Dear friend, communicating means responsibility

Hi all, for the second time I am posting about a non-CRM related argument. Yes, because at the end some principles are universal and involve everything, CRM as well.
I am just going to put a comment I made on a video by Anthony Robbins, a guru in so called "inspirational life coaching" ( http://tonyrobbinstraining.com/46/tiny-changes-mean-huge-results) and a person that in any case I admire for the results he achieved and still helps the others achieving.
He's trying to raise up the spirit of people in this moment of crisis. The intention is good and at the beginning I even appreaciated it, but maybe for the first time, thanks to the crisis itself, I am realizing how dangerous certain approaches can be if they are not correclty driven. By a matter of fact, my comment to the video has been "censored". Fortunately we live in an almost free world, so I decided to post it here...

Hi Tony,
this time I wanna play the devil's advocate. Why? Because I am afraid the situation requires different models (whatever the field) and critic analysis about past 20 years. Moreover because we need to challenge ourselves and this requires not always saying "yes!".
First example: in the golf game case, few millimeters do the difference if you're putting a lot of energy in your shot, as the target is far away. But what about if you give a soft shot as you're close to the hole? Surely the difference is smaller, as your shot is not amplified by the long distance. For sure if you hit softer you are more precise, right? well, paradoxically, it could be that a player making soft shots arrives
first to the target than another one hitting the ball like a mad, considering they have the same low preciseness, no? Same rules, “strange” winner.
Why there's the need, above all for the first shots, to strike hard?
Because the golf game rules tell you that if you arrive before you win. Well,
what if the rules were different?
Second example: it's true, few millimeters make the difference between a beautiful and an ugly face, but.. did I say beautiful and ugly? what am I basing on to state this? on commonly accepted parameters.

What if these parameters were different? And, above all, should I put all this attention to these few millimeters doing the difference for the commonly accepted CURRENT trend?
I got where you wanna point but please understand my argument. Little daily applied changes and "corrections" make the life trip go in the direction we pursue, yes. But it depends on HOW you do it, on some FUNDAMENTALS you should have and on the MODELS the society is basing on.
Many financial and economic crashes have been driven by people that certainly applied strong believes, strong self-motivation, auto-determination and focus. Much focus.
But on what? And on which basis? I think too much on pure “success”, money and with very weak basis. What I am saying it’s that maybe it’s no more time for such kind of approaches if not driven by a good method, strong fundamentals and new models.

Maybe people are unmotivated and with the “head down” for good reasons, because they don’t like what they see and how they live, or the society tells them they have to live if they want to be “accepted” or be cool. Maybe it’s some society rules that should change and not people keep smiling and pushing on things, whatever it takes and, above all, driven by the same hidden interests?
There’s so much responsibility in communicating.

Doing some analysis, all this is probably true also for what CRM is facing as a corporate initiative, in this crisis situation.

