It Must Have Been Years

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

So as 'Stand up for the weeks' Paul Chowdhry might say, "So what's happening this year housing IT people?". Well quite a lot actually.

Wokingham met Toon, when everyone in housings (well apparently about 20% anyway) favourite Marmite asset management application Promaster, was snapped up by Orchard back in the summer. Staff numbers grew to 185 making Orchard Systems the largest of the independent HMS (Housing Management System) providers.

Microsnore by popular demand, returned the 'Windows' button to Windows 8.1, but predictably did not link it to anything very useful (like an option to have Windows 7 back on our office desktops). No surprises there, still out of touch...

Civica bounced on the scene to launch their game changing HMS Cx. At last someone has had the nuts to completely design an integrated system, from the ground up, completely browser based, in a Windows8 flat UI style. Well done, its taken a while, but now there's something good to move all those 4Js, UH, Saffron & CTX to. I will be looking with interest at the newer modules when they ship early in 2014.

Blackberry crashes to a $4.4B loss and looks to be going the way of Palm and Nokia. Some local authorities and RSL groups still force their staff to use them as standard issue. You might even have a BB in your pocket and your personal iPhone in another? I wonder how long that will continue? BYOD has hardly started to take off in housing, in places I work with, its still a rarity.

At the start of the year, it looked like SAP where serious about their push into the vertical market-space of UK housing. Apart from the project at Sanctuary engineering an all 'encompassing SAP landscape', I have heard very little. We can assume Sanctuary are getting the SAP massively re-engineered 'Real Estate module' almost for free, as the growing pains will probably need one or more epidurals along the way. An industry insider suggested to me that Northgate were not expecting anyone to give notice on their iWorld system just yet. Watch this space.

Amazon were threatening drone delivery of parcels late in the year. Could this tech, be the key to tackling ASB on our schemes? Maybe filming and recording it, rather than 'taking it out' as can be the case when controlled by less caring organisations?

Google Glass, the Bluetooth headset of 2013, still not cool, wearing it will not make you cool. Talking of cool, the IT Crowd got a C4 special on Christmas Eve. How cool is that? You know Jen, Moss, Roy, Richmond (who lives in the server room) and the despotic Reynholm (I bet you have done some SQL queries for him...), surely from your own offices.

Next up was 3D printed metal objects, like the gun that fired real bullets. How long before the DLO operative can clock up 'Right 1st Visit', by printing that Worcester Boiler part, while the tenant waits? Then she can log her completion on her Winphone6.5 (less than) smartphone. Yes, we have noticed that at various places agnostic mobile apps haven't reached all corners of the UK, just yet!

Telecare moved forward with Motorola's patent for a Bluetooth skin tattoo (I kid you not), brought the Internet of things, one big step forward.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10436521/Motorola-wants-to-patent-microphone-skin-tattoo.html

In contrast, the IDS Universal Credit IT rollout didn't move that far forward, (as predicted, by all but IDS). I bet we would all like a project like that to manage, write, promote, staff etc, with a bottomless pit of cash, moving targets and £payoffs even if you fail. Just 'believe' and it will be so, don't waste time with detail, test plans, use cases, UAT's etc, seems to work for Iain. Avoid these schoolboy errors and your projects will run smoother, with less surprises.

That last one proves that while many things change, somethings, like Government IT projects, just stay the same. No doubt 2014 will bring us new challenges and surprises. I have been fortunate to have worked with some really inspirational people, who are really changing lives, systems and our society, in so many positive ways. There have been some surprises along the way too. Some things that were bad and come good and vica-versa.

My best wishes go out to you, your family, colleagues, customers, service users and neighbourhoods, for a fairer, smarter 2014. I look forward to meeting and working with you this coming year of the horse. Lets be thoroughbreds!

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read on to, UKHousings next new kid on the block, Cx,

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2014/01/becoming-cx.html

Gary Numan - It Must Have Been Years .


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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Plan A

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

  
A few recent mop up type projects I am involved with have led me to ponder on the effects of poor planning at the start of many software application purchases and major business projects. There is a lot that the recent IDS Universal Credit and HS2 projects can teach us about how to get projects right. As the M&S lorries scream, There is no Plan B. But what if Plan A is somewhat wibble?


