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

Saturday, 3 December 2022

Artificial

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

Its been out nearly a whole month at the time of writing this, since the latest chatbot on the block, has been available to play with.

In the past you may have read about a few other chatbots that have come unstuck. ChatGPT from Silicon Valley outfit OpenAI seems to be the first to pass 'The Nazi test'.

There are stories of A-Level & degree students knocking up essays and even I managed to knock up a great 300 word one on George Orwell, but it stopped short when asked about doing a 5,000 word one. Maybe you only get so much for free ?

We have been here before however….

Tay you might remember, was a chatbot developed by Microsoft in 2016 as an experiment in artificial intelligence and machine learning. It was designed to be a social media bot that could learn from and interact with users on platforms such as Twitter and Kik. It was designed to mimic the language and behaviour of a young adult and was programmed to respond to users in real-time. It was intended to be used as a way for users to have fun and engage with artificial intelligence in a playful manner. The more you chat with Tay, said Microsoft, the smarter it gets, learning to engage people through "casual and playful conversation."

Unfortunately in less than a single day, it had learned right-wing and Nazi principles directly from Twitter users interacting with it maliciously. Here’s a sample:

That kicked off quickly !

No at this point I can forgive Microsoft haters, that might just say, “What a typical MS schoolGates error”. Didn’t Microsoft do any real-world testing before releasing this cluster-f*** into the world, to last not quite just 15 hours? Most humans have filters to some degree, but raw AI? It’s a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. Which is probably why Alphabet/Google and others have been dabbling with this tech for many years, but are in no rush seemingly as yet to release it

Alan Mathison Turing Statue, Sackville Gardens Manchester - RFF5JN

Also, as I discovered, the current incarnation of ChatGPT and the way it serves up responses, might well seriously disrupt the ads first way Google works to turn its dollar.

Do I think it passes the mathematician Alan Turing test? Well, it comes close!

The currently available incarnation has certain limits, however returns results in a believable natural language (whichever language you happen to speak):

Oh la la 👍

It’s a fun utility to play with, if you have (too much) time on your hands

Well I am happy with that

You can even ask it for code snippets, including SQL statements, Javascript, C++, VB, SalesForce APEX, SAP ABAP, old skool COBOL and PERL. I tested out a few languages I have worked with in the past.

A lot of the examples are accurate and very close to believable answers. Give some of these a try yourself. Once signed up and verified, you will be asking crazy questions within three minutes.

Need any relationship advice 😉

Just taking the above (totally fictional I assure you!) example into account, I think The Sun's, Dear Deirdre column writer, could be in trouble!

Here’s a response to a professional question, I am often asked in my working life:

Suppliers, do you recognise yourselves in there ?

This is all very readable and believable, however in relation to the question asked, I would only score this answer slightly under 40%. I know to interpret the answer in that way and even the broadly correct parts, do not reflect that Northgate has been NEC for over a year, as has Orchard been part of MRI for longer than that and branded so. Core housing above looks to refer to eCORE reporting

After an hour of working with ChatGPT you like me, will trust it a lot, although I know that at times reliability is not always greater than 90%. We definitely need to question everything AI serves up, just as any of us might be questioned in our day-to-day job roles. It could be quite easy to act totally innocently on the results being served up, although without verification in the real world, serious mistakes could be made.

ChatGPT is very limited. No outside access to the internet, trained by humans its claimed. Its "good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness", is how one tweeter described it. This is quite accurate for the moment I feel.

Maybe replacing expensive ICT staff and experienced consultants, is not totally practical at the moment for SocialHousing ICT🤔. However this is useful, although clearly currently the chatbot does not have access to wider weblinks and very much has relied on (truthful humans?) helping to shape content and truthfulness. Clearly this is a more expensive option than just trawling and scraping the web for all kinds of content. A bit like the initial aim of Yahoo.

You will also notice that ads and weblinks are not being served up. Google has conditioned us to wade though ads and find our own best quality links. When we click on an ad, Google earns its 50p or whatever that click is priced at. Searching using ChatGPT frees the user from a lot of that chaff. However, its inherent risk of incorrect or misleading info, needs to be taken into account at all times.