This is the 3rd world war

Yes, I know, apparently the current economic crisis (just to use an euphemism) has nothing to do with this blog, but who can ignore its impacts now? The panic is spreading and melting with the entire economy, once left the golden financial world. And now what? what should we expect, why there is such a collapse in such a short time frame?
Well, as I like challenges, I recently specialized myself also on trading, following some courses by Forbes, even because my consultancy role and my professional attitude push me to excellence and trying to master all the possible industrial or economic fields that CRM and associated Business Analysis can involve.
This was last summer, when the economy was not in any case at its best and we all waited for a raising; even if the market was very nervous, I succeeded in making good investments and good suggestions for friends and clients.
Then, suddenly, an unimaginable collapse, and all theories and studies have become just a theory for kids. My belief? That all this has been planned and forecasted by few entities that will take a new control back to their hands.
Unfortunately masses usually follow the wind imposed by few, and lots of people have lost most of their savings. Nothing new really, as the common understanding of things is not so critical, but follow, for example, the mood established by the newspapers, almost all of which are controlled.
Do you really believe that the entire economy is going to collapse? I firmly believe that U.S. know what is doing, more than we expect and for sure more than Europe has understood. This is a contemporary global war, where old assets and columns are going to change; at some extents, this was also necessary.
Everyone has already forgotten what Russia did in Georgia and how the climate was returning to a cold war one kind? Now what has been demonstrated? that this kind of approach is old-fashioned and that their power show was not only despicable, as the common opinion already stated, but above all not useful at all (not intelligent?). Look where Russia is now: it's financial structure is collapsing more than other countries and they hope themselves that U.S. will defeat this crisis. Where are the tanks now?
Other important reference point are moving and new strategies coming with them, and it's not important if many people completely burn their savings, because things have to change for someone.
First of all in one month time U.S. will face a new election. While just a couple of weeks ago McCain and Obama were incredibly at the same popularity level (what? Who talked about McCain before? Wasn’t it just the Obama election?), now Obama has again more points versus his competitor. Personally I am not taking any part in this, above all because the only certain thing is that, despite recent comments by intellectual people, the most important and influent country are and will be the United States of America. And whoever smiling face you put on it, the real powerful institutions behind it are more or less the same… included their goals.
U.S. are showing the world that, if they go down, they will bring all the world with them, included great new emerging economies that seemed to preoccupy and revolutionize the entire world asset.
I understand the fact that many investors from China, Russia and Middle East are investing in US bonds, but this does not mean that these countries will take the control, but on the contrary that U.S. needs new friends across their boarders, and the result will be on the contrary an expansion of U.S. commerce and way of thinking around the globe.. without any military war. In this picture, for sure great U.S. speculators are not useful to anyone anymore, even to U.S. itself, so they have basically been "fired".
The funny thing is that, as in a war, the alliances emerge, together with the will or not to collaborate together. The result is that Europe has shown its pure abstraction, with each country acting separately and with personal local interests.
And please, let's not define the different coordinated rate cuts as an harmonious action of European States. First of all because also other countries such as Japan etc. have shown their support on the same direction, second because the consequences on European different markets is visible to everyone: DAX, CAC, MIB - all markets have closed today negative with more than 6% loss.
Who is going to benefit from this, together with the Paulson plan? Yes, you know it, and let's wait this evening for Wally... for the moment it is losing much less than Europe and Japan and let's see how it will close. I would not be surprised to see some + (really? How can it be??), except going down to the end, trying to make us europeans go down the day after.
Do you want other confirmations? The value of U.S. dollar has increased versus the euro after a long time where the American dollar was losing steps every week in an uncontrolled way. Maybe it's just a coincidence that soon the amero will see its birth?
This morning Toyota, big Japanese automotive competitor for U.S. companies, has been declassed by Nikko Citi, an American Bank, indicating the target price from 6.340 to 3.520 yen...
Do we have to talk then about the oil price? Did you think that the answer about global warming would have been immediate change of direction, both from Republicans or Democratics? The main concern for U.S. has always been the dependency from foreign oil. Now, with the incredible price fall, U.S. is also saying to the international foreign oil powers: "hey, if we go down, you can burn your oil just for your fun, man. So let's talk differently in the future, ok?"
What will save us really? Apart from the correct re-dimension of the money cost (for many this is becoming unbearable) the answer is just one: Quality.
And here we arrive at the point I was targeting for our usual scope: the current situation is surely preoccupying, but I believe as well it is somehow the beginning of a new phase. I believe the entire CRM sector will be affected by this crisis too and I think it will be somehow justified, as too many wastes have involved CRM Projects implementations. There is too much speculation around this business, the recruitment part just to start mentioning some. The quality level of the consultancy as well is absolutely not at the level that is requested by the market, not only on the freelance market, but also on the Big consultancy names. What I am working on is based on Quality, included the management of the LinkedIn group CRM Project Managers: as this crisis is doing, we have to extirpate once forever the weeds from our glorious CRM field, if we want to progress, maintain a high credibility and come to the market in a productive way, with good implemented ideas and not the usual old services.
In this sense the idea of an open community can help CRM: but in a controlled and severe way, as it will have to be for the new trading rules.
Together with some partners I am also working on a new tool and a new methodology that will be presented to the public soon to the CRM community. Many of you already contacted me to ask for the new Crm-Up methodology and the new tool: I am sorry for the delay, but I am working in order to make it real and available for the end of this year, crisis permitting :). With this tool and methodology we are aiming at stopping all the wastes around the CRM implementations projects as well as poor consultancy without any added value.

