As things start to pick up speed here after the holidays, it would be nice to talk with people out there in Academia who have undertaken similar efforts at their own institutions. This wouldn't have to be anything terribly formal, but it might involve an hour-long phone call with some of the members of our project team, or, depending on your proximity to upstate New York, we might even be able to arrange a trip out to your school for a face-to-face meeting.
Basically, we'd be looking for any of the roadblocks you overcame in your Identity Management project, understand the choices you made in your implementation, and any words of wisdom you might have for our team as we begin to delve deeper and deeper into our project.
If you and your project team would be interested in talking to us, you can contact me via the LinkedIn button on the right hand menu. I look forward to hearing from you!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Put one foot in front of the other
So as I was watching "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with my son the other night, I realized how many different things the song "Put One Foot in Front of The Other" could apply to, including Identity Management projects!
Many times, people involved with large-scale IdM rollouts become overwhelmed with where to even begin. But taking things one step at a time not only makes the work more manageable, it also gives you some tangible benefits along the way. The first thing to do is understand what you've already got -- meaning, map out current processes, understand the various systems involved, and figure out who the key players are in each process.
Once all of your processes have been identified and documented, start with one or two of them. With your new understanding of these processes, it will be easier to decide on a vendor or product that will suit your needs. And if the product has already been decided/implemented, you can begin work on incorporating those business processes into the software.
If those first two steps seem too difficult, break them down into smaller steps. At a university, maybe instead of tackling all the various user populations, start with only students. Or even only undergraduates. Whatever seems manageable in your environment. The key is to tackle tasks in a way that allows you to complete them in a reasonable amount of time and effort -- this provides not only concrete results, but gives team members a sense of accomplishment along the way. A 2 year project without any sort of tangible results will certainly cause some burnout on your project team. So...
You never will get where you're goin', if you never get up on your feet! Come on! There's a good tail wind blowin' A fast walkin' man is hard to beat!
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you'll be walkin' 'cross the flo-o-or
Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you'll be walkin' out the door.
Many times, people involved with large-scale IdM rollouts become overwhelmed with where to even begin. But taking things one step at a time not only makes the work more manageable, it also gives you some tangible benefits along the way. The first thing to do is understand what you've already got -- meaning, map out current processes, understand the various systems involved, and figure out who the key players are in each process.
Once all of your processes have been identified and documented, start with one or two of them. With your new understanding of these processes, it will be easier to decide on a vendor or product that will suit your needs. And if the product has already been decided/implemented, you can begin work on incorporating those business processes into the software.
If those first two steps seem too difficult, break them down into smaller steps. At a university, maybe instead of tackling all the various user populations, start with only students. Or even only undergraduates. Whatever seems manageable in your environment. The key is to tackle tasks in a way that allows you to complete them in a reasonable amount of time and effort -- this provides not only concrete results, but gives team members a sense of accomplishment along the way. A 2 year project without any sort of tangible results will certainly cause some burnout on your project team. So...
You never will get where you're goin', if you never get up on your feet! Come on! There's a good tail wind blowin' A fast walkin' man is hard to beat!
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