OpenAi currently are slightly immune currently from the types of media storms that might result if say Google, Amazon or Meta released a new chatbot, making mistakes, spreading conspiracy theories or untruths. This would most likely be a major issue and hence I think why they are holding back currently. Also of course, how is this best monetised?

Clearly at some point, openAI who have had incredible investment so far, need to properly monetise this too. We are at the start of a journey here, expect the mainstream chatbots to come and new applications to come out of it. Embrace it when they come, however also consider the risks, commercially and reputationally.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with customer service solutions,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a brew & some Chocolate Gingers ☕😋.

Sunday, 27 November 2022

For What Its Worth

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

Well what a wild few weeks for Social Housing.

We had from the Grenfell Tower enquiry, Phase 2 Overarching and Module 7 Closing Statements. Not that far from me in North West England, a coroner found that two-year-old Awaab Ishak, died from prolonged exposure to mould, in Rochdale social housing.

Both shocking to tenants, the sector and the outside world too. It should be no surprise that social housing providers appear out of touch, incompetent, willfully negligent, with greedy overpaid managers and Chief Execs. The Housing Ombudsman and Regulator appear uninterested, toothless too, to many residents who try to complain. Quite a few organisations deal with complaints shabbily or don’t take seriously, configuring their systems to deal with them.

I grew up in Manchester late 1960s overflow Council Housing myself and have worked with the housing sectors ICT (procurements, implementations, Critical Friend), now for over 25 years. In that time I have met a lot of excellent people, most doing their best for homes, communities and residents they manage. When I share that view with tenants or friends in rented accommodation, not many believe me. Perhaps its because I generally work with RSLs/RPs that are wanting to use their solutions to improve or migrate to new improved ones, that I see organisations up for change and transformation. I see few organisations stuck in the “We have always done it this way” groove. If that’s the case, its often a sure path to failure.

What does failure look like though? How best to test the water of how good an organisation is?

Well, its sure as hell not sending out satisfaction surveys and counting all that do not come back (as well as the ones rated ‘positive’), as ‘good’ too. Dear reader, YOUR organisation would never do that, would you? How do we measure how good places are, in our real world lives? It’s generally Tripadvisor, or more likely Trustpilot for bigger more expensive and important purchases. What’s more important than the roof over your head?

Have you checked your organisations Trustpilot score lately? The red flag on there I am sure you will agree, is too many one star reviews. Pretty much they are only one star, because you cannot post a review with zero stars ⭐️

On the back of the doom and gloom this last month, it was no surprise for the Daily Mail (who have form on this), pulled out the latest list of (Inside Housing) 2022 CEO salaries, to show the world, “Lavish lifestyles of the housing fat cats: After tragic case of toddler in mouldy flat, meet the bosses who are earning huge salaries while renters are stuck in squalid homes”. Even Richee Sunak (without additional claimable expenses, in his own state provided social housing at 10 Downing Street), doesn’t earn as much as these selected CEOs (apparently).

Original article - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11450981/After-tragic-case-toddler-mouldy-flat-meet-bosses-earning-huge-salaries.html

Looking at that list, you have to admit, based on bad publicity, ITV investigations and the odd BBC panorama on unlivable homes, some of the key culprits seem to have the best remunerated CEOS. Do you think they are worth it? These are all managing vast portfolios and (should be) exercising the responsibility, of keeping tens/hundreds of thousands of residents safe in decent accommodation.

Can you imagine taking the measure of CEO's compared to their Trustpilot scores. Imagine determining a recalculated percentage based on all Trustpilot scores of 2 stars (inclusive) upwards. Now that does not sound too difficult, nor too high a bar.

I didn’t think it could be, until I did a bit of an exercise to check all the organisations in the table. Obviously I gave Rishi a free pass, as the little fella has only been in the job just over a month.

The results in the table below may surprise you, they did for me.

Many are based on low numbers of reviews, however, all except four of the fifteen, have 50% or higher of one star reviews. Sanctuary managing 250k properties, comes top with 94% of one star reviews and an official TrustPilot rating of “Bad”.

