Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger....

If you do the Twitter thing, follow Tony_Smith at @hotpixUK

Upgrades? You want ‘em? Do you want ‘em?

Well they can be trouble-some can they not? A good reason to avoid too many of them maybe?
Yes and no.

We all have experience of suppliers and their concept of upgrades. Microsoft seem to think we don’t really mind totally relearning what we have all been doing quite productively for the last ten years, while others are maybe more plugged in to how we really use our software.

Housing Management Software as an application is quite specialist, what used to be referred to as a vertical market. You know like a 1970’s 13 flight tower block. (Well maybe not). Now in this case, your contract may stipulate how often you take and install an upgrade. You may well invalidate your support contract by not upgrading. If unsure why not dig it out now.

Your housing software provider may be keen for you to keep up with the latest version. There are a few reasons for this. More recent bugs should have been ironed out. Although take care that one persons ‘bug’ might actually be another’s ‘feature’. Also, if your supplier is attempting to support several versions of their software, that creates delays in supporting your issues and you will quite often receive fault resolutions of the ilk of ‘Bug resolved in version x.y, please upgrade your software at the earliest opportunity’.

So its essential to understand why you are upgrading at all:

• To tackle known bugs that are causing you problems
• To have access to improvements
• To access RFC’s (Request for changes) your organisation has purchased

For the last category, remember that you can always request your supplier back fit any RFC’s to your current version. Paddy Power would give me poor odds if I was to bet there would not be a £charge for that, but it may well help you avoid the issues an upgrade may cause you. Also you need to have trust that your supplier will make it function identically in your current version, as in a future version you may upgrade to.

Conceptually, there are two styles of housing software, package and bespoke. In theory, a pure package application should be a less painless upgrade. Where bespoke is involved, it is usually very problematical to attempt any kind of upgrade. The ideal situation is a package solution where bespoke local elements can be defined. IE functions, views, SP’s, workflow etc, which can remain untouched by an upgrade. Bear in mind though, if you are feeling smug, your bespoke elements may still be affected by dropped objects or restructure in the upgraded schema.

So it is essential to determine the effect of your upgrade, fully before attempting to go live with it. Start with the detailed amendment list from your supplier. These should be graded in severity. IE Essential, action needed ; Important, checks and possible action needed; Optional or cosmetic. Apart from the detail, a summary is tremendously useful for end user departments. Summary in plain English can be ideal for working out what to switch on and what can be ignored.

In a technical sense too, information on new DLL’s needed on Windows or other dependences, like particular versions of the .net framework are essential. Sites running multiple Citrix or other thin client infrastructure will need to test and deploy these elements, confirming compliance with other software on those servers. Your finance team will not thank you if your housing system upgrade renders SunAccounts unusable for a week or so.

Apart from what is shiny and new, bear in mind it is essential that all your existing processes will still work. So some resource should be allocated to that too. By now, you are probably realising why you don’t upgrade so often. You may be a beta site or feel that your organisation is or needs to be seen as a trail blazer. While that is certainly a good way to make your supplier take notice of and mould to you, it does carry some risk.

Utilise your user group (or user group contacts privately), to find out who has upgraded to your target version and what problems they have encountered. Ask as many organisations as you can and be sure to do the reverse too. Help them to help you.
You can of course pay your supplier to have a resource with you to make the upgrade go smoothly. This can be a good investment if it achieves that aim. If you end up with 40 housing staff doing nothing for a day or so and you have followed that approach, it’s fair to say you should be reaching for the pen to write a very strong letter. Your users will be blaming you and your IT department if it goes wrong, not necessarily your software suppliers.

The worse story I ever heard was of an organisation that reputedly lost a whole six weeks as a result of an upgrade. I gather they wrote a letter, but even more dramatically, they went to tender before the year was out, excluding the incumbent supplier. As I have said above though, how you handle upgrades is important too, most suppliers will do their best, work with them and importantly resource your side properly.

Having been a user, IT Manager and MD of a major Housing System Supplier, boringly, you would always see me upgrading after the herd. After the first point or bug release. The IT equivalent of not being a pioneer, but following later with the women and children in the covered wagons. From the cowboy films I recall, it’s generally the pioneers who tend to end up with the arrows in their backs.

Read on to, Never satisfied, how to keep pushing your systems forward:

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2013/10/never-satisfied.html

If it aint Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, should you be upgrading at all?.



