CIOs also have to understand how employees report their progress on assignments, note time on each project and bill for their work. If such business processes are not in place and clearly spelled out before the software is in place, it isn’t going to work. All the technology in the world cannot compensate for a disorganized work environment, as Fink-Jensen discovered.

Culture Shock

Since Intria-HP began life as the product of a merger between a hardware company and a bank, it had no in-house store of knowledge to turn to in setting up the right kind of processes for a consultancy. "We weren’t set up to have a handle on getting [consulting] work into the organization and knowing who the work was assigned to," Fink-Jensen says. "So we had difficulty in knowing what commitments we could make and what we couldn’t make."

To solve the problem, the company turned to Account4 PSA software, now known as Lawson Professional Services Automation. They began to roll out the software in August 2000, and by January 2001 they had 900 users. But it didn’t take long for the problems to start piling up. It started at the most basic level: People simply didn’t use the software.

"Under the old way of doing things when we were owned by the bank, there were a lot of back doors for getting work done," says Fink-Jensen. "And those back doors stayed open?so people in IT were doing work when requested, but without reporting it [in the software]." And without people reporting their work into the software, he says, there was no way for managers to use it to manage and control projects.

In fact, experts say, the biggest obstacle to implementing PSA software has nothing to do with technology?it has to do with corporate culture. People may not like the idea that they have to document everything they do, and they may balk at finding out about their daily tasks from software rather than directly from superiors.

Using the software will mean that people’s work lives become much more structured. An IT worker, for example, might log in to the PSA system in the morning and find out what jobs have to be done that day. He would then fill out Web-based time sheets for when each task must be accomplished. "You need to explain to the people doing the work why [PSA software] is important, to let them know that it can make their lives easier," Hofferberth notes.