Ah, If you want to invest money? well, if you still have some but you want to be sure, just wait for the new president election. If you want to risk in these days, doing some speculation, then it's quite easy: on the European market buy good titles (with good news) around 11-12 AM and sell at 14AM. If you are in the U.S., then buy in the middle of the day and sell before the end. Now it’s almost 6:00PM CET and DJ is down of 2 points.. let’s see the closure, I am curious...
In the next days, in any case, it will be better.
Are you looking for patterns? ;)

The client experience: where's CRM ?!?

The more I am involved in this sector, the funnier is observing the absurd lack of customer relationship management processes in many organizations in our daily life experience.
Actually these considerations are funny until you are not one of the unfortunate customers who has to face all the hassles originated by bad services and bad practices.
After almost 6 years of trusted service, few days ago I decided that it’s time for my good Toshiba Satellite S-5100-503 to retire for a more relaxed living way than the one I have forced it to have until today.
So I have decided to go for a new laptop and chose one that can represent a valid heir of my good Toshi, with the clear idea of not going for cheap solutions (after all, my Toshi cost a lot but granted me a long and fruitful Return of Investment).
My preference was for a 13.3” wide screen for portability reasons (I travel a lot and 3 and more kg of my Toshi are good for workout but too much to carry always around with me) but without any compromise in terms of power, efficiency and functionalities.
For this reason my final decision has been the SONY VAIO VGN-SZ71VN/X: 4 GB RAM, 2.5 Ghz Dual processor, 3G connectivity, etc.
Ok so, with little hesitating for the important disbursement, yesterday evening I finally connected to the SonyStyle site to make this important step.
I choose the series, the model, I opt for the express delivery (I want it soon!!) and finally I enter my credit card information and I press Ok… 10 sec, 20 sec (ok, the site advised the process requires some seconds, let’s wait patiently, don’t always think bad), 30 sec… 1 min.. Ok, there’s something wrong… no! the infamous IE error page.. damn! I knew it!
Relax Manuel, relax… let’s have a look at the e-mail.. no, nothing, no confirmation, ok.. probably no transition has been accepted..
Let’s redo the process: select the SZ series, the model, bla bla… no, I don’t believe it.. again?! No way I cannot stress like that for this, I mean, it should be a happy moment… I am buying my new laptop, my new fellowship for new projects… ok, it must work, come on…
Let’s redo it… YES! Validation page correctly shown and mail sent. Oh.. Finally..
What is this link? Oh, enter my account to follow the order.. bah, let’s have a look… What the F***?! Another order has passed without any confirmation? Great, simply great. Ok, I send an e-mail to inform Sony that an order should be cancelled then I go to bed and fight with this question again tomorrow: it will be Monday and maybe someone has noticed something is wrong with the site.
So Today I turned-on my Toshi (sorry that I am substituting you, I am already regretting it…) and looked at my e-mail… no answer. Well, let’s call the Call Center, today is Monday and should be opened from 9:00. Yes, good morning, I am experiencing this and that.. what? Which is the order number? Ok, the one that has been confirmed is this and the other for which I did not receive any confirmation is this other, but on the site, under my account, is in status open as the other one.
While I am talking with this guy, I am thinking… but he’s not asking me who I am or my SonyStyle ID… Just the number of the order? Boh…
Ok, it seems it’s normal because the system keeps track of all the orders, also the not good ones… well, I guess it’s normal for an operator terminal but not for a customer: in the status I would like to see “invalid” and not open, if it’s really a not good one; otherwise how can I differentiate it form the good one?
So I go out perplexed but finally satisfied from the closed deal. When I come back at home I am curious to see the status of my order… maybe they have sent the package!
What? Cancelled?? Ok, let’s synchronize my e-mail…oh, of course, someone else has read my yesterday evening e-mail, has not understood the situation, and to be sure he/she has cancelled also the good order. I was expecting this, actually, but for sure this is not a good integration of the different CRM customer communication channels, no? The operator I called this morning (ah, the number, of course, it’s not free of charge…) should have took care of my case and managed it entirely to grant me the service I am paying for. Could it be related to the fact that this guy did not ask me my name or any ID, so that no cases are associated? If you remember he just asked me for the order number, because my name is associated to the order, not vice versa… fantastic, I am just the orders I do… and actually I feel like that, because if an order fails I am a no one for Sony…