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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

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Aint Nothing Goin on but the Rent

If you do the Twitter thing, follow Tony.Smith at @hotpixUK

If you are at one of the UK’s housing associations or groups that reviews their tenancy rents the first week of April, you may not be a fan of this time of year. Its often a chaotic time, trying to meet the 28 day notification deadline before Monday the second. Why is it so stressful and such a rush? “How hard can it be?” (as senior managers love to say...)

Well, the process does not exactly creep up on everyone by surprise, but amazingly many RSL’s do leave it quite late to start. One of the best examples I have ever seen is one large housing group who start in October. (yes you read that right, 5 months ahead!). Like model pupils they also hit the spot on time every single year.

Good planning prevents last minute rushes to redesign notification letters and allows eleventh-hour changes (when that RPI changes madly maybe) to be easily accommodated. Unless you use rolling reviews, all year round, it’s worth checking you have staff familiar with the process. As it takes best part of a year to come around, last times rent review experts might be on maternity leave or may have left that particular team. Schedule some training where there are gaps and ensure that the annual review process is well documented.

Now in this day and age, we should be expecting our housing management system to help and assist us in the whole process. Particularly for the repetitive elements, such as letter generation and email notifications etc. Your residents generally know they will face a review annually or at some other predetermined time. Your customer service centre should also be able to confirm what their new charges will be once it’s waiting to be applied, inside the Rent module.

I have encountered RSL’s that don’t use the inbuilt review functions inside their housing management system. Some of the reasons cited are:

1)      It’s not available so we do it manually

2)      It’s not flexible enough so we do it outside and employ temps to key in all the new rents

3)      We did it once and it updated all the rents wrong

4)      We have changed our notification letters but we have not changed the system to work like that

5)      We do it manually, our admin team do it in overtime

Now, it’s a fact that just about all the main systems handle rent and account review. If they don’t quite do it the way you would prefer, look into uploading modelled figures from Excel (as a CSV - Comma Separated Variable file). Many offer this facility and its especially useful for service and factoring charges, which can be pretty unique in composition.

Your best friend at review time (and other times too!) is an up to date test system. It baffles me how many RSL’s don’t have one and have not the knowledge to snapshot the live database, on demand. It’s a valuable investment to pay your supplier to have this knowledge. Then, as you have guessed by now, you can test your rent review process to destruction, before unleashing it on the live database. So goodbye to reviewing every rent to zero and needing to pay your system supplier to reverse it, as I have seen happen.

Larger RSL’s and groups can generate many thousands of letters as part of the review process. Rather than handling this volume internally, find a specialist printer or direct mail house. Then you can send a data file securely zipped with a password and in some cases reduce costs by 60% or more. The key to this is adequate planning prior, agreement in good time of formats and communication to ensure the result will meet the required standard.

I have to say it has been good to hear, that some housing associations / groups notably Orbit, have fought to reduce rent increases, nearer to 6 & 6.5% this time around, to benefit residents, already suffering more expensive food & fuel prices. This is a harder thing for local authorities to do, squeezed on all angles. It’s refreshing to hear that Newcastle, Ipswich and Cambridge have expressed their opposition to sharp rises of over 8.2%. I hope more can find the courage to publically do so. 

No romance with no finance, Gwen Guthrie called it.




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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

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Call On Me

CRM or Customer Relationship Management seems to be a must have or if you have it a “must make a resolution to use it properly” area. Maybe yours comes from your HMS supplier, a CRM specialist or you are using the new off-the-shelf kid on the block Microsoft Dynamics CRM. On the latter, the programs and features are familiar to users and flexible for the varied needs

The business case for the expense of providing the module is often justified by employing CRM to serve customers better, have at our fingertips a comprehensive view of the resident or customer, drive efficiencies and save money. To make it really sing and dance decent integration, not duplication, is needed in my opinion. Then, probably integration requiring the minimum of ‘feeding and watering’.

Further icing on the cake, but by no means essential, is integration of email and SMS text with CRM to confirm and remind the caller, household or staff what’s been agreed. Also, a great use of SMS is allowing residents to text in for a call back if they are low on mobile credit. Now I wish Npower would offer me that service....

Investment in CTI ( computer to telephony integration ) is essential to quickly locate the caller in a majority of cases. Combinations of networks and call routes can mean however, that originator numbers are not always cleanly transferred through. EG if caller goes via another virtual department or service level in the telephony layer. Be aware of this when setting up your system as this can delay a solid link between these two areas sometimes for weeks or months. Also ensure any telephony will work correctly with Citrix or other forms of thin client. It’s not uncommon for expensive middleware or software modifications to be needed at the eleventh hour.

