Category: Processes and Practices

Late payments to subcontractors and suppliers…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Digital Transformation, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership, Processes and Practices, Project Management, Supply Chain, Technology

Enterprises often hold an annual leadership conference to review the highs, lows, and lessons from the year, and to align their leaders with the business objectives for the year ahead. The Badger first attended such a conference decades ago when all attendees were gathered in the same place for an intense couple of days of formality and informal networking with peers. Enterprises today are increasingly sensitive about the logistical costs and environmental issues associated with gathering people in one place. Many such leadership conferences have thus become more hybrid in nature with smaller, distributed gatherings connected using online video streaming services. This very modern, tech-based approach has many benefits in terms of cost and convenience.

Although the Badger’s first annual leadership conference was a long time ago, he still remembers vividly a particular point made by the company CEO during a presentation lamenting the difficulties of being an IT subcontractor delivering  projects into client’s major programmes. The point was ‘Being a subcontractor is great, but being the prime contractor controlling when a subcontractor gets paid is much, much, much better!’  For some of its projects, the company had been struggling to get prime contractors to pay valid invoices for achieved milestones within contracted terms. The prime contractors had played all kinds of games to pay their subcontractors and suppliers when it suited them, rather than to what was written in their agreed contracted terms. They knew that apart from chasing and whining, subcontractors and suppliers were unlikely to take more forthright action because they wanted to avoid lasting damage to the client relationship in case it excluded them from potential future work opportunities.

Since then, UK legislation in 1998  has made provision for interest on late payment under commercial contracts. However, recent information suggests that only 1 in 10 subcontractors/suppliers enforce this right by actively charging interest, claiming compensation, or seeking debt recovery. This suggests that some level of reluctance remains due to concern about damaging customer relations,  especially for smaller businesses who are, after all, the majority of the UK economy and often heavily dependent on a small number of clients. It may be decades later, but the CEO’s point noted above remains relevant.

Cash flow difficulties can cause liquidity crises and even collapse for any size of enterprise, and so when the Badger heard that the UK government is introducing tougher late payment legislation his first thought was not alleluia, but why hasn’t AI and automation revolutionised payment processing in enterprises to ensure that payments  against valid invoices are always fully paid within contracted terms?  After all, digital technology has been transforming everything for years, and so perhaps this new legislation will add momentum to making a payment revolution happen faster. Let’s hope so. By the way, if you’re interested, you can check how well an enterprise does in paying within terms using the government tool here. 

Goodbye trusty diesel car, hello petrol-hybrid…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Automotive, Driverless transport, Electric cars, Information Technology, Processes and Practices, Reliability, Technology, Transport

The Badger’s trusty diesel car is no more; it’s been replaced. It’s been a good servant over the last 14 years, but with more than 150,000 miles on the clock it had been in the end part of the standard reliability bathtub curve for some time.  The time had come for head to rule heart, and so a couple of months ago the Badger decided it was time for a change. That, of course, meant deciding on what type of newer vehicle the replacement should be.

The Badger approached the process systematically, and with disciplined objectivity rather than emotion as per instincts honed by decades in the IT industry. He set out his primary requirements and did some online research to establish a shortlist of potential vehicles. His primary requirements were similar to those when he purchased his trusty diesel 14 years ago, even though the automotive, social, political, technology, and economic landscapes have changed considerably since. The primary requirements were nothing fancy and likely typical of those of most private buyers. They revolved around price, running costs (including road tax and insurance), suitability for current and future family needs, quality and reliability. Brand, type of fuel, and digital gadgetry were secondary considerations.

