The Problem with the "Have it Your Way" Approach

So what's more difficult, getting people to recognize that technology can be a huge ally in mitigating risk, reducing project costs, improving efficiency (and on and on...). Is it getting people to adopt technology once implemented? Or is it getting everyone to agree on a process that a technology solution will enhance. I guess it depends in whom you ask, but (I think) you get the message that with most enterprise software implementations there are many challenges to be had. These can be exacerbated by some of the systems that promise to do everything but provide you with a blank slate, so that with the promise of flexibility and configurability comes the added cost and brain damage with getting the system just right.

As you can imagine, I am a proponent of a flexible system - however, as much as people would like to believe that their challenges are unique, as a firm we keep running into extremely similar business challenges that we can address without having to reinvent the wheel.




Therein lie some of the drawbacks of a custom-built technology platform, or those solutions that require heavy customization to get the system to be all things to all people. On a recent trip to a construction technology conference, I heard a presentation where a large, multinational CM organization discussed a case study on their implementation of an in-house project management and collaboration system, and the challenges they encountered through a 5-year implementation. I must have missed something because I was under the impression that these monster implementations only applied to legacy systems.


Sarcasm aside, it was the speaker's overall impression that were an opportunity to rewind available, they would definitely have opted for an 'off-the-shelf' solution, where a lot of the issues they encountered or tried to solve had been already addressed by existing vendors. They did not discuss costs, but it was apparent that the cost and time committments had placed unexpected strains on both personnel and system costs.


This may represent an isolated case, but it's not the first time I've heard of a company going down a long path and abandoning ship after considerable time and money invested. I'd be happy to share other insights that would probably cause this post to go on for pages - but long story short, if you or anyone you know are considering building your own solution, be weary of the additional commitments you could save yourself by leveraging our years of industry experience.