getting plone introduced into large scale business operations plone conf oct 2009
DESCRIPTION
Presentation held at the annual Plone conference, Oct 2009, Budapast about the introduction of Plone as an attractive & secure alternative document retrieval system.For those of you using Apple App Keynote a Zip file is attached as well.TRANSCRIPT
Getting Plone introduced into large scale business operationsA “New to Plone” Talk
Peter Breithaupt N.V. Nederlandse GasunieCEO WedgeMatch, BioBench & Vertogas
Who’s talking?Peter Breithaupt
Ph.D. combustion engineering
business development for renewable energy and energy efficiency service companies
executing merger & acquistions in the gas industry
entrepeneur: developing new web-based services for renewable energy ventures
“very” new to Plone!
Who is Gasunie?Continental Europe’s largest independent natural gas transport company
length of pipeline network:14,600 km
yearly transport volumes:126 billion m³
number of employees:1,730
yearly revenues:ca. € 1.7 billlion
asset growth 2007-08:ca. 40% including assets under construction
Provide a storyline for using PloneOutline an implementation strategy which creates endorsement by creating an “epidemic” using smart business experiments
A typical IT landscape of a gas infrastructure company
Hardware
Entire infrastructure outsourced to “blue chip service provider”
Server park largely Microsoft-based
Closed network
Applications
SCADA proprietary
Billing proprietary
SAP Oil & Gas
Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Desktop
Current state of IT-systems?The “Not Invented Here” and “Cover Your Ass” syndromes have created lots of risks and costs!
Can Open-Source help?
Gartner (February 2008)
“By 2012, 80 per cent of all commercial software will include elements of open-source technology”
“Many open-source technologies are mature, stable and well supported”
“Ignoring this (rem: open source) will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage.”
So why are we not using it?The open-source conundrum is kept alive by both, the “hardcore” OSS community and commercial software vendors.
A lesson learnt:Avoid direct confrontation with the “corporate IT establishment”.
Instead,outsmart the “bulls”.Our approach: Introduce the concept of executing smart business experiments to penetrate innovation into business operations.
The idea of the tipping pointThe Tipping Point is that dramatic moment when little causes drive the unexpected to become expected and propel the idea of radical change to certain acceptance.
The Tipping point (an epidemic) is a function of:
The Law of the Few: A tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work to build momentum.
The Stickiness Factor: Stickiness means that a message makes an impact – it’s memorable.
The Power of Context: Human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they seem.
source: Malcolm Gladwell, The tipping point, Little Brown, 2000
What are smart business experiments?
Too many commercial software solution initiatives are launched on “a wing and a prayer” - despite that it’s now reasonable to expect truly valid tests.
With small investment in training, readily available software, and the right encouragement, an organization can build a “test and learn” capability.
Companies that equip managers to perform small-scale, yet rigorous experiments don’t only save themselves from expensive mistakes - they also make it more likely that great ideas will see the day of light.
source: Harvard Business Review, February, 2009
What was our problem?Rapid growth has generated lots of documentation and focus on external business networks.Urgent need to provide a safe platform to store, search & share information with the outside world.
The corporate IT solution
Microsoft SharePoint
Imbedded in corporate IT system
Not accessible for external parties
Lousy search functionality(remedy: higher costs)
Corporate project management
10 “ICT managers” involved
complex & customised
Turn-around time more than 6 weeks
High costs
Customer lock-in
The corporate IT solution
What we really wanted ...Search, Search, Search
Finding documents back is more important than a “smart” folder structure!
Secure & Safe access every time & everywhere
Services which allow rapid upload of data from other mass storages, such like CD’s.
But above all, we wanted to create an epidemic!
What we really wanted ...Search, Search, Search
Finding documents back is more important than a “smart” folder structure!
Secure & Safe access every time & everywhere
Services which allow rapid upload of data from other mass storages, such like CD’s.
But above all, we wanted to create an epidemic!
A lopsided comparison
SharepointICT project
managementPlone
Goldmund, Wyldebeast & Wunderliebe
Search
Secure & Safe
Services
Speed
Costs
poor, high costs
best in class
bad track recordprovensecurity
distributed,non-core activity
single-point,core offering
months days
at least5 to 10 times higher than Plone
Setting up the scene for the smart business experiment
Product
Setting up the scene for the smart business experiment
Product
Contracts
Create single point responsibility.
Setting up the scene for the smart business experiment
ProductDocumentation
Training
Contracts
PlatformServices
Outsource entire service.
Then secure the project against corporate hi-jackers
Set-up very strict governance guidelines
Mirror single point responsibility in your organisation!
No customisation! Standard Plone interface!!!!!!!
Training mandatory!
All additional services to be agreed in Service Level Agreements!
What have we achieved...GTKY
Sep.’08
3 days toproof-of concept
with real documents
3 days
Oct.’08governance guidelines
service levelagreements
CMS system operational Google “look”
create tipping point
Feb.’09
2nd application
search function drives further interest
Mar.’09
1
25
rapid growth of portals
12
1st Plone user day
Nov.’09
No. of Plone portals
103
204070
No. of Users
Aug.’09
add OCR functionality
So why did it work?The tipping point
Law of the Few: Some “Mavens” started the project
Stickiness Factor: Google “look” & superior search functionality
Power of Context: Sense of urgency to store documentation
Smart business experiment
Low-cost (simple & standard)
All-in-one service provision by partner company
Rigourous safeguarding of portal application
And finally:Always celebrate!Success has many fathers and mothers.