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Franchise IT: Trying To Not Knock Over The House Of Cards
The tendency when approached with these types of situations is to work around the issues rather than address them. But that approach just makes the problem worse. And yet, that is what happens most often. When faced with a choice between a few hundred dollars in memory and possibly tens of thousands of dollars for a new system, I bet you can guess on which option most will choose.
“Now Todd, you don’t really expect a franchisee to spend $30,000 to implement a new credit- and gift-card program, do you?”
“No, but I do think the franchisee has been living on borrowed time since the decision was made to purchase in the non-standard platform in the first place. It may have saved $10,000 when it purchased the system, but the franchisee took a risk that it would not be able to support future programs like this.”
“Yeah, well, nice speech. But the fact remains that the franchisee is not going to buy a new POS just to support this program. Figure something out.”
I am not complaining about the situation. Nor am I naive enough to think that the way business gets done will change any time soon. Sure, sometimes I wish IT projects worked more furniture from IKEA. When you buy that funky looking recliner from Scandinavia, all the parts come in an efficient package and include all the tools you are going to need in addition to step-by-step instructions for re-creating an exact duplicate to the one you sat on in the showroom. But I have yet to encounter such a project.
Instead, a successful IT leader must be part furniture builder, part designer, and part shipping and receiving expert. I believe that the key to success in this environment of variances is to manage these projects at the absolute lowest level of detail.
My team on this card- and gift-card program actually got caught managing project at too high of a level and recently had to reset its workplan because many details were being overlooked. But the team identified this problem and immediately started working at a much lower level of detail.
The key to building a house of cards is to take your time with each and every card. It is also important to evaluate each and every request for a variance with a keen eye to the future. You need to understand how much technical debt you are assuming with each variance decision and make those choices with your eyes wide open. Track each variance in a way that allows future project teams to have a more complete view into the configuration of the system so the next project will be better equipped to handle the situation.
What do you think? Leave a comment, or E-mail me at Todd.Michaud@FranchiseIT.org. You can also follow me on Twitter: @todd_michaud.
Term Of The Week: “Vacation”: A time that requires you to work more than your normal week. “I can’t wait to get back to a normal workload after that week on vacation.”
I looked like a drunken sailor at the end, but I managed to finish the Anacortes Art Dash 10K Road Race. Read more at www.irongeek.me.
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