The Iain Duncan Smith visit to the Commons Select Committee this week is the latest in a long line of British Government IT projects that have become a horrendous money pit, often being abandoned, rather than delivering anything remotely useful. Watch this latest IDS UC car crash unfolding here in slow motion - http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14420  For MBA courses, surely this will become a great case study in how not to manage projects. 


So what can we learn in our own projects from this. Well quite a lot, IDS is doing us a service by highlighting how not to do it. Firstly, know what your objectives are, right from the start. The IDS aims for UC were ‘To generate £38b in savings over the next 12 years’. This has now been modified to ‘emphasis the economic benefits of the programme’. Digging down, that breaks down as ‘38% of these savings are to come from fewer overpayments and increases in employment, while the bigger savings – 68% - will come from the economic benefits to claimants’. Thus only £14.44b might be generated in overpayment savings.


So a goal-post in objective has changed here. Also no mention of where the new UC IT system may also tackle the issue of under-payments. Bringing all benefits under one roof means that claimants may well now be able to claim for things they are entitled to, that they were not currently aware of.


HS2 (high speed rail 2 connecting London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds faster, by 2032), is another project with rapidly changing aims, as casters are added to its goal posts and expected costs double to over £42b. It started off as being about ‘savings in business time, spent travelling on trains’, now mysteriously as many people work via the internet while on the move, the raison d’etre is now ‘Enhanced capacity’. As anyone in the know already suspects, if HS2 was about bringing prosperity to ‘The North’, it would be a high speed train line between Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds & Hull, with a spur up to the East Coast main line, connecting Newcastle & Edinburgh.


This reveals two important areas of any successful project. Number one is know what the project is for. Changing aims reveals that there is probably no basis in benefits for the project in the first instance. Where benefits in ROI (Return On Investment), enhanced customer service, measurable social good etc are expected, document them clearly. These can be measured later. Also examine negative effects of the project and clearly document them. These might offset some benefits, much like the IDS under-claimers, or cities not connected on HS2 losing out. Burying these facts reveal issues that have not been honestly put in the mix.


Number two is do enough detail analysis before committing resources. What my old Bsc Applied Computing lecturer Ian Beeson used to call ‘not being prematurely physical’. For example, if IDS had spent £3m up-front on decent analysis of benefit process, UK Govt PLC would not now be writing off £40m of wasted IT project. Take the project in stages, ensuring each is closed / completed adequately before moving on. Basic PRINCE2 in practice that one.


Number three is set your budget, based on the above, and what you know thus far. Set your contingency too, maybe 15-20%. Where a supplier will give you a capped price on your service/training/implementation days AND your requirements are well researched and firm, then you have something very attractive. Also find out what the additional day rate is. Very important for those valid ‘Out of scope’ elements. Not good to find they may cost you £1,000+ per day. Better to have fixed a more acceptable rate, much earlier on.


Number Four is to run the project in a transparent manner. IDS in his UC project has been dogged by ‘Bad News’ getting in the way of ‘Good News’. Don't suppress bad news, when it comes up, deal with it and correct the little blips that all projects encounter.  Smoothing over blips with good PR and what start as white lies, will dig a hole that will become exponentially difficult to dig yourself out of. As IDS has found out to his cost, £40m has already been written off, in a project at least 2 years late, with over 700,000 benefit claimants still expected to be outside the new IT system. 


We are all aware of projects initiated, where the project director has left way before any deliverables are seen. One particular ‘industry strength’ financials package, that need not be named, generally follows that route. The finance director ordering it will have a new job shortly afterwards (as it looks so good on a CV), be in it two years or more, before the original organisation is anywhere near having it in and working. It has not missed anyone’s attention that one such implementation is ongoing at the moment at a large prominent midlands based housing group. It will be interesting how that goes, all of the bigger HMS suppliers I speak to are aware of it, watching it extremely carefully. If it is delivered on time, to budget and can perform to what UK housing needs. If not, it may well mirror the expensive slow motion car crash unfolding for UC.


Unless he has a ‘road to Domestos’ type conversion, IDS will continue to hype the UC good news, in order to dispel that label he acquired from George Osbourne, just a few months ago. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/02/george-osborne-iain-duncan-smith-bit-thick
While IDS is only wasting all our taxpayer cash, poor execution of housing system projects impact directly on our residents and communities. Think how many new kitchens or improved efficient heating systems, to lift residents out of fuel poverty, could have been put in with your systems project overrun....