Problems then can come with shabby data. You know the stuff ‘265133’ when it should have the correct area code in it 01543 or 01922 preceding it. Also, how would CTI make sense of this one ‘01543265133-Mother 01543901781(work mon-wed 12-3pm)’. So expect initial dataclensing and an on-going battle to maintain and up to date quality contact numbers. I don't have to say "You know it makes sense....".

Retaining contact numbers in a standard place is essential to drive up efficiency. For example, storage of home numbers against a family group, mobiles against individual family or household members etc, everything can be found in a single place. The habit of people adding access numbers in special instructions etc, limits usefulness when other teams are looking for reliable and accurate contact numbers to chase arrears or talk about ASB incidents etc. Ensure you have a procedure and your staff understand and keep to it.

There will no doubt be resistance, as it will take another couple of mouse-clicks for someone, but think of the saving later when needed by a housing officer, support worker or a colleague in finance. A few more clicks are a small price to pay for some truly joined up thinking.

Prompt, consistent and accurate service can also be easily enforced with some level of scripting. Clever scripting can be used to consistently tailor service to resident needs. Variables or databoxes configured within the scripting environment can look at the contact, their family, property, neighbourhood, needs, services being accessed and sensibly guide the staff member through a service pathway tailored to this individual.

This approach can be used to great effect in situations where there is high staff turnover, multiple shifts in place or mixed experience or ability of operators. Again, expect resistance from staff who perceive the scripts take too long or do not cover every eventuality. Tackle this by ensuring that there is a feedback loop for staff and a trained individual in the customer service team, confident of the ‘recognised’ procedure and essentially how to tweak and add to the scripts set up.

One large organisation I have worked with utilise two customer service leaders to tackle repair and general scripting issues and improvements on a regular basis. You can watch operators at any time of day or night following scripts 95% or more of the time. That ensures that two similar customers at the two extremes of the organisation stock range, both receive a similar and consistent experience and (hopefully) the highest levels of satisfaction.

Oh, and one last thing to prioritise, regular customer skills and care training, as well as keeping up with the CRM module, particularly when upgrades are applied or new functions switched on. Getting involved with your suppliers user groups will pay dividends too. You will get to know your peers and their priority issues and be able to fight for improvements that will assist your own organisation.

Read on to : Get Connected

I wonder if Primal Scream ever deal with a call centre?.



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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,

CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS Template,COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,

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Safety in numbers

If you do the Twitter thing, follow Anthony Smith at @hotpixUK

“I spend ten days every month pulling these figures together, all I need is a really good reporting system in place, so I just need to press a button and my stats roll out!”

I remember the day someone asked me this. My reply was “If that were possible, would your housing association really need you around to press that button chum?”. I have been dining out on that anecdote for yonks, but seriously, should we not all have a button (labelled ‘Stats’) by now, that should spit out the rascals?

You would think so, although so many organisations still spend significant time and energy ‘pulling statistics together’ and getting the numbers together, each month, quarter or annually. Quite often Excel is a major part in the jigsaw in the process. To me, Excel is up there with Winzip, microwave ovens and kebabs as one of the greatest introductions of the last 20 years, but it’s got to be said that probably only 2% of ‘space cadet’ users generally tap its true power. That category often are revered and create the templates containing VLookUps (still a mystery to most, other than finance staff), that generate those periodic stats.

Everyone relies on them and they become the ‘single version of the truth’. A great phrase that should be in every tender, looking to procure reporting and business intelligence. It’s certainly in most suppliers reporting offering literature. Don’t consider anyone’s who doesn’t offer one version of the truth and why would you not?

Excel encourages and provides flexibility. In my experience, that can enable the finance department to report a 6.4% arrear against GAD (Gross Annual Debit), while the housing team reports 5.9%. Obviously, the housing team will have excluded the car-ports, repair recharges and court costs that never really are capable of being collected. The finance team will obviously report what hits their ledgers. Both will find the need to revise both figures when they find that their ‘space cadet’ users had made a slight Excel formula error. Sadly, both figures could have been wrong for the last 16 months. I have seen this happen and luckily, everyone could laugh about it afterwards.

But seriously, how do we go forward in the 21st century with ‘one version of the truth’ reporting? How do we get there?

Well, for a start integration helps. Can you relate all your information together in a single system or database? Every one of my customers know about my passion for integration. Technology should not be an obstacle if record ID’s (doh, I mean reference numbers) can be cross-referenced between systems, in different databases. So if you are of a mind to mix an Orchard Rents module with a Capita OpenHousing repairs module and a Civica Contact Manager, providing ODBC drivers are available (doh, the ‘plumbing’ I mean), there is no reason all that information should not be aggregated.

