I’d been meaning to write this for a while, but Jason’s post prompted me to stop surfing the interwebs and jot it down.

Data has three sources.

1. It is interfaced or integrated in from somewhere else.

2. It is derived from other data. For example net pay is derived from gross pay via some sort of tax calculation.

3. Someone types it in

I use a metaphor to describe this in an HR context. It is 1790. You want to build a factory. The first thing you do is seek out a consistent stream of strong flowing water. And that is where you build your factory.

flickr cc attribution license. thanks to LaoWai Kevin.

Too many HR systems, especially talent management systems are deployed without any real thought about how the data will get into these systems. The value has to exceed the effort of maintaining the data otherwise they end up empty. So when you deploy that system to track employee goals, look at yourself in the mirror and ask the question. How will the data get into this system?  Think carefully about transaction data, but think even more carefully about organization data.

if you don’t have a plan, that system will gradually fall into disrepair.

flickr cc attribution license thanks to Andre Mercier. (many excellent pictures, so hard to choose one.)

Cactus

via Flickr, the cc licence of Rodolfo Cartas thanks.

In this architecture, everything is from one vendor, and integration with third party applications is rather difficult. Typical ERP /HRMS pitch of the mid-nineties. Why do you need other software? We can do everything.

Sunflower

via Flickr,  the cc licence of C.S. 2.0 Thanks

Big core system, running most of the processes, with a series of smaller, tactical solutions interfaced around the edges.  Typical HR IT architecture of many ERP-Centric organizations today.  ERP runs the core transactions, with bits of SaaS tacked on around on the edges.

Daisy

via Flickr,  the cc licence of law_keven Thanks

Small core system on premise, but most of the action takes place in the systems around the edges. Increasingly common as SaaS vendors continue to deliver richer functionality. Some challenges with integration, as there are many applications trying to connect to the core. 

Rose

via  Flickr, the cc licence of Gertrud K. Thanks

No significant core system, SaaS petals dominate.  Still very rare, but we expect to see more of these, challenging the traditional core and peripheral model. 

What sort of flower does your architecture represent?

As organizations grapple with a very different economy from this time last year, we are seeing a growing interest in addressing cost issues associated with core HR processes such as time recording, leave management, shift and schedule optimization. Many organizations haven’t given these processes much attention, yet they are important.

I’m planning more research on workforce planning and time management systems, and I’ve already published a note on absence management. (Gartner clients Managing Employee Absence: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, and Time Is Money (G00165198), 09-FEB-2009)

There is more to HCM than talent management.

Speaking of time and absence management, I’m off on vacation, so this blog will be quiet for a while.

I enjoy long distance cycling, and throughout the warmer months of the year, I try and get out on my bicycle most days. I normally train for a big event, involving some big hills, so that I have a goal to aim for. I do my best thinking on my bike. Pain somehow helps clear the brain.

It also means I can talk about bicycle components and bore people to death at will.

I had a quick trip to the US last week, and because of meetings, I couldn’t fly out on Friday evening. So I got to sneak in a quick ride with some friends before I flew back on Saturday lunchtime.  I packed my cycling shoes, pedals and a helmet, and Mark kindly lent me a bike. It was easy to plug my pedals onto his spare bike.  Standards in the physical world just seem to work, unlike those in software.

It was a much better way to spend a Saturday morning than trawling a mall, or doing email in the airport lounge. We rode through the pretty rolling hills between Woodside and Redwood, just south of San Francisco. 6 months ago, it would have been a gentle spin, but I felt it in my legs and lungs by the time we got back.  Putting it simply, I’m not as fit as I was then. That fitness that I worked at constantly through last spring, summer and autumn has faded.  This was a sharp reminder that last year’s efforts matter very little this year. Now that the days are a bit longer, I need to find time to get out on the bike again. Use it or lose it.

What has this got to do with payroll?

Well, quite a lot.

