tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 27+ years working with over 140 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. (c) No reproduction without prior/express permission Available for independent housing RSL implementation, procurement of HMS, Repairs, CRM, EDM, DLO, Financial, Scheduling systems, critical friend etc. In Scotland I work with the folks at Arneil Johnston Check us out on Soundcloud /housingitguy

Tuesday, 3 November 2020

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Honestly have you ever really had a great deal from anything, that was absolutely dirt cheap?

I was chatting about this very thing just last week and the colleague I was chatting with, agreed with me. That was that most things (too) cheap, either have a problem or we will end up paying much more in the long run. That’s generally because we have to patch it up with something better, or the original outfit goes pop, or the original outfit use change control or just sales charisma in some cases, to recover the true cost.

Cost savings often do result in vast amounts of frustration, lost staff time and lost opportunities to crack a lot of that inspirational transformation, we all crave these days. You might be reading this with ‘transformation’ in your job title, or your remit might well include ‘organisational transformation’. It’s a fair ask, everyone wants improvements. We are all stretched, budgets are shrinking and it’s a given, we need to do more with less.

Too few organisations are still not questioning why some things are so cheap. Part of the trick is having some benchmarks, to know your outliers, then to question them.

One recent example I had was a full HMS procurement, where one supplier was half the price of the others. My client operations director thought that wonderful, she was less happy when I said, “to me its ringing alarm bells”. To the experienced, its easy to determine why, although many organisations avoid external help, so can be blind to much of the obvious. I kind of get that, because on occasion I have been described as ‘expensive’, although in contrast, more clients have told me that I “saved them more than they spent with me as a critical friend”. I like that. That’s what I think I am here for.

Have you ever had a project where you have agonised over when procuring, around that cost/quality scoring ratio? If we need great transformation opportunities I generally advise clients to favour quality/functionality over cost. On more than one occasion, I have been asked,”what if we end up with a preferred supplier, £200k more expensive than the others?”. Bear in mind occasionally we are severly limited and in those situations, we need to clearly cut our coat to our cloth.

My answer has always been that if we want the transformation ambition, we probably will be displacing some job roles, as efficiencies are applied, but adding additional value to staff performance. IE freeing up staff to do more for residents, adding more value with tech or with better tech freeing staff up. In that context, £200k might free up ten staff in year one. That’s also a saving in years 2,3,4 – 10 etc. Considered in that context, how could cheapest that could struggle with delivering the transformation, ever be best?

Clearly in an OJEU procurement, to assist everyone, ratios are defined and communicated up front, for the benefit of all. Now many people know quite well I have worked for 14 years on the dark (supplier) side, which makes me very sensitive to supplier as well as my clients needs. In my procurements, I have always refused to move the goal posts part way in the process. Firstly its wrong and unfair, also it violates the rules. On a few occasions, I have said to clients, ‘No you cannot do it’.

The last instance of ‘Done Cheap’ I have encountered, from both sides of the fence, is the tactic of reducing margins down to the absolute minimum. Often if finance are driving outcomes, this looks like a great deal from the client viewpoint. The supplier being totally strapped down however, has nothing in their ‘bank of goodwill’ for flexibility. Every deviation from contract or specification, will inevitably result in formal change control and additional cost and hassle. I do tend to advise some rowing back from that, as we will need some goodwill on both sides in the project, both supplier and client needing a shared bank of goodwill, to travel forward effectively to success.

I am sure many reading this will recognise a number of these insights. The takeaway is that you should not get tied up too much by the bottom line. Its about getting the right value at an acceptable level of risk, that the price will provide. Risk is probably worth a blogpost all on its own. Maybe later in lockdown, I will revisit that old chestnut son.

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Sunday, 18 October 2020

International Dateline

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

This week I was working with a social housing landlord client at the tail end of a procurement, where we are down to a couple of possible suppliers and software products.

One of the most important parts of a procurement that I find is generally glossed over, is the reference site follow-up. That probably warrants a whole future blog of its own to be honest, as it can be so crucial in flagging up future issues that may need mitigating in your project delivery.