Applying the 6% of remaining rated 2-5 reviews, to £402k, gives a calculated based on quality produced CEO salary, of £24,120 pa.

Using this same methodology, the OneHousing CEO would earn just £10,480 pa. In fact four of these CEO’s, under this methodology would earn less than a highly experienced housing officer working in London.

These CEO’s are tremendously lucky that they aren’t paid based on the ratings they seem to be racking up, so far as at late Nov2022. The big regret I have, and I feel the wider sector must have too, is these lazy poor ratings, tar everyone with the same brush. That includes everyone, right down to the small charity providing specialist accommodation, for just a few dozen tenants.

You will notice that there is one provider in that table, rated ‘Excellent’. Peabody have two TrustPilot scores, one from its SocialHousing arm and one from its sales arm. Reading the review comments, the latter’s satisfaction level is borderline insane. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all have an ‘Estate Agent’ head on, solving repairs, ASB, arrear and other issues quickly and efficiently for residents, always treating them as ‘valued customers’, never anything lesser?

How difficult is it for the sector to improve, particular its biggest providers, who should really be beacons lighting the way, not reinforcing a dodgy and generally incorrect stereotype? How difficult for the regulator of socialhousing is it, to do its job properly? Writing to organisations last week on ‘The Issue of damp & mould’, is trying to shut the gate, once the horse has bolted. Slightly comical too, considering we have a government currently that voted against decent housing standards in the PRS , just 12 months before the Grenfell Tower disaster.

It makes me wonder if we don’t tackle our own problems within the sector, it will be rather a lengthy wait for the Housing Regulator, or government regulation to force us to improve. One thing I do know, we have plenty of technology, systems and processes that can help us all. Maybe it’s the culture and the motivation angle, starting with our CEO’s, which if we really need, to properly change all this.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with complaint solutions,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a brew & some Hobnobs ☕😋.

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

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Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Processed Complaints

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

Following on from my blogpost last month, focused on how residents can effectively raise issues and complaints effectively, how should Social and Council Housing best effectively resolve/conclude them effectively.

Reaction to my previous post prompted a quite a few residents to share their experiences of complaints with their landlords on Twitter, a few can be accessed here and here.

Complaints and service fails will always happen, that’s life. As I reminded a supplier this last week, ‘nothing in life is ever 100%’, so don’t kid yourself or customers, that you are. When things go wrong, they invariably cost way more to rectify than they might have just to get the issue right in the first place. That’s why complaints should be embraced as a valuable means to improve, rather than buried as dirty embarrassments.

One of the biggest initial issues that residents have with complaints is how their Council or RSL will handle them and how to initiate one. If you are a Social Housing provider, is your defined policy easy to find on your website and can you initiate one from that page? We do tend to do most things from the internet these days, but do we also offer an Omnichannel approach, where residents can phone or walk in too, initiating one?

For example, YourHousing close to me in the North West of England offer good details on online Complaint/compliments (their capitalisation) here.

A refreshingly open approach 😉

I particularly like the Orbit Housing Group open approach on complaints here, which is also quite candid on numbers being received. The data nerd in me however, would like an ‘Other’ section at the bottom of that table, mentioning the missing 18.07%. How many other RSLs would be comfortable sharing their stats on their website? I haven't seen many.

Lets think about those initial complaints coming in then. If a compliant (or complement) can be submitted via a webpage, where does it initially get recorded? Ideally it should become a CRM interaction, possibly at that stage the start/update of a ‘case’ and initiate a workflow task, for a member of staff to action. If that initial request just goes into an email box (or possible spam if colourful or emotional language used), it might take days to progress/respond to, or start dealing with these. Where good quality self-service is available, ability to submit complaints (or related incidents etc including images/video) against a logged in resident, is of great advantage.

