Most organizations recognize the need to transition to advanced technologies and understand the relationship between successful technology implementation and competitive advantage. However, the transition process involves a fair amount of risk, mainly because new technologies are not easy to integrate with legacy environments that cannot merely be thrown away.
For many organizations, planning technology transitions is a continuous process that closely parallels the drive to stay competitive in global markets. Assessing business requirements, evaluating emerging information technologies, and incorporating them into the existing infrastructure is an endless, complex exercise aimed at pushing the price/performance curve to stay ahead of the competition.
All of these issues can be effectively addressed by implementing a transition methodology that starts with a participative approach to planning and ends with the development of a timeline against which the project’s progress is measured.
Participative Planning
The best way to defuse emotional and political time bombs that may jeopardize the success of implementing a new technology is to include all affected employees in the planning process. The planning process should be participative and start with the articulation of the organizational goals that the move to the new technology is intended to achieve, outlining anticipated costs and benefits. This stage of the planning process is also intended to address the most critical concern of the participants: “How will I be affected.?” Once the organizational goals are known, these become the new parameters within which the participants can influence their futures.
Department managers, too, may feel threatened. They might view the change in terms of having to give up something: resources (in the form of budget, staff, power, and prestige) and control of various operations. These are very real concerns in this era of corporate downsizing. Perhaps as important, they see themselves as having to sacrifice an operating philosophy in which they have invested considerable time and effort to construct and maintain throughout much of their tenure. To suddenly put all this aside for something entirely new may be greeted with little or no enthusiasm, or worse—a lack of cooperation, which can spoil the best transition plans.
This participative approach not only facilitates cooperation; it has the effect of spreading ownership of the solution among all participants. Instead of a solution dictated by top management, which often engenders resistance through emotional responses and political maneuvering, the participative approach provides the most affected people with a stake in the outcome of the project: with success, comes the rewards associated with a stable work environment and shared vision of the future; with failure, comes the liabilities associated with a tumultuous work environment and uncertainty about the future. Although participative planning takes more time, its effects are often more immediate and long lasting than imposed solutions, which are frequently resisted and short-lived.
Another benefit of the participative approach to planning is that it gives all parties concerned a chance to buy into the new system or network and to recommend improvements that can benefit the entire organization. Consider including in the planning process IS and department managers as well as representatives from the various business units.
In some cases, as with technologies that transcend organizational boundaries (i.e., electronic procurement, inventory, distribution, and payment systems), suppliers, customers, and strategic partners should even be included in the planning process—at their own corporate locations, if possible. This is particularly important for planning and implementing extranets—TCP/IP networks that span multiple companies. It is also necessary for planning and implementing systems sharing arrangements between organizations as part of an emergency restoration plan.
Education
A crucial aspect of preparing personnel for change is managing the fear that change invokes. Fear of change has long been noted as a reason for delays in all phases of a new project. Compounding fear of change is the fact that many IT professionals have witnessed a short-lived resolve for certain decisions and remain hesitant to embrace new technologies for fear of wasting their efforts. In other cases, introductions of new technologies occur so rapidly that many IT personnel find it difficult to envision and comprehend practical applications. The hesitation to embrace new technologies is counterproductive and is often the result of obsolete management policies where change is perceived as an error-correction process.
Organizations must develop a strategy for dealing with the technology transition period. During this period, the organization will be transformed from one with a set of well-developed, yet increasingly outdated skills, into an organization with a set of newly acquired skills, ready to redefine its future. A key element of any strategy for dealing with the technology transition period is training and education. This can be achieved in either of two ways.
One is to work with an experienced consulting team to create a transition solution, which provides internal IT staff with the skills needed for success. This process includes assessing the impact of the proposed solution on the organization, performing a training needs analysis, and developing an appropriate education approach. Follow-up analysis can be performed at a later date to determine the effectiveness of training and education, and to identify new needs.
A second way to manage the transition period is to blend the skills of internal IT staff with the focused expertise of a third-party integration team through selective outsourcing. This coordinated, comprehensive approach ensures that an organization’s internal staff, from executives to front-line professionals, all develop the attitudes and skills necessary to use and support the new technology.
Effective training not only provides a shared vision of how new systems and networks will strengthen the organization, it also allows faster development of the skills needed for the transition. Training also reduces resistance to change by removing doubts about the new technology. It builds confidence among staff, so they can make a valuable contribution in the new environment. Investing in training also goes a long way toward demonstrating a company’s commitment to success.
An education program might include instruction on how to perform traditional data center functions in a client/server environment and explain the similarities and differences between mainframe and UNIX systems. Such instruction can be provided by an outside consulting firm experienced in providing client/server-related seminars, workshops, and courses. To identify skills gaps, the firm should be capable of performing a thorough training needs analysis. An important early step involves preparing both business managers and IT staff for change by building a common awareness and understanding of open systems and client/server and their impact on business strategy and goals. The objective is to align business and IT. This step raises the learning levels of employees, creates support for the technology vision, facilitates organizational change, and increases effective follow-up after implementation.
