside consultant. Remember that it isn’t who does the operational assessment that matters but rather the objective information received from it. Process analysis should be included in the operational assessment to reveal the cause and effect relationships of your business processes. In the end, productive decisions can only be made when you have asked all the questions necessary to know where your organization really stands.
3. It is important to know all legal, regulatory, and accreditation requirements when reviewing the process or system needs of an organization. There are few things more devastating to an organization than finding out too late that compliance issues have not been addressed. Further, it is imperative to identify the reporting requirements at each level of the organization.
4. Budgetary requirements should be part of the strategic plan. System decisions should be based on the needs of the organization for present and future operations. System needs should drive the budget, but more often than not, system decisions are determined by the funds available. Lack of planning in this arena can cause long-term financial and operational problems from which some organizations never recover.
Be sure to come back and read part two of this article. I’ll talk about the tips needed for the people part of an implementation.