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read on, to a great book on Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2013/06/paperback-writer.html

Dandy Warhols - Plan A .


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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Jack In The Green

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

 
The cost of heating our homes and the phrase 'Fuel Poverty' has gone mainstream lately, has it not?

I remember Ed Milibean being derided as a communist, at the labour conference, when he suggested freezing energy bills. Just 9 weeks later, our coalition government, always keen to encourage the free market, are quietly asking energy companies for restraint and considering shifting green taxes away from our bills. A saving of a whole £50 (barely 4% of the average bill). Not surprising most people are angry, not grateful.


Nobody I notice has been trampled in the rush to sign up to the 'Green Deal' either. An expensive scheme that barely 594 people in the UK had indicated interest and only '360 wished to proceed'. Window dressing at best, more than likely it costs more to administer than actual benefits achieved. It certainly was not the same as the solar PV gold-rush back in 2011. We narrowly missed leading a whole new innovative history there. Grab the Allen key people, hopefully we can rely on our favourite flat pack furniture shop to make PV sexy again - http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/about_ikea/newsitem/ikea_hanergy_solar_panels

Well what of our residents on the breadline? The ones spending far more than 10% on fuel and day to day deciding if to eat or to feed their expensive prepay meters? How should landlords tackle it? What can we all do to help? How can IT and systems help?

At first glance, there's plenty of silver bullets out there for sale. If you have deep pockets and not that bothered about integration that is. Even some 'energy' modules for better known third party asset applications, don't integrate too well together with their core applications. I won't embarrass anyone by naming them, but if you have purchased them, you have surely rumbled it by now. Even if you get that bit right, the elephant in the room is being able to mash up data with your housing management system, to obtain some decisive insights.

Last Friday I had a really productive day with some asset managers wrestling with energy efficiency in a rural setting. No surprise that residents cite high cost of heating their properties, as their number one concern. Not everyone is on mains gas and not everyone can have insulation due to asset archetypes and build standards. Oh, and budgets getting tighter, the board want more done with less. Have you got one like that? (Thought so).

Like in most asset teams these days, the EPC collection is building up. How can IT assist to support the asset team to reach their goals and pull the maximum residents out of fuel poverty?

Many RSLs I come across record a PDF of the EPC, the RDSAP rating (e.g. 49, band E) and date issued. Limiting details recorded to this, does however miss a trick. The EPC is a rich source of data to model. Capture a bit more of that data and we can turn that into some really useful insights. For example, the potential energy efficiency rating, standard recommended measures/indicative costs, typical energy bill savings etc. 

Recording against each EPC of these potential improvements can easily form the basis of our asset energy modelling. Most of the common integrated HMS systems out there (OpenHousing, Orchard, QLX, iWorld, UH etc) can be configured to record these against asset components and attributes. The extra admin of manual entry or the provision of a regular import (where your EPC supplier can provide it) of these fields, makes the job somewhat easier.

Once it's in your database, it's a relatively swift task to combine all related details in a database view to provide a helicopters eye view of your stock. By related details I mean HB status (full/partial/none), primary method of payment (Allpay, Direct Debit, Cash etc), recorded economic status (Inactive, retired, working full/part time etc), area, HO patch, asset archetype etc.

A bit of added work if you are lucky enough to have a GIS system or can find time on Google maps satellite view, can identify any of your south facing roofs, suitable for solar PV. While not the cash-cow it was, it's still an option to offset your residents fuel bills.

On sign up, you may well be helping your residents to account for their new tenancy/shared owner property, pointing them to the local credit union or other places. Data collected during this process could also assist in identifying need. Also the resident age range and type of household, most likely held within your contact details. IE young families, single disabled elderly etc.

In the future, energy companies may well also provide anonymised energy expenditure data to you about your residents. Coming soon the 'internet of things' (due before the 'Jetpacks' they promised hopefully), might allow us to also monitor usage by boiler, live room temperatures etc.  

As you probably realise, this creates access to a pretty comprehensive picture. So should we aim to do with your 'mash-up' view? Well, we can determine where the best result can be achieved for minimum outlay, for the most deserving residents. It creates a concrete case for expenditure for your board and the improvements that can be expected.

Each organisation will be different, but this joined up approach allows facts to drive the improvement process. Another way that housing IT can help make a difference to your residents lives

Read on to: Asking those questions - collecting satisfaction better

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Jethro Tull - Jack In The Green .


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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