One vehicle stood out during test drives of those on the Badger’s shortlist by meeting all his requirements. A good deal was done, Gary Numan’s Cars was the first song on the radio when taking delivery, and the Badger’s been driving an extremely low mileage, less than two-year-old petrol-hybrid for over six weeks now.  It’s essentially a well-engineered iPad-with-wheels, brimming with sensors and driver aids. It’s a revelation compared to his trusty diesel, and driving it is a constant reminder of how digital technology dominates our lives and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The whole process from valuing the old car, researching models that met requirements, arranging test drives, agreeing a purchase and making payment, and obtaining road tax and car insurance, involved online services which have been efficient, convenient, and secure. The hybrid technology and comprehensive digital driving aids, entertainment, navigation, and safety features make his replacement car a great and flexible package. A petrol-hybrid rather than a pure battery electric car was the right modern choice for the Badger. It represents the best of  both worlds and eliminates range anxiety and the need to plan long journeys around charging points. It’s a balanced and sensible compromise that comes with economic and environment benefits while avoiding the limitations and inconveniences of pure battery electric vehicles. While electric propulsion may be the future, pure battery electric vehicles will be usurped by fuel cells in the coming years. As for completely driverless cars, well, they are a long way off on UK roads, not because of technology limitations, but because people are people and they like to be in control when they are behind the wheel!

Gamesmanship and getting an invoice for a milestone paid…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Learning, Processes and Practices, Project Management

Important lessons arose early in the Badger’s career from experiencing the stress, effort, and time taken to get an invoice for a contractual milestone paid in full. The Badger learned about the importance of rigour when invoicing, and the need for detailed, verifiable, proof that all deliverables were delivered and contractually compliant. He also learned that clients may play games to delay payment if it suited them or provided useful leverage over their supplier.

This stemmed from particular dynamics encountered after completing software Acceptance Testing on a client’s site. It was an important contractual milestone with a sizeable payment attached. Its achievement also marked the point whereby a) control of the software transferred to the client to roll it out to their users, and b) the contract’s warranty and support phase started. Testing had been successful and on its completion the client agreed the milestone had been met, they took control of the software, and they agreed the start of warranty and support. Relationships were good and the invoice for the milestone payment was submitted. Then things became difficult!

The client claimed the invoice format was wrong, that all contractual deliverables hadn’t been provided, and that relevant documentation and certifications were not contractually compliant. They continually demanded more and more material to support the invoice. Relationships soured. The Badger’s line management, fearful of jeopardising future work for the client, simply said ‘do what they want and get the payment in pronto’. The Badger did as he was told! Eventually the client said everything was in order and that payment would arrive in line with contracted terms. The money, however, did not arrive!

It emerged that the client’s user rollout programme was suffering delays and so they had decided to withhold payment to ‘keep the supplier on the hook’ until it was back on track. A frustrated Badger wrote to the client pointing out that contractually there was no transfer of software to the client without payment for the milestone, which meant their user rollout activities constituted a breach of contract. It was not a popular move, but a contract is, after all, never an irrelevance! Payment happened a few days later.

The young Badger learned lessons about the real dynamics of business from this experience. Sometimes clients don’t pay because they choose to preserve their cash flow at the expense of suppliers, they don’t have the funds, or they really have lost an invoice. Sometimes, however, they simply engage in gamesmanship and choose not to pay. Today the proportion of invoices not paid on time by large UK businesses can be checked here, but business fundamentally revolves around people who have diverse characters and behaviours. Gamesmanship will thus always have a part in business dynamics, so it’s worth remembering that, as the Badger learned then and over the years since, suppliers need to be just as good at playing games as their clients…

Dodgy software releases and a house brick…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, IT Project Management, Processes and Practices, Software, Systems Integration

The Badger’s first thought on hearing of the recent global IT outage was that the cause  would be a cyber-attack or a messed-up change of some kind. It turned out to be the latter, which triggered a smile because the advances in tools, techniques, processes, and professionalism over the last three decades, hasn’t made it impossible to release software that causes havoc! The outage is a reminder that there’s some fragility in the underbelly of our computerised world, that complexity always comes with risk, and that individuals and enterprises should never have all their eggs in one basket.