A payroll also gets out of shape very quickly if you don’t focus on regular maintenance, much more so than most other systems. Rules and laws change often, as governments add new layers of regulation. New laws and taxes often make what worked perfectly last year no longer valid. When looking at HR systems and especially payrolls, you need to ask the tough questions. Getting payroll fit isn’t easy, but staying payroll fit is even harder.  Look your vendor in the eye. Figure out whether they are just selling you the bicycle or whether they will help keep you in shape.

Bowman, Archibald 1938. “Reporting on the Corporate Investment” Journal of Accountancy, May 1938 p. 39

This one of my favourite business related quotes. I’ve quoted it many times, but I figured it is well worth repeating here. I’m planning to use it in Vienna tomorrow when I talk about workforce analytics.

And now for my little Monday rant.

It is high time that HR analytics moved up a gear. Too many HR leaders are sitting on a pile of data and doing very little with it. Also I would like to see a lot more collaboration between HR and Finance on management measurement.

Currently both disciplines talk a lot about performance management, and even the competition for ownership of the acronyms is fierce. Is EPM Employee Performance Management or Enterprise Performance Management? Surely it is hard to do one without the other?

Yet I don’t see much collaboration, either from the vendors or departments, but I would love to be corrected.

How do analytics spread in sports? It usually starts with a few individuals who have seen their application in other domains (Daryl Morey of the Rockets, for example, was a fan of Bill James, the baseball stats Geek of Geeks), and figures they will work in a new context. Some like-minded rich people bankroll the experimentation (in the Rockets’ case, owner Leslie Alexander), and the team starts to perform pretty well (Houston had a 22-game winning streak last year despite injuries to key players). New metrics get developed–both by teams and amateurs outside them. Then other teams catch on. The last time I checked about a year ago, roughly half of NBA teams had statisticians on staff.

I wonder how many HR department have statisticians on their staff?

As a boy I wasn’t good enough to be in the cricket team, so I ended up being the scorer. I enjoyed it, and since then I have had an interest in how to measure performance. My German friends think it very odd that I can derive enjoyment from following a text based cricket commentary for 5 days, but anyway. There is beauty in these numbers.

  I’m continuing to focus on HR analytics in my research, I recently did a note on absence management. Absence  costs UK organizations 3% of payroll, yet less than 50% of organizations measure or analyse it.  Time to train up a few scorers I think.

photo from vapours cc flickr. thanks.

So, how are things a year on?

I’ve been on a steep learning curve, and I don’t see it levelling off anytime soon. I talk to several vendors a week, and a good number of clients. I’m building up a better grasp of the broader HCM technology space, but also tapping into a lot of past experience. I did over 200 calls with clients last year. It seemed a lot to me but some other colleagues can manage triple that. I’m on a number of research communities, ranging from social software, cloud computing, high performance workplace, and risk and compliance. My main focus is HCM/HR technologies, but I get to dabble in other stuff too.

I’m a curious person, and this is an excellent place to be curious. I don’t think you can do this job unless you like continuously asking yourself "why?" There is a discipline to this job too. You need to do your homework, and deliver what you promise. It is hard but rewarding work.

At the risk of doing a Winslet, a couple of thanks are in order.

I’d like to thank my colleagues and management for making me feel welcome, and continuing to  provide an environment where there are no stupid questions, There have been too many people to mention individually.  I’d also like to thank the broader analyst community, folks like James Governor, Jason Corsello and Ray Wang for their friendly support. I’d especially like to thank the clients for reading and listening to me.

Finally, I’d like to thank my family for adjusting to me working from home when not travelling. Travel hasn’t been too bad, several US trips, back to South Africa and some European travel but I’m no Andy Bitterer yet. 

To my former colleagues who reckon that this desk is too tidy to be mine, it doesn’t stay like that for long. You also can’t see the other side of the room in the photograph. 

Here is my  formal written research output from the my first year here. You will need to be a Gartner client to access it, but I have included the summaries to give others a sense of what has been keeping me busy.

