Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Solving the systems integration problem

Solving the systems integration problem is more than putting the tools and plans in place as suggested in this blog

Smarter Integration in Seven Steps

I don't think that the people that are in the position of doing something, do not want to improve integration; but all that planning, aligning and consulting can go just so far.

In my own experience the main failure is with training. But training all the people to follow the standard and use the tools appropriately is expensive and takes time, which is the same as saying that it requires "senior commitment".

Just throwing in the tools because the vendor or consultant can make the pitch, may work for one project; but that's not what integration is all about. Every current staff member must be trained, every new recruit must be trained, not just the people that work on the initial "integration" project.