As a potentially insightful exercise I spent some time and listed what I felt were the top five hallmarks of a successful CRM project. The results of those deliberations were as follows: One – A clearly defined set of business objectives for the projectTwo – Active and effective executive sponsorshipThree Continue Reading
No light at the end of the tunnel…
This morning’s news stopped me in my tracks somewhat. The Chiltern railway line, one of the mail commuter routes into and out of London, had been blocked by a collapsed tunnel in the town of Gerrards Cross. The tunnel in question had been recently built as part of the ongoing Continue Reading
Rather too candid?
The 11th of June edition of the Economist carried an article entitled ‘Project management – Overdue and over budget, over and over again’ which bemoaned the tendency for projects to overrun in terms of cost and delivery date. The article cited research by the Standish Group suggesting that in 2004 Continue Reading
A stitch in time…
We have a couple of clients going live with systems at the moment, and we’ve been spending a lot of time working on an area that is frequently overlooked – defining the way the system will be used, and training and hold-holding the users so that these processes are quickly Continue Reading
Truncating the Fuzzy Front End
The bank holiday weekend gave me opportunity to read Steve McConnell’s book ‘Rapid Development’. One area that caught my attention was the phase of a development project which he describes as the Fuzzy Front End. In essence, if you consider the life of a project as extending from a glimmer Continue Reading
Swimming naked?
Buried at the tail of my seemingly off-message post about Greg Lemond’s last gasp victory in the 1989 Tour de France, was an assertion that businesses generally, and SME’s in particular, are failing to make effective use of technology as a means of providing competitive advantage. You may or may Continue Reading
In sickness and in health…
One of the areas I touched on last week, was the tendency for organisations purchasing CRM technology, to focus on functionality rather than implementation credentials. We have a couple of projects at the moment where we’ve helped the client finalise their business and functional requirements, and are now assisting them Continue Reading
To create a firestorm…
If you want to create a firestorm, just post on one of the CRM forums indicating you are looking to purchase a CRM package and ask if anyone have any recommendations. Within minutes you’ll have a few dozen posts extolling the virtues of various packages, some mainstream, and others previously Continue Reading
Paris – July 1989
One of the greatest moments in sport that I’ve ever witnessed, was the final stage of the 1989 Tour de France, when the American Greg Lemond snatched victory from Frenchman Laurent Fignon, by the tour’s narrowest ever margin, a mere eight seconds. It was an astounding achievement in many respects. Continue Reading
A bridge too far?
Shoe-horned in between engagements, we finally got one Mareeba task completed this week, the selection and publication of a new bridge for the header of the web site. The design agency we used for the original site came up with a beautiful image of the sun setting behind the Sydney Continue Reading