The Badger was reminded of his involvement in stabilising and completing a troublesome software project a few decades ago. The software was installed in the client’s premises and being extensively tested on computers that were connected to specialist equipment and other systems. The project team was focused on the defect fix, build, and release cycles needed to support the testing, which was  producing a continuous stream of faults, many more than anticipated. The fix/build/release team, under enormous and intransigent internal and client pressure, struggled to make inroads to the growing defect backlog, and to produce timely update releases. Costs escalated, shortcuts were taken, release quality suffered, and the client was angry that new releases fixed some defects but introduced new ones! The team were demoralised, defensive, and disgruntled. Team spirit had evaporated, and financial incentives were making little difference.

The situation was improved by two things. The first was the injection of hard-nosed,  technically-savvy, leadership that kept all stakeholders at bay and also demanded rigour, quality, and process professionalism from the team. The second was to use a house brick to rebuild team spirit! Every Friday, a team member was allocated the brick for having made a mistake of some kind. The brick sat on their desk until it was reallocated the following Friday (if someone else had made a mistake). No one wanted to be a recipient of the brick! Rigour, process diligence, and fix to release quality improved. The brick also triggered good-natured banter across the team whose morale, motivation, and cohesiveness improved dramatically. On project completion the brick was mounted on a plinth and presented – amidst raucous merriment – for posterity to the person who’d received it the most! No one ever took offence at being awarded the brick, but would that be the case today? Doubtful.

Those whose change caused the recent global IT outage were probably a team of good people operating under relentless pressure from their stakeholders. Lessons, of course, must be learned, but deriding them for a mistake that exposed a global IT fragility would be a mistake. You never know, deploying a humble house brick might help them ensure they don’t make the same mistake again…

When is a service not a service?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Health & Social Care, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Processes and Practices, Public Institutions, Service, Transformation

As companies grow, they reorganise and establish different business units to serve their needs. Often, a number of units must cooperate to deliver contracted services to clients. This cooperation can sometimes prove difficult causing disjoint service delivery and strained relationships with the client. The Badger took many calls during his IT career from frustrated clients who experienced, and were frustrated by, poor cooperation between different units within his company. One call from a client he knew well, however, has long stuck in his memory.

Their call was to complain about constant bickering at service review meetings between two units, one delivering helpdesk, hosting, and support services and the other developing a new business application. They demanded that cooperation between the units improved to provide ‘joined-up’ service coherency, as required by the contract. Action was taken, but what became cemented in the Badger’s memory were the client’s general words about service, namely ‘Service is not a service when it fails to fulfil its intended purpose or meet the needs of users. A service should provide value, convenience, and satisfaction, but if a service provider’s internal problems become visible and are a hinderance then the service has turned into a disservice. The essence of service is not its existence, but its ability to deliver coherently.’

These words, and the context that triggered this client’s call, came to mind when two friends described their recent experiences with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). One received an outpatient appointment letter from Audiology when they were expecting one from Cardiology! Enquiring revealed that the appointment was indeed with a cardiologist, but the wrong letter template had somehow been used to notify the appointment! The other attended a CT scan appointment arranged months ago only to be told when on the scanner with a canular in their arm that the scan could not proceed because they hadn’t had a prior blood test! The radiologist apologised but said it was common for scans to be aborted for this reason, because departments rarely tell each other – or the patient – that a prior blood test is needed! Having travelled some distance for the scan, the patient was understandably livid at having their time wasted and at having to await notification of a new appointment.