If you have that, you have the ingredients of integrated reporting.

Some HMS (Housing Management Systems) have integrated reporting modules. Not everyone buys them, you should be very careful to be sure they fit your needs before you do. Don’t assume. As they say, that makes an ‘Ass out of U and me’. ‘Caveat emptor’Let the buyer beware.

For some housing organisations, an independent reporting solution might be a better bet. I know of a few cracking ones, and they are selling lots of them, as core HMS suppliers are obviously not supplying that need.

Still, one last thought to leave you with, customisation and flexibility. This is important to every single RSL or housing group using reporting packages. In my experience, every organisation is aiming to reach the same goals, but they are coming at it from a different place. We are all unique, as are your residents and customers. Ability to take the reporting in whatever direction needed is essential. That should not exclude smaller RSL’s with no traditional IT resource, often those serving the most vulnerable in our society, often asylum seekers or recent migrants.

To work out if you have got your reporting right or wrong, check what resource is needed each month or quarter to create your statistics. Person time, how much you spend on the application software you present it in, the way you deliver it. If your costs are excessive, review what you are doing. Ask your peers for an honest opinion of what they are doing, then find a way to do it better.

Read on to : Going green in housing

The Adverts, always knew the safety in (reliable) numbers.


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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
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Model (DLO) Workers

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

 

What a housing world we might have if it were filled with model workers? Perhaps a utopia for managers and residents/customers alike, particularly where repairs are involved.

We have gone through a transition where local authority housing departments have been RSVT’d to Housing Associations and many DLO’s, internal contractors, contract services dealing with housing maintenance have been discarded. Some which have retained their DLO could now be patting themselves on the back, saving 20% in VAT on most repairs. Many that have been through that process (or some that never did), have now got that back on the table for consideration and why not? Maybe even one day networks of peer RSL's could benefit from the VAT benefits, where facilities can be shared.

Technology is now available to come to the aid of the humble internal contractor. This helps to tackle areas that formed the often unfair stereotype of ‘Direct Works’. That image of a van of council workers eating breakfast toast on the corner of the estate, not appearing to be very productive. Many years ago I was on the receiving end of a plumbing foreigner from a ‘DLO’ operative. It took four attempts and given the choice, for many reasons, I would not choose to go down that road again!

IT and system assistance, to help them run on a commercial footing comes in a number of forms. The major ones are:

• Dedicated contractor modules (with varying degrees of integration to any main HMS or asset management system/module)
• Diagnosis and scripting tools (to determine SORs generally)
• Stock links to building supplier / impressed stock support
• Workforce scheduling
• Mobile working and location tracking

Of course, running your own internal contractor involves the management and operational overhead of these system costs. This needs to be carefully factored in to any estimates of costs, when setting up. One other benefit is often involvement of local residents in the enterprise, for example through trade and apprenticeship schemes. Very important in my opinion and something that to me seems to have only recently trickled down from the more savvy national contractors, such as Morrisons and the like. Possibly we are only just starting to hear about it.

There are a number of areas to be aware of when looking at the application of IT to an internal workforce. Suitability of the contractors module is one key area. In my opinion, probably twelve operatives or greater, makes use of a module worth considering. Ensure it is fit for purpose. Particularly look at how it handles multi-day and multi-visit jobs, particularly voids and planned work. Strange as it may seem, some solutions out there appear to struggle with these very common housing requirements.

In addition to servicing your own stock, if you have an efficient workforce, have you ambitions to do work for other RSL’s, homeowners or other organisations (eg NHS trusts) in your locality? If so, ensure your chosen solution can handle flexible costing, billing, reporting etc matching your prospective external customer requirements. To bolt this on later might be costly or impossible later, even in a system that works well just for your own housing stock. The main independent solutions in no particular order are Task Total from Consilium, Servitor from Civica, OpenContractor (ex-IBS) from Capita and Uniclass from ROCC.

Good proven (ask to see it) integration between systems will reduce admin costs and can then be expected to provide a unified view of property condition to asset teams and housing staff on the ground. This can also be used to make some diagnosis software work better too, obviously ask what capabilities are. Do not assume that scripting and diagnosis software can interrogate current repair or asset state of the property, see this in practice to your satisfaction.

