JUNGLES AND GARDENS: THE

EVOLUTION OF KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT AT J.D.

EDWARDSCase presentation, IS 904

15.10. Tero Päivärinta

Agenda

• What is the main idea? • What are the technological functionalities /

applications involved? • How mature is the technology? • What new does that idea bring, if

compared to related previous ideas or solutions?

• How is that technology applied?• Reflections on another case

Main idea

• Evolution of three previously separate, innovative ECM applications to an integrated large-scale system

• ”Phases” of such evolution + roles of developers in each phase:– initiation – need for evangelist / champions– contagion – content owners, standard-setters– control – technology upgraders, ”governors”– integration – implementors of unified visions…

Applications involved

• Knowledge garden – intra-/extranet

• Content manager – multi-lingual management of product manuals (90) and their controlled releases

• Global website community – managing corporate website content

• Figure 2 – technology evolution for these purposes, finally integration

Maturity of technology?

• comments on that?

What’s the news?

• 12 ”lessons” for…– whom?– Other organizations, which follow a similar

”evolutionary” development of enterprise content management?

• …but, if you realize you follow such path of evolution… would you still function on that manner?

– However, a very valuable in-depth case description.

Discussion

• Evolutionary development of content management in other cases?– Org x.

• Delivery of large-scale engineering products in projects• Still – separate content management for websites, Share

Point for teams in certain areas, Technical documentation for products/projects in in-house applications, some documents in the ERP system…

• …integration and new functionality development continuing– …but would the lessons apply as such?

• need for research– would need to test – provide these 12 ideas for developers in

the new target organization, and after a while ask if they have implemented it – why/why not

Challenges of ”evolutionary development”?

• Organizational – how does one guarantee that ”integration” / common vision is even a goal?– a ”vision” sounds a bit ”teleological”…

• Human – can one cultivate ”champions” consciously, or do they just emerge?

• Technological – many increasingly large-scale systems side by side? -> from ”silos” to ”spaghetti”?

• Managerial?– How to manage evolution?

• …

Questions to discuss (could be exam questions)

• Do you believe in the return-on-investment figures?– …how could that be done as a business case?

• Does one need ”evolution” before a ”unifying vision” & integration?– …or… is it still possible to make ”innovative”

enterprise-scale ECM / eCollaboration applications?

• Is the ”unifying vision” possible without mature 3rd-party technology?

Contemporary Issues ofEnterprise Content

Management

Case presentation, IS 904

15.10. Tero Päivärinta

Agenda

• What is the main idea? • What are the technological functionalities /

applications involved? • How mature is the technology? • What new does that idea bring, if

compared to related previous ideas or solutions?

• How is that technology applied?• Reflections on another case

Main idea

• identify a wide range of issues related to management of content, infrastructure, and change in connection to large-scale (strategic) ECM programs– > understanding the ”enterprise perspective”

on ECM as a holistic concept

Applications included

• at that moment, not clear yet

• intent to replace previous applications

• (later on, Microsoft-based application portfolio selected – Nordheim & Päivärinta, 2006)

Maturity of technology

• Immature, visionary ideas about the corporate-wide requirements…

What’s the news?

• ”Strategic” approach to ECM, replacing the old enterprise information ”jungle” fully– compare to the JD Edwards case

• The (first version of) framework about the enterprise-wide ECM issues– …concept of ECM

Discussion

• Would the strategic approach be possible in UiA?– Statoil IT alone is the biggest IT company in

Norway…– UiA portal project – same time:

• 2,5 mill. NOK – to build an enterprise portal• 50% project manager, more or less 50% participants• -> lead, in the end, some update of the website• ”realizing” that ECM is an organizational, not technological,

challenge (although it is also a technological challenge)

Questions

• Is the ”strategic” & holistic approach feasible / possible for smaller companies?

• Will there ever be intact corporate-wide ECM system implementations?– according to the definition of ECM given in the

article

• Is ECM meaningful concept to be discussed as a whole, or should we focus on particular smaller-scale applications?

Corporate User Representatives and the Dialectics of Enterprise

Systems: A Quest for Social Actors with Political Skill

Case presentation, IS 904

15.10. Tero Päivärinta

Agenda

• What is the main idea? • What are the technological functionalities /

applications involved? • How mature is the technology? • What new does that idea bring, if

compared to related previous ideas or solutions?

• How is that technology applied?• Reflections on another case

Main idea

• Needs of particular user groups / organization units may clash with ”optimization” of enterprise-wide ideas /– > studying how, in a large-scale ECM program, one

target organization has used the idea of ”corporate user representative” to solve such emerging contradictions

• Describes, if one is to do such a job, characteristics required:– ” a corporate user representative should be a

management function with political skill.”

Applications involved

• Focuses on challenges of implementation projects – the actual applications not perhaps so important– (beyond the fact that they are complex – still

need for a corporate joint vision)

Maturity of technology

• immature / complex integrations -> leads to ”strategic program” in the first place

What’s the news?

• The idea about the management role: ”corporate user representative”– & how s/he should be

• (under the realization that enterprise-wide development involves conflicts, to-be-solved)– communicator, consensus-builder, domain-

competent as well as tech-savvy, politician (personal power & weight in the organization!)

Discussion

• …what if an enterprise does not realize in the first place that different stakeholders have competing goals?

• a university project– very unclear goals: ”Here’s the money, just build a corporate

portal”– a ”failure” will be conceptualized & advertised always by some

stakeholder group• EITHER

– clear, implementable and prioritized top mgmt goals onto which to claim success

• OR– trying to implement some mechanism (like the user

representative), which first realizes that contradictions are ”natural” and seeks ways to mitigate them!

Challenges

• …in this case, human and managerial– can you find really competent persons– can you really recruit them to an ”IT

development project”?• …while they might have much more rewarding

management positions waiting in their career…?

Question(s)

• Could you think you might work as a ”corporate user representative” some day?

• Should this be a project-based or a continuing work role ?– and in what kind of organizations?