No doubt about it, who suppliers chose for your procurement says much about how their user base feels and functions in relationships with them. Large suppliers with only the same couple of reference sites definitely should flag up questions, as should why much nearer apparent sites have not been put forward.

In this case, both options had plenty of sites to choose from and spookily the product was sold in many countries and regions around the world. Now I have sat through demos where many familiar suppliers have put that initial slide up to say they have 20,000 people working for them and they have sites all over the place. The claim was generally true, but the reality sometimes is that out of that number, it might just be two men, a lady and a dog, based in some outpost like Cumbernauld employed by them, who actually will be your go-to support.

They might be a very good three person team, but might not be adequate to support a product, over sold to dozens of unwary punters. Inevitably they would be a bottleneck to getting anything done or anything done or fixed quickly. Much like a single point of failure inside a housing organisation, management need to recognise and mitigate it quickly for everyone’s benefit.

These two references were really positive, although one of the people I am working with on the project mentioned something that really surprised them and it made one really stand out for him. The reference site had mentioned that on a number of occasions that help desk tickets had been picked up and resolved for them well out of normal hours, even though contracted support was a working 09:00-17:00. We are all used to logging help desk calls via self-service these days and probably phoning in those emergency (everything down) P1 calls.

The difference was with one supplier, was that a single worldwide helpdesk was being utilised for the product. When the Europe team clocked off, the US team in CA kicked in, Australia next, then the India team. You get the picture. Clearly too, a worldwide helpdesk meant a massive knowledge base supported the help desk staff, it wasn’t just in one persons head. Even though that sort of service wasn’t contracted, it was often delivered.

With a some of our ‘usual suspects’ suppliers now being amalgamated into bigger groups and claiming to have customers across three or more continents using the same products we use here in UK & Ireland, how many will have the ambition to evolve to be more joined up? Is that something your organisation could benefit from, rather than your helpdesk calls often falling out of your contract SLA’s?

Do have it in your mind when that slide of reassurance comes up at the start of your demo, to ask, “Where is your helpdesk located for this solution being offered and are you open enough to share your unvarnished current SLA stats for it”?

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Tuesday, 6 October 2020

Serco Don’t Lose That Number!

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Earlier this week, a few thousand people and probably a dozen at least of my contacts, probably grinned with a knowing smile.

Of course I am writing about the UK’s national Serco Test and Trace spaff-up, relying on Excel spreadsheets, to collate and process Covid-19 tests.

If I had £500 for every time I had told people off for calling 'info in spreadsheets', a database, I could have retired by now.

The situation could be laughable, if it were not so important and crucial.

Now, if anyone wants to spread blame around, I would personally start with Microsoft. Why So, you might ask🤔

The original Lotus 1-2-3, as anyone who broke their teeth on it during the 1980’s may remember, only had a maximum of 8,192 rows (and 256 columns). Now if it had stayed at that size, a very limited number of fools would have tried to store lots of data in it and sensibly selected a proper database to do the job. But no. As Reeve’s and Mortimer might have said, “They couldn’t let it lie” - .

Microsoft’s Excel gave us 65,536 rows, immediately giving the illusion of it being a ‘database’, not a useful summary manipulation and presentation tool, which is what a spreadsheet does best. I have been involved in so many projects where users, managers and directors in some cases, have been firmly wedded to spreadsheets, needing to migrate to proper solutions, with protection, data control and robust audit. I have often proposed amnesty, after replacement system go-live, where spreadsheets can be dropped.

My proposal is that if the fearsome and opposing communities in Northern Ireland, could put their weapons beyond use, we should have a spreadsheet version of the Good Friday Agreement, where users do the same and promise never to return to them again. For some its starting to catch on thankfully.

For sure, Excel can be a good place to start for an initial prototype, but no one should continue to try to run a whole enterprise on it. Serco are not alone. Eight years ago or so, I worked with a big organisation, dealing with £8m of monthly transactions on Excel with its one million row and memory limit creaking & ready to break. Fifteen years earlier, with a turnover a 50th of that, spreadsheets just kind of worked. For that organisation it took about 4 months to procure and 12 to implement, a proper finance, feeder and self-service solution and they never looked back.

