|
Ergonomic Fit - This measures the degree to which the different variables in the deployment have been factored in. Since there is a degree of judgement involved here, the measure uses the results of subgroup pre- and post-deployment analyses to provide an indication of both absolute fit and relative fit, that is, in the latter case, the degree to which the spend on ergonomics has delivered value.
So, now we have looked at benchmarking value from the budgeting and planning phase. However, most C-level executives will want to focus on the value that the technology deployment has had in the business. Again, where management focuses on one element, there are actually more than one. Of course, any competent business level specification should include some very direct identification of the expected output from a financial technology development.
It is about delivering value. But that can be interpreted in more than one way. From a technology management perspective, delivery means ‘it is there', ‘it exists', ‘you asked for it and now we've delivered it'. The delivery, in other words, is the act of putting the deployment in the hands of its commissioners. For the commissioning team of course that's just likely to be the start of delivery not the end. The development team have already moved on in their own minds to issues such as maintenance and updates and upgrades while the users are figuring out how to use the deployment. So we have three constituencies - commissioners, users and developers. Each has a direct or indirect interest in delivering value, but each has a different perspective on what that means.
Developers, and by this term I mean anyone who isn't a user and who isn't one of the commissioning business team, are generally short-term thinkers. This would include the project management, program developers, trainers, psychologists, consultants and so on. While I believe my statement above to be true, that for the developers the act of taking a deployment live equals delivery, this is a view that needs to be tempered by the risk that's associated with that short-termist approach. Its failure lies in the fact that it dissociates the development team from any of the occurrences post-launch. From their point of view in other words, they developed and deployed what was asked for. The implied comment being ‘so if the users screw it up, its their fault either for not using the system correctly or the commissioner's fault for not specifying correctly'. A common enough dissociative ploy. Of course a user's view is even more short-termist. As far as a technology deployment in financial services is concerned, more so than in almost any other industry, if the users can't see obvious and clear changes to their working day from any new system, their approach to it is likely to be somewhat jaundiced.
At C-level, the commissioning level, there is a degree of medium-term thinking and a recognition that some elements of value delivery may be both longer term and not necessarily delivered all in one go. Additionally there may be an understanding that the degree of value that can be extracted from a technology deployment may also be affected by other things in the business and indeed the market. shows the way in which the different constituencies perceive the delivery of value. The concept being described here is a ‘time horizon'. This is the longest time period over which any constituency member thinks and plans. It is important because any deployment which mismatches value delivery to the time horizon of the constituencies is almost doomed to failure before it starts. Typical users have short time horizons. This may be a daily target, a monthly target or more typically a three-month review. Certainly the longest time horizon for many will be one year, which represents their time horizon to the next performance (and pay) review.