Dave McNamee: Product Management

Advance the Front

Tue, 05 Aug 2003 14:02:20 GMT

ITS is making serious progress on multiple fronts. Fortunately I have the opportunity to be involved in many of them.

I am very excited about UMD and the new web authentication system. UMD is being used in production mode for the Groupwise Instant Messenger system. Synchronization is taking place between the individual e.Directory resource trees (basically the trees that are used to grant LAN access) and UMD and HRE, the HR database. For example, when I changed my password on Groupwise IM it also changed my LAN password. This may sound simple, but it will provide a lot of value to the state as multiple applications and IT platforms use UMD for authentication. Just the costs of password administration alone would make a strong business case for doing UMD, not to mention the provisioning and de-provisioning capabilities and increased security that it offers. I am convinced that many great things lie ahead for UMD.

Aside from individual projects and products, I am encouraged by the fact that project and product management are gaining momentum. This is a new way of doing business for ITS. Although we've had our struggles, the amount of collaboration and hard work that is taking place is a credit to the people of ITS. I believe it is ultimately the citizens of Utah that benefit from these improvements.

Organized RSS

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 13:04:59 GMT

RSS is a powerful content aggregation tool. It is useful in more applications than just blogging. At ITS, we have developed an RSS tool that will make it available to state agencies for creating things like press releases, articles on www.utah.gov and on business.utah.gov, the new doing business in Utah portal and soon to be the home of One-Stop Business Registration. This RSS tool is called news.utah.gov.

News.utah.gov is not intended to be a blogging tool for personal weblogs, however it works in much the same way as a personal weblog. It is based on the Movable Type blogging platform, but again, it is not intended to be a blogging tool. The types of news feeds that are out there now are things like "Utah Business News," which is being consumed right now on busines.utah.gov. Control over the feeds that are created will be very strict.

News.utah.gov is also an example of a project that used existing code bases to develop an effective application that can run in an inexpensive environment. The environment this is running in is a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) environment. ITS should be adding LAMP to its hosting product portfolio this year. I am the hosting product manager, so I will be working towards that end.

New Web Presence

Wed, 26 Feb 2003 21:42:59 GMT

ITS Product Managers, Project Managers, and Customer Relationship Managers have a new presence on the web. We will be useing this space as a place to put documents and other information on our products. My page can be found here.

How will this relate to my work weblog, you ask? Well, I will continue blogging, but if I want to link to specific information on a product, I will link to pages based in this new web presence. If you go there how, you will be dissappointed, because I have't put anything out there yet, but don't worry, I will have stuff there soon.

Fission Fiesta

Fri, 14 Feb 2003 20:19:16 GMT

I had interactions today with several of our customers. I am trying to get a feel for what the business managers throughout the State are thinking and what their needs are. I think the strategic planning process that we are going through right now will provide a lot of fuel for the discussion surrounding the appropriateness of ITS' product set. What I mean is that when we complete these strategic plans and present them to the entire CIO/DCIO/ACIO structure, as well as to business managers, we will get the feedback that we need to make decisions that are in the best interest of our customers.

It all will fit together because the product requirements documents that I and my peers are writing will support and jive with the strategic planning documents for each major product family, and the strategic planning documents fit in with ITS' overall roadmap and strategy. There is so much work to do, but I really am feeling encouraged by the work that is being done now. I see the possibility of creating as fulling puts it, "critical mass" around product management. We have more radioactive material, and a lot of the cadmium control rods that were in place absorbing neutrons are being raised. We just have to make sure that the reaction is controlled, and that we don't try to power the whole world with our reactor.

From 5th to 3rd

Wed, 29 Jan 2003 19:54:09 GMT

In my previous post I wrote about the need for PRDs and strategy. The time has come for me to focus more heavily on producing those documents that are needed for my product. Until now, I have been heavily involved in project management, and in operational affairs. I am going to have to back away from those activities and focus more heavily on writing.

