For everyone who has followed the EPMGuidance.com blog this year I wish you the very best of the holiday season. I hope you and your families are happy and safe this season and I look forward to our discussions in 2017. Chris Vandersluis Author: EPMGuidance.com
All in one thinking is built into our industry Many years ago I wrote several articles about the differences in choosing an all in one Finance system vs best of breed functionality. My focus was mostly about project management, but the concept can carry across many systems. The notion of all-in-one corporate systems became popular in the 90s. Large integrated systems like SAP or Oracle Financials were able to point to multi-function systems which included…
My staff have heard me use the expression all too often. “Tail wags dog! Film at 11.” As though it were a breaking news headline on CNN. I use the expression though to talk about organizations that approach our company with an interest in deploying our enterprise timesheet system or an enterprise project management system but have somehow gotten the cart ahead of the horse (Yes, I know. It’s another expression). The conversation usually starts…
Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The expression can be traced back to a novel from the early 1800’s called Mrs. Dymond but the sentiment of the expression is understood by everyone. If you do something for someone else that’s a good thing but teaching them to do it for themselves is a much greater…
Many years ago I was forced to take an Economics Statistics course at McGill University in Montreal. It was a requirement for my Economics Major and one of the most miserably tough math classes I’d ever encountered. The class was taught by an older gentleman who was maybe 150 or maybe 160 years of age. He had tenure, he immediately informed us so there was no one we could complain to when he would fail…