Ok, let’s call the call center again and try to explain all the situation, supposing that the next operator will believe me.
“Good morning, I have made these orders… and this one, that was good and accepted, has been cancelled lately… sorry? Ah, you are telling me that if it has not been accepted probably it’s because of the Credit Card? Oh, you cannot help me further because your SAP system is down… I should redo the order because the site has been updated? ok, thanks”.
Ah, ah a SAP system? I would not be surprised seeing these agents using directly the ERP system to answer the calls.. at the end they just treat orders!
Ok, maybe this time the order will work, if the site has been really updated… maybe this has been the cause for the failures?
Actually when I click on products I have a pop-up window and I am not re-directed to a new one as yesterday.. so I redo the entire process.. perfect! All clean and confirmation mail. Excellent… until I don’t check again the order on my Account and I find it.. CANCELLED! What the hell? It’s a nightmare here!
Let’s call again the Call Center… yes, the order is this, my credit card is this… oh, American Express is not validating the transaction and you cannot help me further because you cannot see what is happening on the AMEX side. Ok, thank you, but first, as I am using a patient tone (given the situation), I would expect at least the same, second I am not a stupid final user as I know something about this processes and IT systems… but I keep this for me, there’s no point in discussing with this guy… he’s frustrated as me in using a unmanageable system collecting data from a full of bugs website.
But my customer experience is “Why? Why do I have to spend all this time and money to buy my expensive new laptop!?”… Now I have to call American Express (again, not free of charge number) to ask what’s going on.. wait, yes, ok… I am Manuel Breschi, card number… etc, etc…, at least they do the controls to grant my identity… So, between yesterday evening and today this and that happened… Ok, I wait for the correct department… what? A transaction has passed 10 minutes ago? Ok, thanks, I will follow your suggestion and not do other orders. American Express is protecting my own interest as a high-ranked customer (yeah, I have the gold card but honestly I don’t use it so much…) blocking transactions because the site used to make the order seemed not as secure as expected? No, the site really sucks, believe me… ok thanks I will call again the Sony Call Center.
So I hang up and I think… ok, they are protecting me, but why I have to call them on a not free of charge number and, on the contrary, they don’t call me to check what’s going on and what do I really want to pass as a transaction and what should be cancelled? I mean, I pay for the card, I pay for the call, you are retiring my money from my bank account I pay for!... come on, this is not serious!
So, call again the Sony Call Center, listen to the music… what I am going to tell to the new guy this time? Oh, it’s this morning one, great… hey look, all the orders have been cancelled but it seems a transaction has passed, what’s going on? From your system all the orders are cancelled and you cannot help me further. Nothing will be sent. Great.
American Express… look you have to tell me what to do, otherwise for me you can close all the transactions… what? Yes I wait… AH! Not only a transaction has been accepted this morning but also one last night?! Holy ****! Ok so now as I am this great high level customer I am expecting some suggestions from your side… Ok I will write an e-mail to Sony telling them that on your side 2 transactions have been accepted and that not charge-off has been communicated to American Express by Sony Europe, differently from what has been stated on the phone and described under my account.
An e-mail, yes ok, it’s free of charge and actually if I have to call all these times the operators to get this service, I prefer to maintain the distance… ok, to do the things correctly, can you provide me with an e-mail so that I can put you in CC of what I am going to write to Sony? You don’t know? Ok, I wait… ok, American Express has no e-mail for this kind of things… I will keep it and send it to you by fax if I have to challenge the second payment; which is the number? Ok, you will communicate it to me in case it is necessary…