Irrespective of strikes, waiting lists, money, and political posturing, all of which are the mainstay of media reporting about the NHS, it’s no wonder that public satisfaction is at a record low (see here and here) when patients routinely experience interactions similar to these! The words of the Badger’s client resonate. The essence of service is not its existence, but it’s ability to deliver. It’s thus frankly shameful that ‘when it’s the NHS’ has become a valid answer to the question ‘when is a service not a service?’  Without redressing this, oblivion beckons for the NHS and its end-users…

A first-time Project Manager and scrutiny…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Processes and Practices, Project Management, Risk, Training

In times or yore, a young Badger was appointed to lead a new project developing software for an important client. It was his first time as a Project Manager! After six months, however, the Badger seriously doubted his suitability for the role. The initial enthusiasm, excitement, personal glow and motivation from knowing that your boss believes you have what it takes to be a Project Manager had been replaced by gloomy self-doubt. The project was on track, the team members was working well, and the client was happy, so what was the problem? Put simply, the Badger felt bogged-down with – in his view – unnecessary company bureaucracy and intrusion that encroached more and more on the time to lead the project.

In those days, all company employees had ‘a counsellor’, an experienced person outside the employee’s immediate chain of command, who acted as both a mentor and an independent performance appraiser. Employees met their counsellor formally twice a year, and one such meeting happened to be around six months after the start of the Badger’s project. At this meeting, the Badger shared his bureaucracy and intrusion misgivings and whether he was suited to a Project Management career path. His counsellor chuckled and said ‘Everyone initially struggles with scrutiny in their first leadership role because no one likes to be scrutinised. First-time project managers often underestimate the scrutiny that goes with the job!’ The counsellor was right. What the Badger labelled as unnecessary company bureaucracy and intrusion was largely the scrutiny that‘s part of good corporate governance and operational control.

The counsellor emphasised that embracing scrutiny was important because it builds trust and provides assurance that nothing is being hidden, whereas resisting it creates suspicion, distrust, and even more scrutiny! As an aside, they observed that the level of company scrutiny experienced can be a qualitative indicator of a company’s health, because the absence of it implies anarchy and ultimately company failure. Overbearing scrutiny of everything all of the time, on the other hand, suggests organisational constipation, risk aversion, stifled creativity, and likely underperformance compared with rivals in the market. The counsellor concluded with ‘As a Project Manager, you are actively managing your client and your team, but you must also actively manage your company scrutineers and their agendas’. Over subsequent years as a Project Manager that is exactly what the Badger did!

The Badger’s IT delivery career eventually took him into a senior, company-wide, delivery and business role that included being a scrutineer! Most of the first-time Project Managers he encountered as a scrutineer were better trained and supported and embraced scrutiny positively. Experiencing them trying to influence and manage the Badger was always fun, because when you’ve been in delivery for decades you know all the Project Manager’s angles and how not to be defected from your agenda!

Computers, systems, satellites and…potholes!

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Processes and Practices, Public Institutions, Satellites, Technology

A couple of weeks ago, the Badger’s saw OneWeb’s announcement that it was to launch the 36 satellites completing their first-generation Low Earth Orbit constellation on the 26th March 2023. Earlier this week the launch from a Space Centre in India took place successfully and the Badger mentally cheered all the engineers and computing professionals involved. This achievement has computers and  ‘systems’ at its heart, and this fact coloured the Badger’s thoughts as he left home to walk to the local shops. By the time he returned, however, positivity about computers and ‘systems’ relating to satellites had been replaced by gloom about ‘systems’ for fixing potholes on roads!

The route to the shops means navigating a T junction between a busy side road and a main thoroughfare. The approach to the junction is heavily potholed for about 30 metres. The surface, which has many of the different types of crater set out in the RAC’s Pothole Guide, is a danger to pedestrians, cyclists, motor cyclists, and car drivers alike. It’s been this way for a very long time, making it a wonderful  example of the pothole blight  infecting UK roads. Reports to the County Council have led to monthly visits by a repair crew who only patch a small number of holes every time.  

As the Badger walked by, a repair crew was patching a few holes again, and a lady was demanding to know why some holes were being patched but others, equally dangerous, were not. The workmen told her that ‘the central computer’ produces their worksheet and that they only fix, and get paid for, what’s on it. ‘Don’t blame us, blame the computer’, the workmen asserted bluntly. The Badger walked quickly by, thinking that the ‘system’ – the overall combination of process, people, IT, contracting, finance, quality, and compliance – was the problem, not the ‘the computer’.  

