I’m back after a couple of weeks of intensive parenting and getting to know our beautiful new daughter Miranda. She’s a real dream; she sleeps for hours at a time and only cries when she’s got a good reason. I’d love to take credit for all of this but I know better than that. I’m also pleased to report that sibling rivalry has yet to set in, although that’s probably because Miranda has yet to “borrow” a toy from her older sister. I’ll keep you posted on that one.
While I was away from the computer I had a chance to reflect on many things, mostly the meaning-of-life questions that tend to crop up following a major life event but also about some less important (but interesting all the same) issues surrounding my chosen profession. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the characteristics of successful ECM implementations and what it is about the organizations that are able to successfully deploy ECM tools. Why can some organizations successfully deploy ECM where others struggle mightily?
Much of this has to do with organizational culture and the fit of a particular ECM strategy to the business problems faced by a given organization. Readiness is key as are executive buy-in and a well-chosen and well-implemented tool. But these things can be said for pretty much any software application; if the bosses aren’t onside and a good change management strategy isn’t in place, the implementation will fail.
What’s so special about ECM? What challenges does an ECM implementation present that other applications do not? In my mind, there are two big differences;
- ECM hits people where they live, for better or worse. At best, ECM is tied in with business processes and improves them to the point where users can’t believe they ever lived without ECM tools. For example, scanning invoices and initiating an automated Accounts Payable workflow process will make any approving manager wonder why they ever thought hand-coding invoices and routing them in multicoloured folders was a good idea. Same for users of Business Process Management applications like insurance claims processing or engineers using a GIS map integrated with a document repository. On the flip side, ECM asks users to change deeply ingrained work habits. Most of us have been using “File / Save as…” then navigating 10 folders deep on a shared drive for as long as we can remember. While most users don’t like storing documents on their shared drives (often lovingly called the “S: mess”), most will take this over a different structure imposed by an ECM system any day (even when you can prove that it’s actually less work to store documents in the ECM system!)
- The other big difference with ECM tools is that they’re largely optional. An accountant may not like the way the new ERP system works, but she doesn’t have much of a choice when creating quarterly financial statements. ECM systems, while core to many business processes, can often be worked around by users who insist on storing documents on local drives or USB keys. This isn’t always the case, but it crops up most often when phasing out shared drives with ECM systems and is related to the work habits noted above.
In my next post later this week I’ll talk about what you, the budding ECM deployment guru, can do to overcome these challenges and give your ECM implementation the best chance for success. Until then, I’ll be doing my best to help out with 3:00 AM feedings.