Beyond a TM1 Project

Building a sustainable solution and competency

for your organisation

Ambrus Vancso

Introduction

AMBRUS VANCSO

TM1 close to 10 years

linkedin.com/in/ambrusvancso

The ideal system – It just works

The ideal system?

Where do you want to go?

Are you buying a solution only

or building a competency?

Where do you want to go?

There can be lots of reasons to do a TM1 project.

Is it essential for your business?

• Do you plan to internalize it?

• Then you need to own it from a business point of view and you need business sponsorship

Do you envision a tailored agile system?• Do you need flexibility, now?

• Should it be cost efficient?

• Then you need to skill up on the technical side

Where are you headingComplex vs simple business logic and scope

There are many ways to do headcount planning, a simple example:

Where are you headingTechnical decisions made

User interface

– Cube views

– Simple excel reports

– Dynamic excel reports

– TM1Web

– Cognos

– Custom web applications

Architecture

– Black box calculations (e.g. In TI) – challenges in reconcililiation

– Growing over the limits of the technology too much (e.g. in UI)

Gro

win

g C

om

ple

xity Data connection

– Text files

– Relational data source

– Staging database (relational)

– OLAP source (/target)

– Direct connectivity to ERP (e.g.

SAP)

Where are you?

Rethinking the project

Project methodologiesAchieving the Ideal Outcome – as per Bedrock White Paper on Managing TM1 Projects

How “Agile Ready” is your TM1 project team?

Write down

requirements

Build

ApplicationBusiness User Involvement

High

Speed of Decision Making

Low

Agile

Waterfall

“Iterative”

Prototyping

“Efficient”

Waterfall

Can achieve close to ideal

outcome discovered during

the project

Effectively

Can achieve only outcome

agreed early on in project Can achieve outcome agreed

early on in project

Efficiently

Can achieve ideal outcome

discovered during the project

Efficiently & Effectively

The cycle

Build Run Extend

Rethinking the cycle

Build & Learn

Run & Implement

Iterate & Extend

Build & Learn

To have true business ownership over a solution, one has to:

Instead of single handover a continuous learning process

Know the data model

Know the tool

Know the data

Know the business

Data model, structures and flow

Familiarity with the tool - up to

power user and report builder level

at least

Possibility to learn further model

building skills, like rules

Dynamic reports

Project phases

Classical waterfall, emphasis not

on learning but on delivering

pre-agreed scope

An agile / mentoring project

focused more on ‘the road’,

knowledge transfer and iteration

Implementation in the organisation as part of a project or similar change.

Live Testing as true UAT

Applications are not tested to the full unless used

Ensures inhouse knowledge and training material is sufficient

Time is allowed for review and follow up

Reserves for potential reengineering

Building reports (involving the broadest user base possible)

Managing business change

Communication to shareholders and stakeholders

Educating users

Finding key users

Instead of handover maintenance toolset

Live Testing as true UAT

Run & Implement

Maintenance toolset instead of handover

Building reports (involving the broadest user base possible)

Managing business change

Rethinking the cycle

Build & Learn

Run & Implement

Iterate & Extend

The Human Capital

The Human CapitalSkills and team

Skillsets needed to deliver:

Project Management

Change Management

Any new or amended solution will require business transformation

You’ll need a change manager – should be a TM1 Champion

IT infrastructure skills

In Core Team:

Business skills

Technical skills

The Human CapitalRecruitment and Retention

Finding the right people

Project team > same team to run the solution?

Business vs Technical skills

Recruiting new people can be challenging and take long

Skilling up in-house staff with IT skills to a technical delivery level

- half a year the very least *

Skilling up in-house staff to understand the data flow and the tool well

- at least 3 months *

That’s for smaller systems and easily up to half a year or more for larger systems *

Retaining people

Who will be the backup person (aka taking a holiday)

Key factors to maintain motivation

Rotation / speed of

How can a solution die

* Take this with a grain of salt – lots of variables

Finding the right people

Retaining people

Living with a solution

Maintenance practices

Knowledge management

Dealing with change

Living with a solution

.

Knowledge Management – it is a practiceDocumentation

Documentation

Various audiences

Different levels of detail

Ultimately a tool in the hands

of the (business) champion to

Document the data

model and flow

Coach key users

Support users

Train users

Training environment has to

be available

IT knowledge can be sourced

externally

Detailed Technical -automated

Training material for

power / users

System Maintenance (actionable)

High Level -

Data flow

Maintenance practicesAutomate

Automate as much as possible. Lots of tools and best practices available now.

Reconciliation

Huge benefits to reap in terms of system stability and staholders trust

Various approaches like reconciliation cube, excel dashboard, etc.

Monitoring data flows

Monitor chores and process

Various tools available, including TM1 only

Alerts

For missing mappings, data quality, outage, etc.

Email from TM1 directly

Usage monitoring

Key users, license compliance, etc.

Detailed Technical Documentation

Manual maintenance not practical, automating and discovery possible now

Tools to assist / do migration

Maintenance practicesAutomate – Reconciliation tool

Maintenance practicesAutomate – Monitoring data flows

Maintenance practicesActionable guide – the admin cockpit

Catalog all the tasks, like Loading actuals

Changing master data (from source system or

manually for planning)

Opening or closing plan cycles

Create an actionable admin cockpit to Serve as a step by step guide

Add enough detail / narrative to each step

Interact with the system directly (run processes,

change parameters, etc.)

This opens up the possiblity to delegate: Temporarily (backup)

Permanently (hand responsibility over to

business area)

Dealing with change

Change

Business changes

Issues

IT changes

Enhan-cements

It comes in many forms

Keep track of them Tickets and Change Requests

Manage them Set the pace. Manage

expectations.

As important as scope

management in a project

Readiness Environments available (Prd,QA,Dev)

Backup. Monitor changes.

Consider a ProdCopy environment

Testing changes

Training

Rapid Prototyping

Resolution paths defined Both for support and development

Maintenance practices

Knowledge management

Dealing with change

Living with a solution

.

Key Success FactorsBuilding a sustainable solution and competency for your organisation

Business Sponsorship

Team

Retaining Competency

Maintenance Practices

Change Management

Thank You