On returning from the shops, the repair crew and the lady had gone. A few potholes had been patched, but after three visits by a repair crew in the first three months of this year the road remains a danger to road users and pedestrians, especially at night. On reaching home, the Badger cogitated over a coffee and concluded two things. The first was that if motor vehicles are required to have annual MOT roadworthy tests, then road surfaces should also be required to have some kind of regular safety certification. The second was that for a country that has a computer and ‘systems’ pedigree that can put and operate satellites in space, it’s ‘systems’ for the repair of potholes on its roads are shameful. Although computers get conveniently blamed for many things in today’s world, it’s worth remembering that ‘systems’, which are much more than just computers, are more often the culprit.

‘Why haven’t we learned lessons from other problematic projects?’

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, Learning, Processes and Practices, Project Management

Early in the Badger’s career, when he was part of a team sorting out a large software and systems project with serious problems, the CEO of the time angrily asked the line manager responsible for the project ‘Why has this happened? Why haven’t we learned the lessons from other problematic projects?’. The line manager’s answers were ill-considered waffle and only served to ratchet up the pressure from, and antagonise, their boss.  

At that time, projects involving anything IT related were notorious for serious timescale and cost overruns. IT was a young, rapidly growing industry, and software development was seen as black magic performed by very clever people. Disciplined software engineering processes were rudimentary, and most programmers were graduates from enormously diverse STEM-subject, rather than computing, backgrounds. The Badger’s first software team leader, for example, had a Civil Engineering degree and a master’s degree in Water (sewage) Treatment!

In the decades since,  IT companies have improved and evolved their management and  engineering policies and processes – their ‘company manuals’ – because it was necessary to stay in business. Today, a continuous improvement ethos that feeds lessons learned into policies, processes, and practices is a norm, and software and systems engineering is more standardised and rigorous. Companies still have troublesome projects, but there are fewer of them, and they are detected earlier and addressed faster.

And so, the Badger’s interest was piqued recently when he heard a CEO calmly ask a line manager the same questions as above. The line manager answered with three points that struck a chord with the Badger’s own experience. The first was that in recent years annual staff turnover of between 12 to 15% had diluted the continuity of knowledge because nearly half the workforce had changed. The second was that clients want the capabilities of evolving innovative technology much faster and cheaper, which means that projects can encounter more skill and experience issues than envisaged at contract signature. The third was that feeding lessons learned into management and engineering policies, processes, and practices and embedding awareness in the workforce needed a greater company willingness for those who had lived the project experience to spend more time as ‘overheads’ rather than revenue earners.

The CEO calmly agreed, and then said something which also aligned with the Badger’s experience, namely ‘Our company’s policies, processes, and practices will never be perfect. If we want fewer project difficulties, then we must get project people to just talk more to each other and willingly share their experience’.  And there you have it. The fastest way to learn lessons is for people to just talk to each other. Projects depend on people, and people have different personalities, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses, and never do quite what you expect! That’s why troublesome projects will never be eradicated completely and continuous improvement is always a challenge.  

An independent review and temporary traffic lights…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Learning, Processes and Practices

Driving home after a meeting with the leader of a modest-sized business, the Badger joined a slow-moving traffic queue on a semi-rural road. In the distance, he could see that temporary traffic lights letting through just two or three cars at a time were the reason for the queue. As vehicles inched forward, the Badger’s thoughts wandered back to the meeting that he’d just left. The business leader, an unusual character, was struggling with delays and spiralling costs on a long running project, and with getting his project staff to change their long-standing, comfortable, ‘it’s too difficult’ ways of working. The leader wanted to find a way of overcoming this challenge without completely destroying their good personal relationship with their staff.