This transition from heavy involvement to necessary involvement can only occur under the following circumstances:

There are sufficient project plans and project management resources in place to cover project management needs. This is difficult because we have even fewer project managers than we have product managers. Project management is an intense responsibility that requires focus and dogged-ness.
Operations and CRMs need to take the lead in customer communications. I shouldn't be worrying about operational communications. Of course, the job of the product manager is to be a customer advocate, but I should not be coordinating testing schedules.
Any project that is not UMD, Content Management, or Authentication is going to have to go on the back burner.

It is dificult to pull away from activities that accomplished something, like the AT environment project, but I gotta do it. It's like travelling up a hill at 65 MPH and shifting from 5th down to 3rd. The thing is going to make some noise, and it may slow down some, but it has to be done.

PRDs and Strategy

Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:12:11 GMT

One of the largest parts of a product manager's life is writing Product Requirements Documents (PRDs). This document describes the features and functionality and other characteristics for a particular version of a product. Every product should have a PRD, and each new version of that product should be described in new versions of the PRD.

The content of the PRD is largely determined by the strategy of the organization for that particular product family. For example, my PRD for authentication will largely be influenced by a strategic document that Bob Woolley is writing in conjunction with a cross-fucntional team. If he says it needs to slice and dice, then my PRD will describe exactly what kind of slicing and dicing it does. Engineering then figures out how it slices and dices and how it will be built. As PRDs align with the overall strategy, ITS will get closer to accomplishing its objectives.

Actuate Progress.

Tue, 21 Jan 2003 15:53:14 GMT

We are in the process of creating a strong actuate environment in preparation to migrate to Actuate 6. Part of this process includes beefing up the security on our production and acceptance testing servers. This process will be the focus of the acceptance test environment war room process.

We are working to make sure that all agencies needs will be met. We met with a lot of our customers last week and discussed Actuate. Some have specific report monitoring requirements that we are working to meet under the new security schema. The solution we are working on will be mostly automatic, so on-call folks can sleep during the weekend.

Also, it is important to keep in mind that we are working to migrate to Actuate 6. The issues listed above are all focused on getting ready to migrate to 6.

Frenetic Kinetic Anesthetic

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 20:52:22 GMT

It sure feels good to be a more permanently attached appendage to this organism which we call ITS. This past week, while being nothing short of hectic and frenetic, has been more enjoyable than the few weeks that I hid in a corner at STG and worked on JSPs. I guess I am attracted to the potential for accomplishing great things. That potential definitely exists at ITS. Pressure also exists, along with the sense that we must deliver.

I have spent this week picking up pretty much where I left off on most things. My product families were shifted slightly, but nothing significant was removed from my plate. Instead, another major project/product was added to the mix. I am now the guy for UMD. That right there should be a full-time job. I still have web authentication, Actuate, acceptance test environment, and the immenently important and urgent content managment to name a few. By direction of management I am focusing on three products in particular which are prioritized below:

Content Management
UMD
Web Authentication

I am going to try to defer any project management work to project managers. I have a really hard time doing that, but it is the only way I will ever get to concentrate on being a product manager. I am going to be focusing on writing product plans/definitions more, and backing out of the minutia.

One thing is certain (relatively speaking): I will be busy for a long time, and if I get everything done that I want to get done, I will enjoy a high level of success. The beautiful thing is that the barriers to getting things done are becoming fewer, and momentum on multiple fronts is gaining.

New Product Family Assignments

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 20:23:46 GMT

I am excited about the other new product managers that we have. Matt Freestone starts the beginning of February, and it seems like he will hit the ground running. We also have Linda Scheile (I think that's how it's spelled) as an internal transfer, and she will also be a great help. It will be nice to have more arms and legs to work on things.

Today we discussed product family assignements, and my responsibilities remained largely unchanged. There were a couple of changes, tho. I was previously assigned Wireless Services, but no longer. Now I have Application Development, both web and non web, Web Applications, which I call Web Stuff, and a new product family, called Directory Services. My links to the left reflect these new assignments. There is no doubt that I will be very busy.