 Managing Employee Absence: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, and Time Is Money
9 February 2009 | Pages: 7
Thomas Otter
Measuring and managing employee absence has significant hard cost savings, can improve productivity, and serves as an early indicator of workplace issues. Yet, few organizations measure and manage employee absence effectively.

Magic Quadrant for Employee Performance Management Software
3 February 2009 | Pages: 30
James Holincheck | Thomas Otter
The market for employee performance management software has grown quickly, and has attracted many vendors. ERP and HR management system vendors compete against emerging talent management suite providers. Leaders have emerged, but additional market consolidation is likely.

German Perspective: 11 Options to Optimize IT Costs in 2009
3 February 2009 | Pages: 6 
Michael von Uechtritz | Frank Ridder | Annette Zimmermann | Bettina Tratz-Ryan | Carsten Casper | Andreas Bitterer | Peter Wesche | Mick MacComascaigh | Thomas Otter
Gartner presents 11 IT cost optimization options and their potential benefits for German CIOs in maximizing their return on IT investments. We assist CIOs in response to an increased influence of C-level executives in IT and sourcing decision making in Germany.

Inaugural ‘SuccessConnect EMEA’ Shows SuccessFactors’ Expansion in Europe
29 January 2009 | Pages: 4
Chris Pang | Thomas Otter
SuccessFactors recently showcased its international growth and improved application functionality during its inaugural Europe, the Middle East and Africa user conference. However, a challenging macroeconomy will make sales execution tougher and cost containment crucial for the company in 2009.

Inforum 2008: The Infor Brand Emerges?
14 January 2009 | Pages: 6
Thomas Otter | Chris Pang | Robert P. Anderson | Christian Hestermann
At Inforum 2008, Infor presented and explained its road map for Open SOA and the product strategy for the company’s offerings. Infor is executing well with its key products, but modernization challenges loom large.

Best Practices: Workforce Analytics Skills Are Vital for Effective Cost Optimization
5 December 2008 | Pages: 5
Thomas Otter
Some organizations realize the importance of workforce analytics in the credit crunch, but an acute shortage of analytically minded HR resources means that few organizations will be able to use workforce analytics effectively. This research looks at best practices to fill this important skills gap.

Case Study: Ness Combines Consumer Application Ease of Use With ERP Robustness
2 December 2008 | Pages: 6
Thomas Otter
Ness Technologies has delivered a software gadget that dramatically improves the casual ERP user experience, data quality and timeliness. The company’s best practices can help firms looking to leverage Web 2.0 technologies in an ERP context. 

 Lawson’s ‘What’s Next’ Tour 2008
20 November 2008 | Pages: 6
Tim Payne | Nigel Rayner | Thomas Otter | Peter Bambridge
Lawson held its annual European tour through October 2008, where it outlined for industry analysts and customers its 2008 achievements and its plans for 2009.

Defining the HCM Visualization Market
13 November 2008 | Pages: 4
Thomas Otter
The market for human capital management visualization tools is growing rapidly, as organizations look to exploit organizational data buried in ERP and HR management systems.

The Effects of Social Software on Your Employer Brand
29 October 2008 | Pages: 4
Thomas Otter
A strong employer brand is crucial for attracting the right talent. Social software creates new challenges and opportunities for the employer brand. If ignored, then it will blindside organizations that fail to understand the power or effects of grassroots and peer-to-peer comments.

The Business Impact of Social Computing on HR Data
5 September 2008 | Pages: 5 
Thomas Otter | James Holincheck
The business impact of social computing on HR is strong, and Gartner expects it to grow significantly. HR and the IT organization should collaborate to build a culture and platform to leverage social computing in HR.

SAP Skills Shortage Is a Crucial Issue for South African IT Organizations
14 August 2008 | Pages: 6
Johan Jacobs | Thomas Otter | Christian Hestermann | Neil Chandler | Les Stevens
In South Africa’s vibrant and sophisticated IT market, SAP is the dominant corporate business applications vendor. However, market growth is being compromised by an acute skills shortage. Vendors, system integrators, customers and the government must work together to address this problem.

