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Custom Development Pitfalls
Justifications
Many large organizations believe that they have the
in-house expertise and budget to tackle any mission critical software
development project. Confidence is built through efficient maintenance and
elaboration of large systems and/or successful departmental database
development. Past success breeds a general preference for internal design
and development of additional system solutions.
Justifications to pursue original design and
development fall into three categories:
- Integration Opportunities
- Unique Workflows
- Budget Limitations
Integration Opportunities include existing
Enterprise Resource Management, Human Resource and Customer Relationship
Management systems. They also include custom developed systems that are
judged to be successful and therefore irreplaceable by their present user
community. Vendor solutions are deemed to be too limited for external
interfaces to be practical.
Unique Workflows that reflect multiple
locations, interrelated divisions or special intellectual property
characteristics are another decision factor. Vendor solutions risk executive
refusal to adapt to new reporting formats and user resistance to changes in
data entry processes.
Budget Limitations instigate pragmatic efforts
to discover an incremental approach to system implementation. Staged
self-development offers interim opportunities to expand management support
for the ultimate system vision. Vendor solutions involve larger initial
investments and corresponding challenges in building a compelling business
case.
Trade-Offs
Custom development offers the lure
of absolute freedom for a corporation to pursue its system destiny.
Custom development also offers the possibility of absolute failure to
provide meaningful benefits to its target audience.
Vendor solutions offer the security of comparable
installations and success stories. Vendor solutions include the challenges
of a structured business relationship.
Risk Versus Reward
An overlooked aspect of custom system development
(beyond the personal database level) is that it also involves a vendor
relationship: a work-for-hire development team that brings a toolkit and a
reputation to the task at hand. While the purported vision of the
relationship is “here today, gone tomorrow,” the reality for projects that
are intended to provide external systems integration, internal data
processing or significant multi-user interaction is a
long term support contract for the developer (either formal or
informal).
Custom developer revenues are split approximately 80%
new development, 20% support and maintenance. Senior technical staff members
focus on high profile new systems programming. Junior staff must then keep
these (now operational) creations functioning over time.
Staff turnover and reassignment
inevitably degrade a developer’s ability to provide support.
In direct contrast, software vendors establish and
maintain technical support capabilities in order to justify and earn long
term support agreement revenues. They offer specific services: help desk,
technical support, software warranty and system updates. Mature vendors
typical earn about 75% of their income from ongoing support services
and 25% from new software licenses and paid enhancement projects.
Vendors have a powerful vested
interest in maintaining permanent customer satisfaction.
Danger Signs
Simple criteria can be used to determine whether the
performance and support risk inherent in custom development justifies the
potential benefits. These include:
- Design Phase > 30 Days
- Development Phase > 90 Days
- Multiple Departments
- Accounting Transactions
- Technical Innovation
- Marginal Expertise
Design Phase
Written specifications requiring more than a month to
produce or involving too many sources of guidance tend to become “prototype”
designs. Extensive rework during the development cycle extends the overall
project schedule and expands its budget as users and managers
realize that what they asked for is not what
they want.
Development Phase
Once the development cycle is envisioned as requiring
several months to produce a useful result, the 90/90 Rule starts to apply
(the project is 90% done and requires 90% more effort to complete).
Refinement and debugging typically engage roughly
double the developer resources required to “complete” initial delivery.
Multiple Departments
Integration of multiple departments involves
rationalization of workflow processes that have been “papered over” by human
intelligence for many years. Existing reports and
forms offer the illusion of a clear path toward automation of these business
processes. Rationalization of differing procedures and
information requirements demands a new design free of legacy encumbrances.
Accounting Transactions
Processing financial transactions, controlled database
updates and batch data exports demand a system that represents a
100% solution in its database design and a perfect
fit for the distinct data models within ERP general ledgers,
rights management engines and royalty import functions.
Technical Innovation
One of the lures of custom solutions is the
opportunity to become involved in state-of-the-art technologies and their
promised benefits. Custom developers, in their drive to be involved with the
“next big thing” may not be motivated to
conservatively evaluate the maturity, applicability and mutual compatibility
of leading edge software and hardware products.
Marginal Expertise
Large in-house development projects often require
additional resources in the form of independent contractors or system
integration corporations. Risk assessment for these
projects must focus on experience in the actual development of Contract
Rights Management systems for similar organizations.
Contract Rights Management
IT managers betray their own best interests by
under-appreciating the challenges inherent in the integration of contracts,
rights and accounts. Each of these departments considers their role to be
critical to the success of the organization. They
are unwilling to compromise on basic requirements for accuracy,
comprehensiveness and clarity within their respective areas.
Contracts demands version control, document assembly, event management
and concise abstracts. Rights must prevent conflicting rights grants,
oversold rights and grossly missed opportunities. Accounting requires
audit trails, balance with contracts, justifiable adjustments and time
sensitivity.
Satisfying these three constituencies with an
integrated solution is more of a challenge than most IT managers are willing
to accept. The situation further deteriorates when it is realized that
Executive reporting involves complex views that
combine raw contract data with financial history, current accounting
activity and asset-specific sales and cash flow projections.
Development of an architecture that satisfies all four
parties within Contract Rights Management requires a level of insight,
experience and preparation that takes time to develop. In 1998, Jaguar set
out to create System 7 from a clean sheet of paper. 18 months of discussion
were required to reengineer the Version 5.5 system that was already
supporting thousands of users performing precisely the same tasks. These
discussions were not technical. The top priority was to
conceive a more flexible reconciliation of the
needs of the four core sponsoring groups within each company. An
elegant plan was negotiated among Jaguar’s technical staff, Design Council
clients and senior designers in hundreds of person-days of discussion.