Acceptance Test and Authentication

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 18:37:27 GMT

Acceptance Test

Good stuff is happening right now with the Acceptance Test (AT) project. We should be testing the AT web authentication system today. After it tests successfully we will begin pointing our other AT resources to it, and a major hurdle for the AT environment will be cleared. We have had a lot of success with our "war room" meetings each morning, with regular participation from all of the right people. That really has been the key to achieving the amount of traction that the project currently has.

Authentication

We are making progress on this front as well. Engineering will have access to solaris machines that they can use for development either today or tomorrow. We are still gathering requirements and validating the deficiencies of the previous release. It is moving forward, tho.

Crossroads

Thu, 05 Dec 2002 14:09:00 GMT

I am saddened by the events of yesterday. I think Phil made the right decision, it's just too bad that it played out that way. The state lost a great resource for implementing the Governor's vision for IT. Although the organizational environment presented Phil with an insurmountable challenge and he really had no choice, I believe the treatment he received was neither just nor benefited the state in any way. Oh well. You don't really worry about a person like Phil. I just worry about the state IT community.

I am drawing nearer to a crossroads in my career, as well. As most of you know, I have been working for ITS in the capacity of a consultant. ITS and DAS wish to discontinue that relationship, and they have given me the opportunity to apply for the job that I am currently doing. They are no longer accepting applications, and I am told that interviews will begin next week. I have a lot of time and emotion invested in this place, and, if you have read this blog before you know that I have several projects that I would like to complete. I would like to stay here. I am confident that discord or disruption to the organization would actually be accentuated by my departure. There are a lot of efforts that I am keeping alive that would drop off the face of the earth if I left. But, of course, it is up to Division and Department management to decide what is in the best interest of the organization, so I won't worry about things too much. My work product stands on its own.

Speaking of my work product, yesterday I met with the Payment Portal enterprise team to go over the vision/scoping document that I had written. They had some very good suggestions, which I incorporated into the document. We will be meeting again today to try and finish it before tomorrow so it can be included in the packet that will be sent out to the cabinet for next week's meeting.

Also scheduled for today is a load test on Actuate 6 clustering. This is basically the last test of Actuate 6. It has been performing well to this point. I hope to have a migration plan for our customers soon.

I'm on a Roll!

Wed, 04 Dec 2002 13:22:31 GMT

The sticky note worked (see yesterday for an explanation). Yesterday was a very productive day. We made definite progress on several products. Most notable are the acceptance test and actuate.

We now have the machines we need to set up the authentication acceptance test environment. They have power, network connections, IP addresses and DNS. Now all we have to do is get the services set up and point all of our acceptance test environments that consume authentication services to it. Once that is complete, a major portion of the acceptance test environment will be complete. One thing that is still lacking and could bite us is the fact that we do not have adequate change management procedures in place to ensure that AT and production will stay in synch.

I attended a meeting yesterday about actuate acceptance test procedures. We have some great people in tiers 3 and 4. They obviously had put some thought into what we need to have in place and what we need to communicate to our customers. I was impressed. We will have a draft of our acceptance test procedures this week, and I will be heading up the effort to communicate it to our customers.

Today I am going to skip some meetings so I can write some more. I succeeded in getting a very rough draft of the vision/scope document for the payment portal yesterday. I hope I will be able to make that kind of progress on other fronts today.

Happy Tuesday

Tue, 03 Dec 2002 14:09:16 GMT

Blogging seems to have become a regular part of my Tuesday activities. I don't want my blog to completely lose all value to my limited readership, so I will attempt to make these updates more frequently. I have just been so busy, I haven't remembered to do it. Well, I think I have devised a solution to that problem: I have stuck a sticky note with the word BLOG on it on my monitor. There's no escaping now (at least not without a twinge of guilt).