Inside your RSL, once successfully recorded or converted from a CRM interaction, how easy does your systems and processes allow easy access to staff who should have access, to have audited view/update of the whole complaint timeline? What residents might call 'their case notes'. This can be easily supported digitally by most well configured modern integrated Housing Management Systems, or a hybrid of HMS and CRM platform such as Microsoft Dynamics365, Salesforce or Netcall. Some competent standalone complaint solutions are available, although the lack of integration and ability to navigate a 360degree view of the resident, can severely blunt its overall effectiveness. Housing finance staff might be struggling to progress arrears, while being totally unaware of a significant complaint in play elsewhere. Better integration, including to document management (EDRMS) recording video, images, WAV files etc, ties everything together. Repairs are generally the biggest issue area and links of a case to offending Works Orders or Capital Works, helps present a high level view.

Once received we would hope that communication will be key, in keeping the complainant informed at all times. A good internal process should set targets for different types of complaints and this should be visible/shared with residents, to know what to expect. This is one area that clearly often falls down, leads to excessive additional requests in from residents and growing stress and frustration. If systems are set up correctly, much of the communication process can be automated via SMS, email, managing the complaint progression via intelligent self-service etc.

Recognise that residents trying hard to find out what is happening to their complaint and seeing very little in responses back, can easily appear vexatious (and unfortunately be sometimes labeled as such).

The good example below is again from Orbit setting resident expectations

Where next will the resident complaint go?

Above, a target of ten days, with updates every few days, puts residents in no doubt what the RSL is aiming to do. However what is to be done internally if staff are not keeping to targets? Most HMS/case management/CRM solutions enable automatic escalation of tasks and diversion, on occasions of annual leave/sickness etc. Often these are not correctly configured or enforced internally, email often being used instead. With the latter, tasks can easily be lost, too many staff cc:d in, often everyone assumes (wrongly) ‘everyone else is dealing with it’. So, switch these features on and let staff know all updates belong on the case, not via email. Case time & costs might well also be collated.

So, assuming the case progresses and the issue gets resolved satisfactorily, how does the RSL learn from the experience? Overall costs to rectify quite often are many times the original cost of getting the issue right in the first place, so its crucial that from each complaint, we analyse, learn and work to tweak wider processes, often with the whole journey in the room, to reduce recurrence.

Sample changes I have seen from working with clients over 20 years around complaints, have been:

Improvements to staff training and experience going forward / mentoring. Building even better relationships with residents improves outcomes for all
Enhancements to initial repairs diagnosis routines and scripting to capture additional information for more complex repairs, reducing costs, minimising follow-up visits
Better communication when repairs span multiple visits, involve pre-inspections, jobs on hold etc
Introduction of before & after photos for repairs, to better monitor operative trade quality, including photos for evidencing no-access carding
Improved presentation of service charges and info on leaseholder billing, introduction of automated module to calculate charges and enhancement of web portal to reduce manual queries and widen transparency
Introduction of targeted estate/scheme inspections/walkabouts based on complaint hotspots for ASB. EG abandoned vehicle/dumping hotspots
Enhancement of specialist and targeted Tenant participation groups, involving residents earlier, to nip specific issues ‘in the bid’ before they become more serious and costly to rectify. Trusting residents to be our remote sensors
Where complaints have initiated change that residents should notice, share it via quarterly newsletters, Facebook pages, twitter or WhatsApp groups. If the RSL has fixed stuff, tell residents, so they know about the changes that are being trialed

At any point in the process, a FOI (Freedom Of Information) request could be made by a complainant OR if the case cannot be amicably resolved, all the details of the case might need to be collated or exported. Where existing solutions may struggle to achieve this, it puts the RSL at a disadvantage. Possibly residents have better access to this information than the landlord, particularly some time after the original incident occurred. An absolute gift for companies that assist residents with Disrepair claims.

Good reporting from the case management system is key. This might include KPIs such as average time taken to resolve, numbers and categories of complaints received, cost to process and cost of exit fix. Outputs must allow cases to be easily monitored by stage, owner, on-time/approaching late/late and current status. Regular automated reminders to staff and management from the solution should be available, to keep cases moving, with easy management insight

I have intentionally covered a lot of ground here, giving some food for thought I would hope for many Social and Council Housing providers. Some clients I have worked with have been using most of these techniques and systems for some time. Others have virtually none, or manage relatively well with manual spreadsheets etc. But that is a rarity.