The alternative to this methodical approach to system
development is to attempt to satisfy a series of departments, one at a time.
A “commitment” is made to consider the ultimate goal of the system in every
design decision. However, as initial time frames and budgets are exhausted,
“compromises” are introduced (hard coded reference lists) in an attempt to
reduce project scope. These short-sighted decisions accumulate over time.
Their net effect is to postpone the day of
reckoning until user frustration, constant programming adjustments and unmet
project goals bury the development effort under its own weight.
External Systems Integration
Standard Export Functions
System 7 offers a variety of mechanisms for sending
information to other databases, software applications and portals. First and
foremost among these is the Crystal Reports functionality provided
within every System 7 report. All System 7 reports, regardless of formatting
complexity or flexibility are created using Crystal Reports. This
standardized report-writer creates many opportunities detailed within
System 7 Fundamentals. One of the strengths of Crystal Reports is its
outstanding ability to define and elegantly deliver an exceptionally wide
variety of data export formats. These include:
- Adobe Acrobat PDF
- HTML, DHTML, XML
- Rich Text Format
- Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint
- Various Plain Text Formats
- Various Email Formats
100% of the data within
System 7 (with proper security) is available for export via either a
standard Crystal Report, a variation on an existing report or a custom
export-specific report. This export functionality is available at
the time of printing with the press of a single “export” button on the
Crystal Reports toolbar.
Financial transactions may be
exported to any ERP system via System 7’s standard General Ledger Export
function. SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, JD Edwards, Lawson, Great
Plains, QuickBooks and many other custom and vendor-provided solutions
include complementary Voucher Import capabilities.
Workflow Management uses both Crystal Reports export
capabilities and System 7’s SMTP server email generation facility to
get the message out about pending events and approvals. This capability
supports both automated email notifications and system generated document
transmission (invoices, acknowledgements, payment requests).
Workflow Management also supports the ability to
attach any incoming file (document, image or video) to an event or contract
for future reference.
Validated Imports
Licensee Royalty Reports may be rich in both valuable
performance data and confusing complexity. System 7 provides a full function
Royalty Import capability that sets reporting standards by
contract (format and detail level), maintains a translation dictionary and
notifies data entry operators of any situation that falls outside of those
parameters.
Action Management and Workflow
Management within System 7 produce event records that represent Contact
History, Key Contractual Events, Approval Plans and Payment Commitments.
Each of these events is a potential repository for
a scanned executed contract, content synopsis, thumbnail graphic or payment
authorization document. System 7 makes use of native Windows
functionality to allow double-clicking of a document icon to automatically
identify and run the application software best suited to viewing the image.
Email Generation
System 7 offers powerful manual, semi-automatic and
fully automatic email generation capabilities to facilitate both internal
and external communications. A People/Entity address book contains an
email address for each entry (contact, business or independent). This
directory is further enhanced by Department listings that group staff
addresses into an automated distribution list.
Manual email generation is made available
whenever a System 7 operator has active focus on a People/Entity record. An
email button on the always-visible main tool bar is pressed which then
activates standard corporate email functionality (Outlook, Lotus Notes,
Groupwise, etc.) with address information already filled in. In other words,
System 7 has the ability to act as a streamlined
alternative email address book.
Semi-Manual email generation occurs through
Workflow Management as approval steps are viewed, accepted and rejected.
Workflow events are preset to generate email to interested parties upon the
occurrence of one, all or none of these actions. This generation process may
be deactivated at the time of review or allowed to proceed according to the
original plan for that Workflow event.
Automatic email generation is a function of
system-activated Action Management events that have been designated as
triggers for notifications to specific individuals, departments or customer
contacts. These notices may be used as Tickler
Reminders, Past Due Notices, Action Requests, Approval Notifications,
Payment Authorizations, Pending Expirations and Delivery Acknowledgements.
The possibilities are literally endless.
About
Jaguar News
Jaguar News is published periodically for the
purpose of maintaining communications with Jaguar’s clients, prospective
clients and other parties interested in the field of
Intellectual Property
Contract Rights Management. Jaguar Consulting was founded in 1985
for the express purpose of designing, developing, installing and
supporting Intellectual Property Software
Solutions.
Clients include Alliance-Atlantis Communications,
Cinar, DIC Entertainment, Explore International, Flextech Television,
Goodtimes Video, Hallmark Entertainment, Harmony Gold, HIT Entertainment,
Jim Henson Productions, Lions Gate Entertainment, Major League Baseball,
MGM, NBA, NBC, National Geographic Society, Nelvana, Sesame Workshop,
Southern Star, Warner Home Video and WNBA.
System 7 Universal Rights Management is
Jaguar’s seventh generation software product. It is an all-new design
created specifically to bring contract rights management technology to all
forms of intellectual property, including patents,
copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and
permissions. This groundbreaking system features a
Universal Contract Database, Multi-Level Rights Inheritance, a
fully-configurable Custom Rights Framework, and Integrated Rights
and Royalties Management. System 7 is available in
the following software modules: Intranet Portal, Contract Administration,
Rights and Restrictions, Workflow Management, Revenue Accounting, Royalties
Receivable
and Participations Payable.
Further information including
a white paper, System 7 Fundamentals, and a
test drive of System 7 Intranet is available at
http://www.jaguartc.com/system7.
Jaguar Consulting Inc.
Pasadena,
California
Lincoln Center, New York
London, United Kingdom
For additional information: Visit http://www.jaguartc.com
Or contact Jaguar at 626/796-1955 or
info@jaguartc.com
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