The other hot potato these days is ‘Scheduling’. This requires some looking outside the jacket. I have met many DLO managers, mainly large stocky chaps, who generally for me have fallen into two distinct camps; lovers of it and haters of it. The former have used it before and seen or perceived benefits. They are generally evangelists in terms of getting scheduling into the internal workforce, to drive efficiency. Few would dispute that scheduling software can reduce travel time and increase efficiencies.

While it is quite true that most scheduling systems can be easily installed in six to eight weeks, integrating and configuring them properly to your environment takes much, much longer. In some cases I have heard stories of between 18-24 months to tune for best efficiency. When depot managers join an organisation and champion scheduling as a silver bullet, they can have short memories of the final benefits, rather than the long period of growing pains to get scheduling embedded and accepted by the workforce. So it is vital to be realistic, your organisation will not be receiving maximum ROI from a basic shell of a scheduler.

The final elephant in the room is also culture. How closely tied or insulated the internal contractor team is from the main housing functions and how well developed processes are within it, will often determine if IT improvements will bring maximum benefits. I would suggest that thorough mapping and analysis of current (paper/manual) procedures, precedes IT selection and implementation.

Importantly, these days, it is a buyers market and most suppliers have woken up to that. Ensure you negotiate the best contract with your preferred supplier, keeping re-occurring costs as low as practical, reducing internal contractor overheads, still further.

Read on to banning internal email, less Outlook, more Yammer

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2012/11/yammer-be-there-banning-internal-email.html

Model Workers are not a new thing, one of my favourite bands explored it in early 1980. Why not click here and check it out.


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

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Social Media Transmission

Wow it seems the world and his partner are getting on Facebook, Blogger,Twitter, telling us where they are sitting, what they are eating and what they think about it. The interesting, witty, trivial and generally the controversial might well get re-tweeted. No wonder Winston Churchill’s saying, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on” rings more true than ever today.

So what should RSL’s and housing organisations be doing about SM and what’s the approach to make it work best?

It’s a given that organisations will have a website already with all the usual information presented in a corporate , but accessible fashion for residents and customers. Often these websites have a link to follow on Twitter and a RSS newsfeed. The example housing website I was looking at with Firefox had an error on the latter. I won’t tell you who, unless you contact me, but it illustrates that you need to be sure all this stuff works with the variety of browsers, desktop and mobile out there. (I bet you will be checking yours now wont you?).

It is important to get organised before your residents do. I have experience of one housing association which was upstaged by some resident’s blogs. These were setup for free, by ex-customers who had been through a perfectly completed eviction procedure, but wanted to broadcast their feelings. They quickly clocked up views, followers and prominence on web searches, such that in certain cases the blogs were easier to find than the official site.(Have you Googled your own organisation lately?)

This highlights a very important point. If SM is going to be utilised, a following/community needs to be built. You would be better doing it first, before dissatisfied customers do.

This of course does take resource and for once, it’s not much that’s needed from IT. The bad news though, is that someone will need to be designated to create/record content, such as service updates, bits of local news, events etc. It’s important to listen as well as broadcast too.

Maybe SM needs to show a milder face to the organisation, slightly more cuddly and approachable.  Thinking about what communities you service, maybe a number of geographic or sector channels of SM are needed, to reach everyone.

If criticisms or issues are highlighted, they must be tackled ASAP. Remember, the world is watching (or reading!). Such as in this example below, showing a clear attempt to follow up the issue (Bravo!):

Twitter and Facebook are probably the current two to start with, setting targets for follower numbers, to ensure effectiveness. Much like diversity information it would be tremendously useful to collect what their preferences are and how they change.  Will Google+ become what MySpace was? What kind of discussion do you want to create? About your service, their neighbourhood, social issues? Have a clear aim and try to set yardsticks internally in order to measure it.

Remember to try to focus it to the target community and post on a regular basis. Have something relevant to say at all times and being consistent is essential. It is likely that you will receive positive as well as negative feedback, ensure both are tackled equally and action is seen to be taken. In most cases, the issue or problem will be dealt with, off-line from Social Media. Avoid an on-line catfight at all costs.

Use posting guidelines internally. Decide too if staff are going to blog or tweet in a personal capacity or not, (All opinions are my own etc...). Any indecent, libellous,  or offensive content posted as external comments should of course be removed straight away. Common sense is certainly needed, we all know that the internet can be the wild west at times. 

While numbers of smartphones are increasing out there (some figures suggest more than PCs/Laptops are now being  purchased for browsing the web), are increasing, SM is not the silver bullet that will reach all residents. Use all channels to communicate, sometimes a note in a quarterly newsletter or on a poster, can have a far better effect than a weblink.  I have experienced this personally when setting up SM recently to re-open my local library.  Sharing content across a number of SM platforms can also be of great benefit. Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com/ ) and other on-line apps are a godsend in this area and well worth looking at.