Hype Cycle for Social Software, 2008
1 August 2008 | Pages: 48
Nikos Drakos | Jeffrey Mann | Matthew W. Cain | Whit Andrews | Rita E. Knox | Ray Valdes | Carol Rozwell | Anthony Bradley | Michael Maoz | Thomas Otter | Kathy Harris | Mike McGuire | Toby Bell | Monica Basso | Brian Prentice | David Mario Smith | Jackie Fenn | Stephen Prentice | Adam Sarner | Michael Dunne | Marti Harris
The Social Software Hype Cycle highlights the most important technologies that support rich social interactions. Use our assessment of their business relevance and maturity to guide your investment decisions.

Global Talent Management Isn’t Just Global
22 July 2008 | Pages: 6
Thomas Otter
HR legal compliance tends to be discussed in the context of payroll and core HR administration, but it can significantly affect talent management. Assess local compliance issues as part of your global talent management solution.

Alumni Community Management Isn’t Just for Universities and Consulting Firms
17 July 2008 | Pages: 4
Thomas Otter
Talent shortages and the emergence of social software mean that active alumni community management should become part of organizations’ human capital management strategies.

Hype Cycle for Human Capital Management Software, 2008
9 July 2008 | Pages: 50
Thomas Otter | James Holincheck | Rolf Jester | Michael Dunne | Carol Rozwell | John E. Van Decker | Debbie Wilson | Robert H. Brown | Gale Daikoku | Marti Harris | C. Dwight Klappich
The Hype Cycle for HCM software helps companies plan their HCM technology investments by providing insight into the maturity of key applications and technologies.

Hype Cycle for Analytic Applications, 2008
3 July 2008 | Pages: 47
Gareth Herschel | Thomas Otter | James Holincheck | Debbie Wilson | Michael Dunne | Andrew Frank | Marc Halpern | Hung LeHong | Joanne Galimi | Richard J. De Lotto | Bill Gassman | Nigel Rayner | Kimberly Collins | Jim Davies | Stessa B Cohen | Kimberly Harris-Ferrante | David McClure | Adam Sarner | C. Dwight Klappich | Andrew White | Tim Payne | Bradley Williams | Kristian Steenstrup | David Furlonger | Alistair Newton | Michael Maoz
Analytical capability is increasingly packaged as a solution to address specific business issues, instead of being created with generic business intelligence tools. Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Analytic Applications shows the maturity, adoption rates and benefits of different analytical applications.

Cloud Computing and HR
10 June 2008 | Pages: 5
Thomas Otter
Cloud computing creates new opportunities and risks for HR application users and vendors.

Testing Times for HR Systems and EU Data Protection Law
6 June 2008 | Pages: 7
Thomas Otter
Testing is vital for stable, productive HR and payroll systems; however, live personal data in test environments is subject to European Union data protection laws. CIOs, privacy officers and HR should ensure that HR testing is integrated into IT governance models and that compliance is enforced.

Key Issues for Finance, Human Capital Management and Procurement, 2008
3 April 2008 | Pages: 13
Thomas Otter | Nigel Rayner | Debbie Wilson | James Holincheck
Financial management, human capital management and procurement applications form the administrative "backbone" of all organizations. This Key Issues research for 2008 summarizes Gartner findings in these areas.

Cool Vendors for Human Capital Management Software, 2008
1 April 2008 | Pages: 4
James Holincheck | Thomas Otter
Cool vendors in human capital management software for 2008 focus on emerging HCM trends of workforce analytics, as well the broader social networking trend in HCM context.

Case Study: Dow’s Formula for Social Software
27 March 2008 | Pages: 5
Thomas Otter | Nikos Drakos
Dow deployed a social networking platform to help proactively address the challenges of an aging workforce and a shortage of engineering talent. Participation levels are very high, and business benefits are already evident three months after the launch. 