At the start of the meeting the leader’s demeanour was initially one of quiet desperation, but this changed to one of relief and enthusiasm as the discussion progressed. The Badger suggested getting an experienced, independent outsider to review the project and produce a report that recommended actions to be taken. This provoked some fruity language signalling that there was no desire to pay someone who’d swallowed an MBA handbook to author a report that told them what they already knew! Undeterred, the Badger persevered and pointed out that a review and report by the right independent person would provide the objective, dispassionate, and tangible ammunition in black and white to force the changes needed to reduce cost. After all, this is a common method in major businesses, public sector organisations, and government departments. The leader had a ‘light-bulb moment’. They realised that a written report would be a useful vehicle for deflecting the ‘blame’ for changes more towards the independent reviewer than themselves!

As the car reached the front of queue at the traffic lights, the Badger wondered why this supposed leader hadn’t thought about the merits of an independent review and report themselves. The Badger’s attention, however, quickly moved to the highway work being performed, namely the clearance of compacted leaves and vegetation from a 20-metre stretch of the paved footpath running alongside the carriageway. There were three panel vans, a trailer, one worker chatting on his phone in a van’s cab, one worker using a mini-bulldozer to scrape leaves from the footpath and put them further back on the verge,  and one worker using a portable petrol-powered leaf-blower to blow looser debris from the footpath onto the verge. It must be cheaper, the Badger mused, and healthier for the workers, more fossil-fuel efficient, and less impactful on the climate if this work was done by two men with one van, a wheelbarrow, a shovel, a rake, and a broom. The Badger smiled; an independent review of working practices is surely needed!

Observing the NHS…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Change, Delivery, Health & Social Care, Processes and Practices, Public Institutions, Technology

Opening bleary eyes at 5:30am in a hospital ward bed to see the smiling face of a PPE-clad nurse wanting to thrust swabs into your nose and throat for a COVID test is an interesting start to the day! This test marked the start to each long, visitor-free, in-patient day that would eventually end around 10p.m. at night.

Patients were not allowed visitors until their stay surpassed five days. After that, one person could visit for one hour, but only once in every subsequent five-day period. No one grumbled. Instead, the Badger and fellow patients used video calls from personal smartphones or tablets to maintain contact with loved ones. The absence of visitors meant we experienced and observed ward operations performed without distractions, and we habitually shared our remarkably consistent primary observations during the quiet troughs that speckle an in-patient’s day.

Firstly, there was unanimous respect for doctors, nurses, and the ward staff who kept things shipshape (many of whom work 11 hour shifts with just a 30-minute unpaid break). Secondly, we observed that although the NHS is slowly transforming to the digital world, there’s still too much paper-based activity constraining efficiency. One nurse commented, ‘If someone borrows your drugs form before I get to you, it’ll take me half an hour to track it down’. Thirdly, we observed that nothing happens unless a busy doctor says so and signs a piece of paper, which they rarely do promptly. Telling a patient in the morning they’re being discharged, and then telling them in the evening that the doctor’s been busy and has gone home without signing the discharge paper is incredibly annoying and systemically inefficient!

There was also a consistent view that debates about NHS funding, a staple for media reporting, are red herrings because there’s much the NHS can improve itself that needs will rather than money. Its own Long Term Plan shows that it knows it must transform from a way of delivering health services that’s still locked into a model largely created when it was founded in 1948. It just needs to progress faster.

Finally, like most transformations, we observed that it’s the people and working practice issues of change rather than technology that is the biggest challenge. Transforming the NHS, the biggest employer in Europe and the world’s largest employer of highly skilled professionals with a headcount of 1.35 million, over half of which are professionally qualified clinical staff, is undoubtedly a massive task. It’s akin to reengineering a giant A380 plane full of passengers while it’s in flight, but it has to be done for the service to be sustainable. Even with its observable flaws, inefficiencies, and transformational strains, we all felt safe, in expert hands, and hugely proud that our country has the National Health Service as part of the bedrock of life across the population.