{"id":1964,"date":"2012-10-10T01:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T09:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2012-09-04T12:58:53","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T20:58:53","slug":"switching-gears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1964","title":{"rendered":"Switching Gears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A long time ago, I used to work for ADP doing pre-sales.\u00a0 We had great relationships internally with services and implementation, but nonetheless it always seemed to come up that we didn\u2019t always sell with the full lens of reality.\u00a0 On the other hand, I\u2019d say that we came up with some pretty cool solutions to some pretty tough problems.\u00a0 In today\u2019s world, I\u2019m generally thought of as a strategist.\u00a0 I do lots of planning type of work whether it\u2019s strategic 3 year plans, some implementation planning, or just some business case writing.\u00a0 My current project (depending on when this posts), is a global implementation of a new core HR system for which I had a major hand in writing the business case.\u00a0 I\u2019ll start by saying that I\u2019m really not suited for implementations, but the experience is quite eye opening.<\/p>\n

There is no blame for anything that happens in pre-sales here.\u00a0 For this current project, we had probably one of the best consultants available both from functional and technical resources.\u00a0 The problem that happens in pre-sales is that you don\u2019t actually have finalized design yet, so all discussions are really quite hypothetical.\u00a0 \u201cSo how would the application perform ABC?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, there is option 1, or 2, or 3.\u201d\u00a0 And of course if we wanted to solve for problem XYZ, there are solutions 7, 8, and 9.\u00a0 Where the hard part comes in is that while all of the presented solutions are not only possible, but implementationally viable, mixing and matching does not always work.\u00a0 Solution 2 might be dependent on implementing position management, and solution 3 might not work with solution 7.<\/p>\n

When I was with ADP, there was sometimes the thinking that we threw things over the fence.\u00a0 First of all, I think this happens with all vendors.\u00a0 Second, I don\u2019t think we ever really threw things over that proverbial fence.\u00a0 Instead, we just didn\u2019t know what a client was ultimately going to do, so we presented all the possible options.\u00a0 In a sales cycle, you really don\u2019t have the time to go into every nuance of every solution, and most of the time you have consultants like me driving tight timelines and moving discussions forward before \u201canalysis paralysis\u201d occurs.<\/p>\n

I remember back in the day when ERP implementations would last for years \u2013 things would come up, we\u2019d switch directions, something else would come up, we\u2019d backtrack because the application didn\u2019t work the way we expected it to.\u00a0 Reflecting on my own experience, I realize how much we could not have known in the sales cycle, and what that meant for the implementation.\u00a0 Implementation consultants have a really challenging job.\u00a0 \u201cBut you guys told us we could do option 3!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOk client, but you didn\u2019t tell us that you wanted 1 job code for the entire company.\u201d\u00a0 (I\u2019m kidding about that one)<\/p>\n

Once we have requirements and design, I have a whole new respect for how implementers get around to explaining how the whole application actually works with all the nuances of each functional component.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always loved how sales consultants can dance around solutions for a system that if completely fictitious at that point, but am equally amazed at watching implementers dance around requirements once they start to solidify.\u00a0 Hats off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long time ago, I used to work for ADP doing pre-sales.\u00a0 We had great relationships internally with services and implementation, but nonetheless it always seemed to come up that we didn\u2019t always sell with the full lens of reality.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,40,2,29,34,3],"tags":[452,339],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-enterprise-solutions","category-hr-technology","category-hrms","category-implementation","category-vendors","tag-implementation","tag-pre-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1969,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions\/1969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}