Serco however have apparently been paid £12b of taxpayers dosh and should have been able to build their own database quite quickly with 20 or so of the right ICT staff, none of which would have probably stuck with Excel, if there was any capability of a millions of test a day Moonshot a-coming.

In my time manipulating data, I have witnessed many things Excel does trying to be clever, without telling you. Truncating to 65,536 is common where old solutions can only use XLS format to export. No doubt you might have experienced that too. The type and length of unique ID’s seen in the SocialHousing sector, is ripe for Excel to helpfully swap then to scientific notation. How we laughed at that one, several weeks down the line.

So, beware the spreadsheet, its not a database. Don’t do a Serco Track & Trace, learn from their mistakes.

Who in YOUR organisation needs to take that advice to heart?

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Steely Dan – Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Thursday, 1 October 2020

Rescue Me

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy
or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Perhaps no one (except for maybe Albert Camus, seventy three years ago), could have confidently predicted COVID-19’s impact on the Social Housing sector in 2020 – particularly its repairs function.

Last week’s news of more lockdown-focused tightening prolongs existing challenges even further.

Most of the organisations I work with, especially where internal direct labour is involved (the trusty DLO or Building Services Team), have stripped back their repairs function. It’s just Emergency and Voids works now.

For the latter, a couple of my clients have focussed on preparing temporary accommodation for homelessness provision or early prisoner releases. Many DLO staff, including one on my street, oddly enough, have been furloughed.

More than one current client of mine has highlighted that tenants are ‘cottoning on’ to the new normal and logging minor issues as far larger ones, to squeeze repairs into the Emergency priority zone.

The dilemma for all appears to be a building backlog of ordinary, urgent, routine repairs (and some Right-To-Repair priorities in Scotland). Regulators seem to have dragged their feet in offering direction. However all those logged issues will have to be chewed through and everyone expects their current workforce to struggle when work orders can finally be scheduled.

Back in January, I blogged about Plentific, which could be described quite rightly as the socially-minded ‘Uber of Repairs’. The company and the concept is interesting to me as it has gained exceptional traction with providers such as Notting Hill Genesis, Peabody and uses a unique platform attractive to the sector. It also features a mature marketplace to match skilled staff, rated on each job, to sector demand. Verification of staff certifications and capabilities are coupled with a fast-paying financial platform, a key benefit for the framework of contractors.

The Plentific Platform

I was interested in how Plentific is expanding across the wider UK and more so, how COVID-19 may have impacted its business model. What’s the best rating achievable for works undertaken in this new normal?

Like others, Plentific initially saw a drive to more Emergency priority work, including the new innovation of COVID-19 deep cleans, particularly in London, where the Coronavirus spike hit first. With a number of trade staff within social housing clients self-isolating or furloughed, Plentific throughput was similar to the same quarter 2019.

From recent webinars and my own contacts in the sector, I know that Plentific is rapidly expanding into major conurbations across the UK. I understand that expansion of the platform’s ecosystem has led to more partner contractors under their wing already in the West Midlands, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.

This important development I believe unlocks a potential new resource in the main urban areas, becoming available to be used as a ‘pressure release valve’, for the social housing COVID-19 backlog.

More importantly, if as the scientists seem to be suggesting, a second peak arrives, Plentific might well be the backup for a DLO or your key partnering contractor.

Plentific Battling the backlog discussion

Availability of solutions, as we all know, is one thing. Passing muster with procurement in order to exploit a new digital-world contractor, such as Plentific, can be something else. Framework-only is quite common these days, particularly in local authorities and fortunately a framework does exist.

Personally, I am liking the ‘Uber of Repairs’ concept, particularly as it's cost effective for landlords and potentially can drive up resident satisfaction. Contractors seem to like Plentific too, as it’s a personal and on-going relationship (way beyond the taxi Uber). Go check out more at https://www.plentific.com/

Catch the blog monthly archive at
https://soundcloud.com/housingitguy/

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

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here