COME ON! And then I have to hear that CRM projects have failed? But what are we talking about? As a customer I would say that CRM is just an onomatopoeic sound I do when I have to interact with these people that should serve me as a customer.. What the F***! ARGHH!! GRRR! CRM!

Now an order that was cancelled, together with other 6, has been re-opened and put in “elaborating” status… yes, elaborate it, and think about the customer satisfaction you’re creating around.
I have just to hope that Sony will charge-off one order and finalize the other one, as for the moment I just got a blank e-mail as an answer to my mail…
Ah… of course I also hope, if I will ever get my brand new laptop, that it’s quality is far better than the services they are providing… Good CRM to everyone.

Dreamforce Europe 08: Post-keynote Q&A conference

After the general opening session, Marc Benioff has exposed himself to the questions of the press and analysts. I succeded on posing 2 questions, among the more than 30 that I prepared... probably I exagerated... In any case some of the questions coming from my colleagues were very interesting and covered many aspects I was interested in as well.
In this exclusive video you can follow the interaction with Marc Benioff and his answers to the press. The first touched arguments have been cloud computing and the Salesforce.com position on this, difference in audience between the US and the European events, China's future CRM evolution, Force.com objectives and performance, etc.
One example of interesting question has been about the competition between Salesforce.com and Google, although the answer was quite short.

My first question was based on the observation that the new level of IT possibilities offered by the on-demand concept, the cloud computing architecture and the AppExchange community, offers a tremendous availability of software functionalities to all the customers. This broadening of new IT features is also the trend of every CRM software vendor that, based on years of projects implementations (and failures as well), includes new functionalities on their software often basing on custom solutions that the customers implemented themselves in order to overcome the functional limitations of the chosen package. If this is fair or not, I think it's a matter of the customers, after the millions of euros or dollars spent on these.
Salesforce in any case is bringing this concept to the extreme, giving it also a new foundation, a precise identity on which basing an entire new trend. In this way the entire movement is justified, as potentially accesible and available to everyone.
So I started from the idea that CRM is an acronym that was created by Tom Siebel, but slowly moved into a more "business" oriented movement, into a "Journey".
Is it all then? it's IT just the supporting application of the CRM processes and it cannot make anymore the difference in terms of solutions in the competition among organizations for the acquisition and retainance of customers?

My second question was more focused on the future of Salesforce.com: born as a CRM software solution provider (even if on-demand, as a SaaS), has now moved to the Platform as a Service concept, opening its Force.com platform to its customers for the development of new applications. Is so Saleforce.com still interested in developing solutions of its own, or it's more interested now in the platform and looking at what the clients and partners are going to implement with their framework?
Benioff explained that a lot of applications on the AppExchange servers are by Salesforce.com, but nothing was mentioned about some new brand ideas for a new killer application.
My sensation is that the IT market is somehow saturating and the public is not yet aware of the difference between a classic software and its programming languages and their meta layers, the meta-langauges.
The possibilites offered by salesforce.com in fact rely on a higher conceptual definition, enabling users to customize their applications in a simpler way. Without a definition of an M2 level (referring to the 3 layer OMG framework in relation to the UML), this would not have been possible. The Apex code works at this level... more about this will be published on a new post.

Why UML in CRM? A problem solving perspective

As my basis remains cognitive psychology (I.A. Codoban is the author of this post), it is quite common for me to think about psychological aspects of my IT work and the general IT and CRM domains. One such analogy sprouted out of the reports about failure rates in CRM projects (just see what Gartner and other research groups have to say about this) and problem solving (and decision making, implicitly) theory.
So, this post was born to show a psychological perspective on why using UML for CRM is important.

Problem solving research was born from the need of understanding how people take decisions and which are the risks involved. Economy was and still is one of the fields where such knowledge is applied, but interest domains are expanding. In fact, Herber A. Simon won a Nobel prize for the research and theory about human decision making.
Problem solving is the process of getting from the current to the desired state, with the help of operators that allow to modify things so that we can move from one state to another. It is what happens when the PM calls the team and says: our application needs to be adapted to end-user requirements. We have an initial state of things: the current application, processes, etc. and a desired one, defined abstractly by end-users’ desires and needs. It is also necessary to have the tools and the knowledge needed to modify the application and context, thus to pass from the initial state to another one, and finally to the desired one.
Probably you noticed that in real life things are not always easy - problem solving is not always straight forward ;)
On one side, there is the complexity of the environment that comes with uncertainty, inconsistency, and incomplete information. On the other, there is the human nature expressed in what is called limited rationality. This last concept indicates that there are specific pitfalls for the human mind during the decision and problem solving process.