(Photo from the cc stream of Steve Webel, thanks)

Andrew McAfee  recently blogged about airline queuing systems and IT. The post is well worth reading, and it got me thinking about HR systems. My blogging history is largely made up of looking for obscure metaphors and applying them to HR technology.

An old Chinese saying about the power of regional bureaucrats holds that "The mountains are high, and the Emperor is far away." If remote locations, for whatever reason, don’t want to follow new orders from a central authority, there have historically been few good tools available to enforce compliance. In the era of the Internet and enterprise IT, the situation is very different. Some types of new order can be embedded in information technology so that they’re faithfully followed. Orders from headquarters that can’t be backed up with technology, meanwhile, diffuse slowly and with low fidelity, as the example of PriorityAAcesss boarding so far shows.

Andrew also notes.

One of modern IT’s most underappreciated roles is as an enforcer of process discipline. Today’s enterprise systems make sure that complex, multi-step processes –  ones that involve employees, customers, suppliers, and other groups—are executed the same way time after time, location after location, with few or no exceptions.

IT systems like ERP only really work well when organisation standardize processes. As Andrew argues elsewhere that this is the where the big productivity ROI comes from.

The challenge is that people in subsidiaries don’t always welcome being standardized, especially when they are used to doing things their own way.

Many global systems fail, not because they fail to meet global needs, but because they don’t do anything to help the subsidiary. When designing systems always ask yourself "what’s in it for the people entering the data?" If  there isn’t a whole lot of value accruing to them, then they won’t willingly use the system. It sounds obvious, but it is the failing of many a global succession planning system. For subscribers, I go into more detail here.

(photo via flickrstream of addedentry)

So much of our enterprise systems reporting is still locked into the rows and columns model of reporting. Yes, some vendors have oil gauge type dashboards and yapc (yet another pie chart) but I’ve only seen one or two vendors who really think hard about how to change the way data is displayed.

I came across a super web-site this afternoon. (Thanks Claus) It takes a map of the world and changes the sizes of the countries based on different criteria, such as number of cellphones,or  this example below women in parliament. (the excellent mappingworlds site is here)

Look how small the US is on the map. This is a powerful way of visualizing data, partly because of the  Von Restorff effect. A phenomenon of memory in which noticeably different things are more likely to be recalled than common things. Mapping worlds changes the way the see a common image, the world map. The dissonance is what makes you think and remember.

This TED presentation from Hans Rosling has been watched millions of times. It is a lesson for us all in data visualization data and presenting it.

Imagine if you presented your succession planning data like this? Wouldn’t it have a whole lot more impact? Most of you have years and years of ERP data, why not do something noticeably different with it?

Anyway, this morning on Twitter I noticed that several of my online connections had recently spilled beverages, adult or otherwise,  on their laptops.  Closer to home, my wife’s macbook still works after a coffee incident, but only when plugged in to the wall socket, also the range of the wireless has decreased to a few metres, and one of the shift keys doesn’t shift.   To fix the laptop would cost more than replacing it, and would mean being without it for a couple of weeks. It limps on. It is the Bruce Willis Die Hard  of laptops.

Tom provides advice that only experience brings.

Don’t leave a 2 year old alone with a laptop.

What does this have to do with SOA?

Well, one of the alternatives to a laptop is a desktop.  Here the main parts of the computer are separate but connected.  If I spill coffee while working with a desktop, I just end up replacing the keyboard.  The rest of the system goes on working fine. If you are accident prone, buy a desktop.

SOA is software’s attempt to limit the damage that a cup of coffee does. Much clearer now isn’t it. hmmm.  If you are looking for something more sensible on SOA and HR technology, my colleague Jim Holincheck has written a series of notes on this.

Moving swiftly on from SOA.

ASUS and Intel are asking users to help them design a better computer. Have a look at the site WePC.com. I think a coffee proof laptop would be a winner. Not sure that anything can be made to be  2 year old proof though.

This reminds that I have been planning to do some more research in to user led design in an HR context. TIme to get out the Von Hippel.