So, make SM your friend. Decide who you are doing it for; residents, staff, communities, spreading best practice and higher level ideas to your peers etc. Let your followers become your friends, get out and build something not out of bricks and mortar for a change!
Decide how you are going to transmit your messages by SM. Let the Playmobil men help you decide.


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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS Template,COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,
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Are existing housing system suppliers holding back Systems Thinking?

There’s been lots of discussion and comment on John Seddon and his ‘Systems thinking’ approach to the way public sector service delivery can be improved. I am a big fan of that idea of looking at the whole process as a single ‘system’ and the primary focus on the customer, putting their needs first at all times.

The TPS (Toyota Production System) is a thing of beauty and having travelled extensively in Japan ( こんにちは日本のすべての私の読者に。 歓迎! ), that focus on continual improvement is evident wherever you travel. In fact in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, the equivalent of Curry’s sell product designs that will not appear in the UK or elsewhere outside Japan, until they have been sufficiently refined and improved.That reminds me, I never did take that rice cooker back!

In the UK and particularly within housing, successive regimes have expanded the range of returns and statistics required of organisations. This has created abstract yardsticks that management and staff are working to, quite remote in some cases to the residents and customers the whole organisation is delivering to.  The amount of inspections, surveys, returns etc, all add waste to the system. IT modules tend to support all these areas and so can perpetuate the regime.

I think John Seddon regards HMS suppliers as helping perpetuate the regime, as they supply to the provided specification. Unfortunately that does include all the bloat, the top down command and control regime expects to be there. I have experience of private sector IT suppliers and our focus is the customer. It can only be like that, as without that concept in the spotlight we would not be in business.  Without the baggage described above, marks would be lost in tender sections and chances of reaching the demo stages are very slim. So I think suppliers are doomed to be branded with the regime at large. In England at least, it does appear that with the demise of the TSA, regulation at least there looks to as if it may be further watered down. Maybe not so for the rest of the UK.

That is not to say that suppliers Housing Management Systems are generally as rigid as the regime. They often wrongfully are. I have worked with at least some of the RSL’s that have taken on the recommendations of Vanguard and John Seddon’s System Thinking for housing repairs and managed it with the existing HMS.

It needs an alternative mindset when thinking about configuring the HMS and may well need some assistance from your IT team or suppliers helpdesk. You may need some small tweaks (one or more requests for change). For example, to the standard repair priorities of emergency, urgent and routine can usually be added a fourth ‘Agreed With Resident’.  This can be used in any trial in order to prove that appreciable improvements are being made. Possibly, too the original ‘prescribed’ priority can be determined, in order to show improvements.

Schedule of rates can also usually be watered down to the scope needed by use of a separate table. Possibly by reducing 2000+ NHF SORs to a few dozen general starting categories, that can then be the basis for empowered tradespersons to carry out the work to the customers satisfaction.

CRM and Workflow are two other areas that can be designed, configured and implemented by rote. As John describes, this can multiply waste, drive up transaction volume, customer frustration and dissatisfaction. CRM and workflow can be generally be configured to focus on outcomes fairly easily, where teams have been formed for the purpose.

I would welcome your comments and experiences on Systems Thinking in your organisation.

Read on to :Microsoft and other licensing, how dependent we are on these costs

Luckily Systems thinking didn't affect us too much in the 1980's.


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

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS Template,COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,
Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Deeplake,Development Systems,Document Management,Documotive,ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,Finance,Financial Systems,Getting best from,Grasp,Grip,hardware,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housing Group,Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce,Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Invu,Ireland,Irish,IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld,Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,management reporting,Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,mobile functionality,Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Northgate
,Notice,NROSH,OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,Paloma,performance management systems,PfH,Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities,Planned maintenance,Plus,PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid, QL,QLX,Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC, Rocket,RPs,RSL,Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scotland,SDM,sector,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Servitor,Servitor,Sharepoint,Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Media,Software,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting Services,SQL reporting services,SQL Server,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic Asset Management,Sunguard ,Surveys,Sx3,System alignment,Task,Terminal Services,Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universe,Unrest,Van Stock,Voice and data,Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Xmbrace,XML, 07854-655009 , 07854655009 , 07854 655009 , "07854 655009" , tonysmith , thathousing , thathousingit , thathousingITguy, guy