“ … (the) limits are imposed by the complexity of the world in which we live, the incompleteness and inadequacy of human knowledge, the inconsistencies of individual preference and belief, the conflicts of value among people and groups of people, and the inadequacy of the computations we can carry out, even with the aid of the most powerful computers. The real world of human decisions is not a world of ideal gases, frictionless planes, or vacuums. To bring it within the scope of human thinking powers, we must simplify our problem formulations drastically, even leaving out much or most of what is potentially relevant.” (H.A. Simon and Associates – 1986)

The most common errors have been researched thoroughly, nevertheless it is still difficult to prevent them in applied settings. Just think that there are situations in which people assess the frequency of a class by the ease with which instances can be brought to mind. If you are asked how frequent are names that contain an “R”, research has shown that the answer depends on the number of names that we can recall having that letter.
However, the human mind has managed to “construct” strategies for problem solving that have assured our supremacy as a species, thus it can not be that we mistake to often :) Our mind relies on heuristics and experience in order to facilitate the difficult process and help us reach the goals.
Research has found out the way the process is carried out:

“… problem solving generally proceeds by selective search through large sets of possibilities, using rules of thumb (heuristics) to guide the search. Because the possibilities in realistic problem situations are generally multitudinous, trial-and-error search would simply not work; the search must be highly selective. Chess grandmasters seldom examine more than a hundred of the vast number of possible scenarios that confront them, and similar small numbers of searches are observed in other kinds of problem-solving search.” (H.A. Simon and Associates – 1986)

Expertise comes from experience as the person learns problems, contexts and methods to apply. The famous intuition is due to this knowledge and experience and when it fails it lets the expert with the option of applying the common analysis and inference processes.

“A chess master must be able to recognize about 50,000 different configurations of chess pieces that occur frequently in the course of chess games. A medical diagnostician must be able to recognize tens of thousands of configurations of symptoms; a botanist or zoologist specializing in taxonomy, tens or hundreds of thousands of features of specimens that define their species. For comparison, college graduates typically have vocabularies in their native languages of 50,000 to 200,000 words. (However, these numbers are very small in comparison with the real-world situations the expert faces: there are perhaps 10120 branches in the game tree of chess, a game played with only six kinds of pieces on an 8 x 8 board.)” (H.A. Simon and Associates – 1986)

Real situations are even more complex as they usually refer to complex and ill defined (structured) problems. Classical research examples are the ones of design and engineering domains, where the final desired state is not always clear from the beginning. (It is thus clear that IT is not really in a good position ;)…)
Also, aspects such as setting the agenda and representing the problem, critical issues for problem solving, are still in search of answers and support in applied settings. It can be argued that agenda setting, at least in IT projects, falls under the general Project Management discipline, and thus has achieved certain help through best practices. It should be also said that many CRM projects fail on these aspects as little or no Project Management is involved, and no CRM specific project management methodology exists (at least to our knowledge, please let us know if you are familiar with one).
But let us analyze the representation issue in more detail as we are kicking here a cornerstone for our discourse about UML and CRM.

“The way in which problems are represented has much to do with the quality of the solutions that are found.” (H.A. Simon and Associates – 1986)

Many authors have argued that problem solving is not an entirely mental process but need and relies on real manipulations as well. (This reminds me of my math teacher that desperately tried to construct 3D models of geometrical problems in order to facilitate understanding.) The physical interaction process is important for constructing knowledge as it allows trial-and-error behavior with direct feedback and assures that the mistakes are never afterwards repeated. It seems obvious that our mind is prone to learn better from direct experience than just mental fantasy… (Langley and Rogers argue in this sense, but there are numerous other authors that agree).
Using models (simplified representations of reality) helps our mind in its tasks, as it reduces the information to the most relevant one (if the model is constructed well) but also allows certain manipulations without the problems of real situations, such as dead-ends (if we use supports for our models, of course, and not just our fantasy).