The thanksgiving holiday was nice, but now it's time to get back to business. Here is some information on my products:

Acceptance Test Environment. We have developed our war room into something useful. We have plastered the wall with the different systems that we have in production, and we are identifying resources for acceptance test. Our first priority has been authentication and NDS. We have servers for that environment, and we are in the process of configuring them. That will be a big win. One thing that is becoming more evident as we progress in this project is that we have a lot of holes in our change management procedure that need to be addressed before this acceptance test environment will be successful. We are working with engineering and operations to fill those holes.

Web Authentication. We have taken yet another step outside of our old paradigm and now we are actually gathering data on the actual deficiencies of our current authentication system. Now, I realize that a perceived deficiency is just as damning as a real deficiency, but it is possble to manage perceived deficiencies without modifying the product.

Actuate. Still working on migration plans for 6. We haven't had any outages for a month, and we are working with DOH to determine their actual business requirements rather than jump to conclusions. It turns out that their insistance on quantifying a deadline for system restoration is mostly rooted in the desire for their problems to be escalated to the right people quicker. Well, we can't really commit to a time in an evironment that is not HA. Once we migrate to 6 and we have failover we should be able to make more of a commitment. I believe our relationship with DOH has improved as a result of our action on Actuate. Also, I will be meeting with an Actuate sales guy on Thursday.

Content Management. Working on that business case. I am gathering info from our customers and other vendors. I will be meeting with Dave Fletcher and Phil to discuss this product in the near future.

Employee Portal. I have not been able to allocate any time to this product since last week. Right now I am concentrating on Acceptance Test, Actuate, Authentication, Content Management, OSBR, and Payment Portal.

OSBR. I have been helping the steering team determine what we need in the way of support plans. I will be going with James and Pete to the various participating entities to determine their support needs and ascertain the components that they supply to the process that could potentially cause a service outage. James has expressed his gratitude for my involvement. I don't know who would be asking these questions if I wasn't involved.

Payment Portal. I am drafting our vision and scoping document for this project. I have assumed somewhat of a leadership role in getting documents created that describe what we want to build. We will be presenting to the cabinet this month.

whistle while you work

Tue, 26 Nov 2002 20:14:26 GMT

Nuts! I have been extremely busy over the past week. I have five or six top priority projects that I am involved in, and each one could be a full-time job. Let me give you a brief update:

Acceptance Test Environment. This is my top priority, and we are meeting as a team for daily war room sessions. The purpose of this project is to fill in the gaps in our acceptance testing infrastructure, and build procedures around using it. We have identified gaps in the various environments, and we are making progress.

Web Authentication. We believe we are getting very close to identifying the scope of this project. We have whittled it down from true single sign on accross disparate platforms to web authentication. Next week will see the business requirements defined, and action plans formed.

Actuate. We are in the process of developing a migration plan to actuate 6, and we have made significant inroads into making our current environment more stable and efficient. We are developing acceptance testing procedures that will help us identify reports that could cause trouble, and fixing them before they get to production.

Content Management. Development of the content management product got ahead of the product definition, so right now we are focusing on developing a business case and a product plan for content management services. This product should have better direction next week after some of those documents are completed.

Employee Portal. This one is in the same boat as content management, in that development got ahead of the product definition, and also ahead of cabinet approval. After I complete the product definition for content management, I will attack this one. It needs a plan that the cabinet will want to buy.

One Stop Business Registration. This is one project that I am grateful I am not driving. James Whitaker is doing a fantastic job. My involvement is more of a consulting role. I am helping with marketing plans and product/operations support plans.

Payment Portal. My involvement in this one is extensive. I am drafting a vision scope document for presentation to the cabinet in december.

