The Balmori Software Newsletter
The SME resource for practical computerization concerns. No. 0408-2
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The Balmori Software Newsletter The SME resource for practical computerization concerns. No. 0408-2 |
(This is Part 1 of a two-article series on a topic of some concern to most SME businesses. It can be read in conjunction with Part 2, or as a stand-alone piece. At the end of Part 1 you will find a link to Part 2.) Battle-scarred software professionals, company owners, and hands-on users who've been through the experience can agree on one thing. After the software selection process, the software set-up stage is the most delicate part of computerization. That's because it's the time when poor choices about what look like trivial issues can lead to serious problems months onward. Because the issues seem inconsequential, top managers may "leave it all up to the troops." Then it becomes like the case of a poor navigator starting out with a 1-degree error in his bearings. Halfway into the voyage, he's hundreds of miles off course.Avoid an analogous disaster in your computerization experience. Pay special attention to the set-up process. Encoding the reference files is a design task, not just a clerical task. The first task in setting up a software application is to build the reference files. These are the basic assumptions that the software app needs to be able to do its work. These include customer records, supplier records, product codes, account codes, etc. If you are in charge of implementing an application, recognize this: though typing in your reference files looks like a clerical task, the preparatory work you need to do before encoding is anything but routine. It's like painting a car. The preparatory work is the part that demands the painter's observational faculties, experience, and skill. And it's also the part of the work that takes the most time. AND: sloppy preparation means the paint job won't last. Click here to read the rest of this article online.
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