Solution Design
The solution design of the transition plan requires a broad understanding of leading-edge technology. The components will include hardware and software, networks, applications and administration tools. The process involves matching technologies to both the previously identified business and information goals to the needs of the proposed solution approach. A target architecture will include standards, technologies, products, and processes.
A crucial step in this process is to determine which platform is best for the organization’s applications and networking requirements, and which operating system standards will achieve maximum interoperability and portability. If applications will be replaced or reengineered for open, client/server computing, for example, it will be necessary to develop an application data model. This will be useful in formulating target application systems and the physical system design.
Evaluating Alternatives
Objectively evaluating alternative IT strategies is an important element to achieving business goals. Alternatives should be evaluated and compared to determine the appropriate model that best meets the company’s needs. These evaluations will help to formulate solution alternatives for implementing a transition. Transition recommendations ultimately may include rehosting, replacing, redesigning, or even outsourcing the existing IT environment.
With the completion of these evaluations, the next step is to develop a conceptual transition model. This model should be based on the transition recommendations for alternative solution approaches. It should include a target architecture, diagrams of the transition approach, and a preliminary business case. With all the alternatives laid out, a risk assessment can be performed.
Risk Assessment
While change is constant and provides an opportunity to add greater value to the business, change also brings risk. Therefore, it is important to identify any risk elements of the transition plan—the potential risks in the transition of the staff and organization. Once the probability and impact of these risks are evaluated, a contingency plan can then be developed to offset each identified risk.
While limiting transition costs is an effective risk-management method, a number of others may be applied:
■ Create a transition plan that can adapt over time
■ Take an evolutionary instead of revolutionary approach to change
■ Work with suppliers, consultants and service organizations experienced in implementing technology transitions for a broad customer base
An evolutionary approach is an effective method for managing risk. When moving from a mainframe to a client/server alternative, for example, the evolutionary approach often translates into a plan detailing the coexistence of mainframe and client/server technologies during a transition period. In some cases, the mainframe will continue to operate as a database server well into the transition period and beyond.
Another risk management strategy is to select a number of mainframe applications that could be simply “rehosted” or transferred to open systems platforms. Remaining essentially unchanged, the application would operate on a more cost-effective platform and become more widely accessible. The conversion of mainframe programs written in COBOL, for example, to an open systems platform is relatively easy: numerous firms specialize in performing such conversions. In addition to minimizing risk, rehosting applications can provide cost benefits, which can then be extended to include networks.
For example, the majority of organizations considering a move to open networking have made a significant investment in the SNA infrastructure. A transition needs to be made in carefully planned stages to minimize the risk and cost of upgrading the network and allowing the organization to continue leveraging its existing investments as long as possible. Organizations should therefore consider transitioning their networks in stages.
In stage one, as new workgroups or subnets are added to the network, they should be based on TCP/IP the most commonly used set of protocols for internetworking. These workgroups can communicate with the established SNA network using SNA gateway products running on open systems servers.
In stage two, implemented over time, the legacy systems on the established SNA network will be replaced with open systems alternatives. The new systems can use TCP/IP-based communication among themselves, and emulate SNA devices when dealing with remaining legacy systems. IBM 3270 terminals can remain on the network with the use of emulation and interface software, either indefinitely or until they are phased out.
In stage three, at the point when a significant number of nodes on the network are open systems communicating via TCP/IP, the SNA network backbone itself can be transitioned to a TCP/IP network using a cost-effective mix of dedicated lines and switched technology. This move will likely improve communications among the various systems, reducing the need for emulation software. Any remaining SNA-dependent mainframes can be migrated to TCP/IP-based communications by installing TCP/IP interfaces on the legacy systems.
After these transition stages have been achieved, what remains will be an open, flexible network positioned for cost savings and the cost-effective integration of future technologies.
Project Timeline
The final step of the transition methodology is to create a timeline to identify milestones for various phases of the project. Activities should be prioritized according to overall requirements, application strategy, and solution availability. It also is useful to include an estimate of the time required for each component. In creating this timeline, it is helpful to work with external consultants and third parties as well as internal staff. Once the timeline is developed and each party signs off on it, the timeline is distributed and becomes the baseline against which progress is measured.
Last Word
Many of the architectures announced, deployed, and implemented during the early 1990s are no longer effective. The solutions of several years ago worked well for the needs of the time, but today’s solutions must meet expanded business requirements and be capable of growing with the corporation as it seeks to respond to fast-changing customer demands and markets. Organizations seeking to remain competitive are driving the transition from proprietary, centralized, often mainframe-based architectures to an open, distributed, scalable client/server architecture. Yet that transition carries with it inherent complexities and risks. By focusing not just on technology, but also on the IT processes and people skills, organizations can build flexible enterprise-wide networks which provide strategic advantages in increasingly competitive global markets.