More details to come

Official ITS Product Mangement Page

Fri, 01 Nov 2002 17:14:45 GMT

Product management now has representation on ITS's website. We will be adding content as we have time. We hope to make this a place where anyone can go to find out about our products and methods. Check it out:

http://its.utah.gov/services/administration/prodmgrs.htm

Authentication Update (Siteminder)

Thu, 31 Oct 2002 16:29:16 GMT

Many within ITS and elsewhere are asking me what is going on with the new authentication infrastructure. I realize that their queries highlight my failure to keep people informed, but this entry will be one of many efforts to fix that problem. So here's the deal straight up:

For the sake of reviewing the structure around product development (web authentication is an important product) let me write briefly about product management and project management. The product manager has ownership of the product, and is ultimately responsible for its success or failure. I am the product manager for web authentication. I am not, however, the project manager for web authentication. That is Sonny Olsen, a very capable fellow. The responsibilities of the project manager include managing the timeline of the project, ensuring that deliverables are completed on time, and coordinating resources. This is an oversimplified explanation of the structure, but I gather that these fundamentals are not widely understood. For a better understanding of the role of a product manager, please see Phil's whitepaper.

OK, with that out of the way, here is the deal with web authentication. A group of stakeholders from security, operations, engineering, product management (representing customer interest), and project management have begun the process of determining the vision and scope of web authentication. This is a very important process that we really haven't done for authentication in the past. The result of this effort will be a common understanding of the product and the project to create it, and will be the starting point for complete functional requirements gathering. I know to some of you this may seem like a silly exercise, but it is a best practice and our best bet for creating a product that meets functional requirements and is supported by TSM. Everyone involved with authentication from an operations and an engineering perspective will have a chance to shoot holes at it before it is finalized and agreed to. I will also work to confirm it with customers. This document will be available to everyone, including our customers, once completed.

The vision/scoping document is just the first step. Take a look at this diagram to understand the process better (I will be talking about this more in other entries). Broader participation will occur after the document is completed. We have to make sure we have a common understanding of the problem and the proposed solution before we can go solving problems and engineering the solution. I hope we will be able to complete the vision/scoping document over the next 2 weeks (Nov 15). It is way too soon to estimate when the new web authentication system will be completed, but it will definitely be after the new year. This project is number 2 on the organizational priority sheet behind the acceptance test environment, so it will get that level of attention.

If you have questions or concerns or think we are all screwed up, please feel free to let me know. I am serious about this. If you have questions about product management, project management, or whatever, please contact me.

Authentication/Authorization/ID Management

Wed, 09 Oct 2002 14:17:24 GMT

We have been going through a prioritization process over the past week. We listed all of the projects in which ITS is engaged, and scored them on factors like customer demand, management directive, and ROI. One project that has come out near the top is authentication.

By authentication I mean web authentication that includes single sign on capability for all participating applications. We have such a system now, utilizing a product called SiteMinder and the NDS tree. With the development of UMD and the continual instability of our current authentication system, the need for a new system is very apparent.

Authentication is becoming my top priority. I am beginning to pull together the resources we need to build a new authentication system that would also include provisions for centralized application authorization (what level of security within an application does a user have?) and ID management. I believe that one requirement for this system is the eventual support of single sign on for citizen-facing applications, as well as ID management. There are tremendous security implications of that, and that requirement may not be something that the enterprise should pursue, but we should at least be asking the question. I know there was some discussion about this topic at a meeting on the citizen directory earlier this week which I was not invited to. I will be digging up information, so if you are involved feel free to contact me.

Prioritization

Mon, 30 Sep 2002 20:23:20 GMT

Prioritization is something that we all do, consciously or not. Each of us in our little sphere, we take the information that is available to us, and make decisions to do stuff or to not do stuff. Sometimes the sanity of decisions can be questioned, but for the most part, people do a good job of setting priorities based on the information they have. So that brings up a few questions: how good is the information that we are setting our personal work priorities against? Does the decision that I just made reflect the priorities of the orgainization? And, most importantly, what are the organization's priorities so that I can align myself to them?

We are going through an exercise right now that hopefully will allow us to answer all of the above questions and make the world a better place for all ITS folks. There is nothing worse than not knowing what is most important.

She's Holdin' Together...