If your organisation encounters many cases going to local councillors, MPs or the Ombudsman, then clearly there’s a problem. Equally, if complaint cases creates many residents labelled as vexatious or ‘red flagged’ with warnings, it’s more likely that problems lie more with you than your residents. Look again at your internal processes and communication, just small tweaks might make a great deal of difference.

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation with complaint solutions,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a brew & some Hobnobs ☕😋.

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

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

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

Wednesday, 26 October 2022

No Complaints

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

Most folk who read this blog know I work with SocialHousing ICT systems, projects and procurement. I have never been to Sheffield Hallam or Stirling Uni to do one of their rightly recognised excellent degrees and Masters in housing, although met many professions who have and asked me if that’s where much of my knowledge came from.

That is flattering, although the 25+ years I have had the pleasure to work in the sector, has been my ‘apprenticeship’ in absorbing the ‘knowledge’ and terminology that underpins its systems and processes. I am constantly surprised when Council or Social Housing residents reach out to me on Twitter, in the pub or at the barbers (no joke, I helped one of the managers, who had struggled with her unsatisfactory RSL repairs for over 3 years).

With that knowledge I am always happy to try to help and I thought it was time I put a blog together about the tenants/leaseholder view of the complaints or reporting process. For balance, also because I procure it and implement it week-in, week-out, I will put together a blogpost from the opposite side of the fence too, next month. The second one will explore what’s available for RSLs to manage and better expedite complaints, and achieve better outcomes. So, please stay tuned for that!

So, lets start with some examples, some of which might be spookily familiar to readers in the sector. I wont be naming & shaming, ITV seem to have already cornered that market with repair failures. These are a big originator of complaints. Big cities are the targets for firms of ambulance chasers, left with looking for new low hanging fruit, after the ending of PPI claims, now moving into Repair Disrepair claims. Many of these are pursued right near the end of the 3 or 6 year claim period, as there is greater chance of success then. Some outfits provide a convenient 24 hour chatbot/webchat to help get a claim/complaint started. These are on the rise, although most issues I help with, come straight from residents. I bet many RSL’s reading these still don’t have a chatbot. Do you?

The nice lady at the barbers was with a large local provider and there had been six attempts to rectify a leaking rear secure patio door and had damages to three carpets due to repairs not being properly completed.

In another example, a Council resident had submitted numerous formal complaints that had been mislaid, ignored and substantial personal data had been lost too.

In a third case, leaseholders are seeing charges made, unrelated or explained to repairs said to have been completed and apportioned, without appropriate consultation.

In a fourth case, resident has attempted on 5 occasions to report a repairs issue, no evidence of logging had taken place and on the 6th call, resident was labelled as ‘Vexatious’ and told not to contact the provider or housing officer again.

Repairs issues are behind a significant number of complaints and there is often confusion what is an acceptable repair, how recharges and priorities work, to set expectations. While the days of ‘Tenant Handbooks’ has gone, not all landlords in my experience, have this info easily accessible on websites or self-service.

The first question I generally ask, is if the resident has an audit trail/timeline of their interactions and if they received a CRM call or Request/contact interaction ID in reply. Many residents do not have that timeline and its really key for the complainant to have the facts clearly documented. If complaining/logging anything, residents always ask for that ID number & note the staff member who you spoke to. If completing a request via self-service (if its available), not the repair/request number shown on the webpage reply and any appointment made/requested.

It’s a sad fact that often residents have a much better set of facts, than their Social Housing landlord. That can seriously work in the complainants benefit.

My second piece of advice is when a problem arises, write a clear and concise letter, stating dates/times, ID’s, staff names if known, the nature of the issue, with calm language. Key is to give the landlord 14 days to respond, solve it in 14 days and what would be a reasonable fix from the resident viewpoint. Emails can be used, although a registered posted or personally handed in letter is preferred. Where the landlords staff such as housing officers, or asset surveyors etc are involved, consider inviting them in for a chat about your issues, over a brew & a biscuit. Building bridges for the price of a cup of tea & a macaroon can only do you good.