Here is the right moment to ask: why are we talking about UML in CRM? Or, rather, why are we adepts of UML in CRM?
Well, one point of viewing a CRM IT project is that of a problem-solving process, and as such it is prone to certain errors and needs certain supports in order to reach de desired objective (in the desired way). In fact, it is linked with the general decision making process present in our everyday lives. This is a complex setting for problem-solving with various actors involved, strategic and tactical hidden processes, and complex unstructured problems at different levels.
UML (Unified Modeling Language) is and important basis for creating models especially for the IT environment and it also supports the software creation process from requirements gathering to testing and deployment. UML is a standardized general-purpose modeling language that includes a graphical notation used to create an abstract model of a system. UML is an easy and graphical way of representing all that is needed in a software project with specific support for different phases or concepts. Moreover, UML is a methodology itself, guiding and helping the practitioner.
UML use cases are a good example for requirements gathering and analysis, and many business analysis books indicate them as the best solution to form a base for the project. The strength of UML lies not only in the easy graphical representation, but also in his semantics and extension possibilities.

The usage of UML in CRM projects can bring a lot of benefits, not only from a technical point of view, but also from a cognitive one. Although not extensive, here are some points about the usefulness of UML for CRM projects problem solving, related to the above introduction.
First of all, UML allows the representation of the problem and of its space. As a special modeling language for IT environments, UML is particularly suited for modeling and supporting the development process. Use cases are usually involved in requirements gathering and analysis, as they are visual representation of end-user requirements and easily understandable by all the involved actors. The fact that everybody can grasp their meaning makes use cases a suited support for negotiating changes and functionalities in the application. They can also be used for explaining to the end-users and non-technical stakeholders, reasons for certain prioritizations and planning. In this way, everybody understands the decisions taken and forms correct expectations of the future evolution.
But also the application can be modeled with UML: by this the team can rely on a common documented vision of how the system is and how it works. It also facilitates the conceptualization and analysis of new requirements as it provides for a frame in which they need to be integrated.
Thus, on the one hand, with the help of UML we can define the current situation (at least in terms of the application) and sketch the desired state based on requirements.
We have mentioned before that one important characteristics of an expert is her experience in the field. Nevertheless, experts are quite hard to find and not easy to retain. (Moreover, the problem domain definition might even change from one project to the other, based on the customizations implemented and the organizational policies and processes, thus the definition of an expert is project-related). By documenting the application, the requirements and subsequent evolutions in a visual way, UML assures that the correct and absolutely needed knowledge is created and maintained. It will then be easier for all the members of the team to take decisions being informed about the application.
The UML documentation of requirements and solutions act as a best practices repository that offers a background for future problems and solutions in terms not only of end products but also processes (how the solution was reached). This is also an expert-level type of support, as it is no longer needed to be present in a project from the beginning in order not to repeat the same errors. It is enough to go over the simple documentation and understand the essays already made and the solutions finally implemented. The repository is available (and accessible in terms of knowledge) to all the stakeholders enabling the creation of shared knowledge (and its documentation) and facilitating decision making process. Also, the complex group decision situation is enhanced through a common understanding of the problem at hand.
With the right models available, estimating the time needed for implementing the requirements is more straightforward, thus helping agenda creation and priority lists.
One of the best aspects is, though, the possibility of experimenting in the model world during the problem-solving process. Above, we introduced the importance of making changes to the problem and its context not only mentally. UML modeling allows externalization and manipulation while still not having an impact on the final application, nevertheless allowing evaluation and analysis.
All these cognitive advantages can come as a help during a CRM project, and hinder its failures.

Although there is a lot to be said about problem solving (as well as UML in CRM), this post is just an introduction meant to enlarge the perspective of the reader, and not a comprehensive theory. In order to facilitate the usage of UML in the particular CRM context, we have developed an extension of the classical concepts for modeling that cover also the CRM field, as well as models of specific CRM applications (more information). These last developments can be very useful in analyzing customized applications and understanding the changes that have been implemented in order to identify possible problems and improvement possibilities.
There are several other reasons for why UML is important in CRM, but this post is already long enough :)
We are going to go into more details about UML in CRM and about our ideas regarding CRM project management methodologies in future posts.

For further information and UML-CRM related services contact us at: manuelbreschi@bluebottle.com

Lack of CRM?... Even worse...