Thu, 05 Sep 2002 19:55:24 GMT

I feel like I have had some successes of late. Products that I have responsibility for are moving forward, and teams are coming together to create something great. Of course, I do feel like an episode of Star Trek where Scotty reports to the bridge, "Cap'n, she's holdin' together but I don't know how long she can maintain this speed!" I am told that we will have more product managers in the future, but in the meantime my workload continues to increase. Figuratively speaking, I am so busy keeping the warp drive online and the shields up that I am having difficulty paying attention to the development of new photon torpedoes. I do need to mention that I am having more fun at work than I have in a long time. Sure, the stress level and stakes are higher, but I am having a great time.

Here are some of the things that are going on right now with my products:

We are close to making a decision on branding for the employee portal. We will be polling employees to get their opinions on mydesk.utah.gov or mywork.utah.gov. If you want to tell me your opinion now, email me.

I am working on issues with actuate, our web reporting product. There are many questions that remain unanswered, and each question brings up several more as we attempt to answer them. Actuate is doing a lunch and learn next week that I am preparing for.

I advertised to ITS section managers that there were ework licenses available if they would like to develop processes.

I have been involved with the beginning meeting for the Payment Gateway. I wrote a vision statement and sent it on to Fletcher. I will also be getting more involved in the one stop business registration project.

And finally, the authentication project is reaching a crossroads. We are making progress in elimitating points of failure, and the design and support efforts will be diverging soon. I will be forming a cross-functional team to do the design work.

Enterprise Movement

Fri, 23 Aug 2002 17:04:41 GMT

I am excited about the new IT structure. I think the new CIO positions and the defined process for enterprise projects will help us make the deadline the governor has set. As a product manager for ITS I have direct involvement with 6 enterprise projects, 4 of which were on the governor's list of 10. They are:

Master Licensing System
Common Payment Portal
One-Stop Buisiness Registration
E-Procurement
Portal (not on list)
Content Management (not on list)

For some of these, I am the primary product manager, and for others, I will be involved as ITS's representative in the project committee. It makes sense for ITS to have product management representation in all enterprise projects because we often are the ones that have to deliver the product and keep it operational.

Wade Billing's Priorities

Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:40:12 GMT

I like what Wade says here. In fact, the product management staff has a spreadsheet that does what Wade describes. I am working on a personal method as well.

"How does one who works in a dynamic and fluid environment keep their priorities and tasks from constantly shifting? Well, I think I may have found the answer that will work for me ( and maybe others can use it as well ). I have created an online "threat board" that I keep track of all of the plates that I am currently spinning, and with a glance, I can look at it and tell what is hot, and what is not. I learned this trick from a coupled of very wise men in a previous life who taught me that if you have a aggregation point for all of the various projects and initiatives that you are working on, and you assign a color code (Green - Good, Yellow - Gap w/recovery plan, Red - Gap wo/recovery plan), then you can easily and quickly assess where your efforts and time are best spent. I am trying out this experiment on myself (as any good researcher would do) and then I will introduce my team to the concept. One by-product of the "threat board" is that the creation of weekly status reports becomes a no brainer as all of the information is already there and it just needs to be reformatted for executive consumption.

I previously wrote about my frustrations at not having an enterprise wide road map, well instead of complaining I am going to introduce the "threat board" concept to others within the org and watch it take flight. I will let you all know how it goes in future posts.."

[First Post]

CIO Structure

Mon, 05 Aug 2002 13:59:19 GMT

Last Friday Gov. Leavitt spoke to various IT managers from throughout the executive branch. He outlined a new CIO structure, and gave us some direction on which enterprise IT projects he is interested in pursuing. I thought it was a good move, and I am excited to be a part of this new IT vision. Here is the gist of it, at least what I understood:

Office of CIO Structure
Phil will have two deputy CIOs that report to him. One will be responsible for maintaining an enterprise focus on IT infrastructure (DCIO for IT) and the other will be responsible for egovernment and will head the product management council (DCIO for eGovernment). Each of the large agencies will also have an Assistant CIO, the small agencies will have CIO representation through the DCIO for IT

Enterprise Projects
Enterprise projects will be approved by the cabinet council through a three-stage process: Vision, Scope and Charter. Once a project is approved, an Enterprise Executive will be appointed to head the project and the Enterprise Project Steering Committee.