Keep lines of dialog active, respect each other, be kind but firm, but note all details of course!

Any continued churn/turnover of staff adds further frustration. This should not be any excuse for the complaint being coherently progressed. This is the landlords problem, it shouldn’t become that of the residents.

Thirdly, understand and use the declared landlord escalation path, documenting all interaction with it. Better councils and RSLs, will provide this process on the website, or it can generally be formally requested. Typically, this will move a complaint each stage up to a supervisor, manager, director etc. This must be exhausted before ombudsman may get involved. If the resident has a more complete timeline, there is a greater chance of success with the ombudsman. If this is Council Housing or ALMO stock, often getting a local ward councillor involved can help too.

A complaint going through a number of stages, is harrowing, frustrating and time consuming for residents. For the RSL or Council, this is an expensive business. Many repair issues for example, perhaps involve £100 - £350 of spend to get right, by the time multiple staff are involved in a complaint about it might cost several thousand pounds, of landlord effort to resolve.

Reducing/eliminating complaints is good for everyone, particularly residents.

Check back soon, for the second part of this subject

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation,

please just get in touch, for a friendly chat over a brew.

I will bring plenty of Chocolate Digestives ☕😋

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

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Beck – No Complaints.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

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

Friday, 7 October 2022

Trapped

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

On a far too regular basis, I come across organisations and teams sometimes trapped into a troublesome relationship with a software supplier, due to going live too soon.

You might reasonably ask what I mean by ‘too soon’.

The client might be rushing to meet a deadline, some logical reason like another solution going end of life for example, or a platform they have committed to leave. Alternatively, a CEO, director or other senior manager might have ‘made a decree’ a certain date needs to be hit. I have also worked with sites who are changing location quickly and that has been the driver.

While its great to meet deadlines, they need to be set sensibly and planned in advance sufficiently to be determined to be practically achievable. Its been my job sometimes to have to stop folk in their tracks and tell my client to rethink the plan, as either supplier or client have not sufficiently estimated/assessed their limits. Indeed on occasion, I have asked suppliers 4 or 5 times, are they absolutely sure these promised milestones can be achieved, before getting dates written into contracts, with hefty penalties and service credits. Even at that late stage, its sometimes waved through, than re-thought.

The other elephant in the room is UAT - User Acceptance Testing.

If UAT is lightweight, or issues are not diligently collated and suppliers are challenged to fix before go-live, clients can be persuaded, urged or pushed to go-live prematurely. This can lead to a situation where there’s live running, issues coming out of the woodwork causing wasted effort, workarounds and duplication, that could have most likely been reasonably ironed out before go-live. In addition, useful features may be de-scoped, left for later, that may have been essential for an efficient go-live.

Another essential step I recommend is to have your managers/stakeholder leaders sign off the decision to go-live. Not just ICT or a single team close to the project. Ensure all stakeholders are represented and have a voice, in an honest Go/No-Go decision.

Is a pre-mature go-live in the suppliers interest?

Well a cynic might say yes, as there is usually a hefty payment milestone dependant on go-live (to what ever degree it was ‘successful’). Also, once you are live, you are essentially for most purposes, ‘trapped’ into that solution and supplier. Any pre-leverage is minimised and the client is at the mercy of the kindness of the software supplier.

Also, beware of what a ‘go-live’ really means. Are you truly live with everything expected, or were certain aspects/modules/features descoped because they were not ready, not written, waiting for ‘a sprint’ or just ‘difficult’. These should be warning signs in any software or transformation project. From the initial procurement, be clear what the expectations are on both sides of the relationship. Dont be fooled by talk of a so-called 'Agile Approach' will make it all right. Look how the UC rollout fared !

If you are having problems defining those initial expectations, struggling with UAT, pressure to go-live or suffering the aftereffects of a scrappy go-live, feel free to get in touch!

If we at Acutance Consulting can help your organisation,

please just get in touch, for a chat over a brew.

I will bring plenty of Ginger Nuts ☕😋

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

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

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