Some time ago, not so far to be honest, I was commenting the CRM consultancy scenario, underlying how poor this approach to services is among the stakeholders involved in a COTS application development and deployment.
Actually, too many times the implementation of a CRM platform is entrusted to people that, in the best cases, are technically skilled in the specific platform, but know not so much regarding the reason of CRM as a strategy that should involve all the organization levels. And, believe me, I am on the side of these technical experts (I am an IT engineer, in the end), because at least they know what they are talking about and they will surely explain you what is reasonable to be done with your brand new Package, or what is really absurd to implement. I would have much more to say regarding the so called "strategy experts", that often have never challenged themselves with concrete problems and the daily routine tasks that a lot of employees have to execute every working day.
But this consideration cannot bring me to accept what is happening in the IT scenario in relation to off-shore consultancy. Cheaper? ok; Practical? Perfect; efficient? Great... but if we arrive at the point that our European consultancy skills are evaluated by thousands of kilometers distant technical consultants.. well, no, now there's something that does not work properly.
Apart from the total lack of a European identity and, above all, the pride of belonging to the most ancient history and prestigious culture, what surprises me is some organizations' perspective.
Is it possible that a European client selects external consultancy entrusting off-shore companies that make selections evaluating European skilled consultants? Yes.. and it has already happened.
So what about quality? what about CRM? what about the ability to offer services that imply not only the specific platform knowledge, but also a good awareness of the market, of the culture, of the hidden needs that always an organization implicitly have?

At the beginning of this year I was already doing some considerations about Packaged Applications (PAs) - such as Siebel or SAP, and the relation to off-shore development. From my point of view, the raise of this kind of "development" witnesses the defeat of the PAs concept: a ready-to-be-used application that can be easily customized and that enables the internally retention of the business processes knowledge. This is the concept that have made Siebel's fortune at the end of the 90's, for example.
Then everybody has understood that all those gold promises, apart from being good marketing, had not so solid basis... Ok, it's straightforward that every organization wants to implement its own strategy, its own processes, and cannot accept to rely on the 80% of the off-the-shelf functionalities; otherwise how one company could be better than another??
But the answer cannot be now applying the old pattern of the custom development! We are returning to the old, pure, development model!
The fact that PAs have disappointed its customers, does not mean that the original idea was bad or wrong! It simply demonstrates that customization, even if not development (as Siebel initially stated), cannot abstract from a good Business Analysis, a Design Methodology or IT Engineering, otherwise who customizes the application cannot be totally aware of the original requirements!
So what has happened? That we are returning to the origins, and now a PA is treated just like a custom Java application! And that's even worse..

Personally I will continue investing in applied research, in an approach to modeling, designing and customizing, that enables my clients to walk by their own in their CRM journey, with the certainty that they base their application management on a solid methodology and that, when change happens, they can always refer to me or my methodology aware colleagues.
This has been the aim of my Ph.D. thesis and this will be my effort in the consultancy offer, together with the new approach and possibilites offered by tools like TIBCO Business Studio or the Oracle BPA suite.
Our aim must be correcting the errors and lacks of the first and second PAs generation, not overstaying on a wrong but trendy and third-parties remunerative model.

"A far step beyond"

With these words Keith Andrews (www.rhmc.ca), the father of the Siebel ePlan methodology, has commented the work represented by my Ph.D. thesis "UML in CRM, a new pragmatic rule". On last 19th April I have in fact discussed my work for the final presentation that concludes these 3 years of parallel research activity and continued professional consultancy.
Keith, on my right in the picture, has come to Italy from Canada to attend my presentation and to discuss about methodologies in Packaged Applications and, more generally, in the Enterprise Architectures scenario. Actually I have also flought to Italy but from Copenhagen, where I am currently covering the role of Release Manager for a European wide Siebel CRM implementation.
As a former Director of Methodology and Quality Assurance for major software firms such as Scopus Technology, Siebel Systems and Oracle Corporation, Mr. Keith Andrews has ten years experience in the implementation of Customer Relationship Management systems, with a client list that spans the globe.
Keith is a very elegant and nice person and he's far from the "lights", but I would like to underline how he was the first actor introducing a methodology in the COTS implementation context. Siebel ePlan has represented in fact the first real professional attempt to put order in the chaos and anarchy of Siebel CRM implementations, just missing the final step: a proper support by proper Tools.
A warm greeting to my tutor, Prof. Alessandro Fantechi (www.dsi.unifi.it/~fantechi), on the left end side of the picture, who has supported me in these three years.