In addition to these items, the gov also announce the dispandment of UECC, and emphasized the need for good communication and innovation. He also listed 10 projects that he wants a report on at semptember's cabinet meeting, of which I am directly invovled in 3.

Product Families, Product Management and Blogging

Wed, 24 Jul 2002 18:45:06 GMT

I intend on using this blog as a communication tool to help distribute information about the products I manage. Members of cross-functional teams or people who have an interest in my particular products will be able to find out what is going on by clicking on the "My Products" link, or on the particular product family they are interested in. I see blogging as a great communications tool, and hopefully it will help streamline the process of developing and managing products. Here are the main product families that have been assigned to me, most of which I specifically requested. Please visit the category that you are involved in:

Web Stuff: I call it that because I am not sure "Infrastructure Toolkit" is the best name, but all of the items that fit under that category have been assigned to me.
Application Development: web and non-web application development services (emphasis on web).
Application Hosting: basically any app hosting that is not web app hosting. Web hosting belongs to Shane Clark.
Wireless Services: basically Norm Johnson's shop, along with some microwave infrastructure and services. Really on the back burner right now, due to other assigned priorities.

I will be forming cross-functional teams to work on all of these product families. For a primer on how product management works and the responsibilities of a product manager, please see Windley's white paper on the subject. My priorities are pretty much set by management for the time being, so if I have not had a chance to work on your particular product or product family yet, do not dispair, and feel free to contact me or post your own blog to talk about the issues facing your products.

Do we do eWork?

Mon, 22 Jul 2002 13:51:31 GMT

The question of eWork has been weighing heavy in my mind for several weeks now. I am convinced of the potential business benefit of the product. I believe that it could help the state do business in a more efficient manner. However, there are some issues with eWork that need to be addressed. If the following issues cannot be resolved, I would recommend that we concentrate on other things besides eWork:

In order for eWork to be successful, there would need to be a product management resource that could devote most of his or her time to selling the product to agencies and getting them to develop processes with it. We wouldn't even be able to come close to having a positive hard ROI until we have 150 or so processes in production.
ITS would need to create a robust eWork development product that not only was able to produce quality eWork processes rapidly, but also be more economical than private eWork consulting services. I believe that the agencies will choose not to develop very many eWork processes if they have to pay $200/hour to get it done. At a minimum, ITS would need 2 full time eWork developers.
eWork has to be an enterprise initiative, with the full support and backing of the CIO. The risk of failure is higher if it is simply another product that ITS is force feeding to the agencies.

If ITS cannot allocate the resources mentioned above, and if eWork does not come to agencies as more of an enterprise initiative rather than an ITS product, then I say we don't do it. There are plenty of other products that we could focus our attention on. It is still a risky proposition even if those resources are allocated. eWork is a BPM engine, and we would need to get agencies to take a fundamental look at their business processes, as we are currently doing with DHRM for a pilot project. This is not an intuitive or automatic activity for most agencies.

I have these concerns, and I haven't even talked about how we would pay for it, and then recover the cost. That adds a completely new dimension to my concerns, and it increases risk even further, especially in such a tight budget environment.

What is Enterprise Product Management?

Sat, 20 Jul 2002 19:11:21 GMT

The role of product management for multi-agency or enterprise projects that the state is undertaking is not defined adequately. For projects like employee portal, UMD, online business registration, content management, etc. the need for product management from an enterprise perspective is acute. I have some responsibility for some of those products (the implementation of NPS and Teamsite and others) but, as far as I know, only in the context of ITS.

I have some ideas for enterprise product management that I will develop in future blog entries.