A Stroll Down Documentum’s Memory Lane
If you have worked with Documentum for a long time you may have noticed that this powerful behemoth has undergone quite a makeover over the years since Documentum 4i. For me the major enhancements began with Documentum 5.3 which now has led to a very powerful but hopefully more user-friendly if not sleeker version of itself in Documentum 6.5. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and revisit the key release changes over the years. In … Read entire article »
Filed under: Content Management, Documentum
Six Steps to How a Business Can Survive In a Down Economy
In a down economy one of the first reactions that companies may try is to reduce their IT Operating Expenditures (OPEX) across the board. While this may bring down IT costs it may also bring down overall revenue over time. Studies conducted by Dr. Howard Rubin on 400 companies during the the 2001-2003 recession actually show that it is in a company’s best interest to optimize IT spending instead of merely cutting IT costs. This approach is actually part of the Business Agility mantra. Companies that understand how to optimize their IT spending will be better able to achieve the agile business models they need. The study found that winning companies applied the following six steps: 1. Optimize Costs – this doesn’t mean to just cut costs but to cut the right ones .This … Read entire article »
Filed under: Business Agility, Strategy
Product Review: Central Desktop 2.0’s User Experience Transformed with UI Changes
I came from the internet heyday when the user experience was trumpeted as the holy grail of application development. As a designer I worked under a head of User Experience and the UI was a key focus of many development projects. That has never left me. I still believe products that have distanced themselves over competitors usually have a User Experience advantage like Apple in its design of iTunes and iPhone. If you look at the competitive SaaS market the winners over time will be those who focus on UI in regards to how it affects the User Experience. Central Desktop seems to understand this now. Originally although Central Desktop has been a good-value sharepoint alternative it has left something to be desired in the User Experience arena. It was a … Read entire article »
Filed under: Collaboration, Reviews
Project Portfolio Management Basics
Your Company Needs Portfolio Management if… Million-dollar projects, which may or may not match the company’s objectives, are being awarded to business units headed by the squeakiest executives Your company currently has weak IT governance structures which means that business executives don’t have clear ideas of what they’re approving and why The CIO ends up selling projects that should be generated and sold by line-of-business heads If the company doesn’t build good business cases for IT projects or it doesn’t do them at all; and there are redundant projects. A strong portfolio management program can turn all that around and do the following: Maximize value of IT investments while minimizing the risk Improve communication and alignment between IS and business leaders Encourage business leaders to think … Read entire article »
Filed under: Project & Portfolio Management
Implementing an Enterprise Global Bid Desk Process with Salesforce
Its always a challenge when you are trying to create a solution from scratch. Like my Linksys by Cisco, CIO mentor Tim Good once said “You try to buy before you build”. The reason is that if a business builds new solutions for all its issues, that company may not be able to focus on their core business because they have to spend time maintaining and updating more code. Unfortunately even though that approach is clear there is not always a clear Off-The-Shelf solution at that time. This was the case when we were challenged with developing a .Net custom Sales Quoting application to integrate with Salesforce.com. We were able to successfully design and develop a pilot application. But just a year later Big Machines Inc., an on-demand sales configuration … Read entire article »
Filed under: CRM
How to keep control when working with outside vendors
There was a time when the majority of IT tasks were kept in house but today even network security tasks can be handled by outside vendors. So obviously the potential of losing control of a project handled by an outside vendor is a very real possibility. These problems can be especially frustrating to the project’s leadership. This doesn’t have to be with a little bit of planning and follow-through. For example, attention to creating and executing a well thought out contract can make all the difference in asserting the control needed to be successful. Here are some key areas to keep in mind: Whenever possible, include terms and conditions in the contract the delineate how the vendor can be rewarded if it completes the contract early, but penalized if it completes … Read entire article »
Filed under: Project & Portfolio Management
Why Business Analysis is essential for Salesforce.com Implementations
Due to the power and flexibility of the Salesforce.com tool, understanding the role it will play in your organization is the most important piece of a successful implementation. This is where the skillful use of business analysis can be invaluable. Salesforce.com is a powerful and flexible tool that can be combined with partner applications to become the primary application for your business. Salesforce.com can also be implemented to simply support sales force automation, call centers or marketing. So properly determining the scope of the implementation and defining the success measures will help to ensure a successful implementation. A business analyst should be used in your organization to ensure you are using Salesforce.com effectively. This business analyst can serve as an advisor and can become an important extension of your organization and the primary … Read entire article »
Validation for Life Sciences
Validation A unique and very important part of the Life Sciences development lifecycle is validation. Validation requires documented verification that a process will produce accurate results as per the predefined specification. For this to work you need to know in advance that what you describe will function as detailed. And there are usually plenty of details to cover. In fact, validation impacts practically every area and phase of an automation project for life sciences companies. Most companies base the engineering effort required to create validation protocols and documents on the GAMP guidelines. These documents incorporate the requirement, design, implementation and test and verification phases. The documents that make up these phases will ensure validation compliance of the completed system implementation. They usually include at least some of the following: User Requirement Specification Design Spec Functional Specification Technical Specification Coding … Read entire article »
Filed under: Project & Portfolio Management
Make Room for the New Chief Business Agility Officer (CBO)
Let’s face it, for some companies the role of the CIO driving business really doesn’t make sense. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying that the CIO role is going away. But according to CIO magazine the role of the CIO seems to be changing. It was like riding a business wave that may have peaked. What many companies seem to need now is not just an IT manager that can speak business but a business manager that can speak product and technology. Remember that for the most part many company org charts have not changed over the years. Because of a need for quicker solution and agility it was thought that IT may be the solution. The only problem is that in order to grow business much more … Read entire article »
Filed under: Product Management
FirstDoc & Documentum can help Life Sciences compliance
An important consideration in evaluating the impact of FirstDoc/Documentum-based applications in helping meet 21 CFR Part 11 compliance is whether the specific system implementation is considered a closed or open system. The FDA provides the following definitions in 21 CFR Part 11 for closed and open systems: Closed system means an environment in which system access is controlled by persons who are responsible for the content of electronic records that are on the system. Open system means an environment in which system access is not controlled by persons who are responsible for the content of electronic records that are on the system. Closed System Controls For closed systems there needs to be a way for “validation of the systems to ensure accuracy, reliability, consistent intended performance and the ability to discern invalid or altered … Read entire article »
Filed under: Content Management, Documentum