There is a game that used to be popular in arcades called “Whack-a-mole”. The game was pretty simple in concept, you have an enormous (soft) hammer, and there are 7 or 8 moles (small rodents) that popped up one at a time and you had to hit them. As you hit one, another popped up. So you never actually solved your fake rodent problem - as soon as you solved the one, another popped up.
This is what often happens when a company is looking for a CPM solution. They face a pressing process challenge and often wait until the pain gets to be pretty severe before they do something about it. When they do start to look for a solution they become so focused on solving the immediately problem, the pain they are experiencing, that they define the requirements for a new solution with only this single pain in mind. The result? A solution that does just that - it fixes the immediate pain. They hit the mole. But then, almost immediately, another mole pops up. Another pain that needs to be addressed.
We see it all too often - companies are back in the market 2 years after implementing a solution because it didn’t scale the way they expected, or it couldn’t handle new acquisitions, it couldn’t be extended to handle additional processes or it had to be completely redone to accomplish meet new analysis or reporting needs (either internal or external/disclosure).
When you embark on the process of looking for a CPM solution it is imperative that you look beyond your immediate needs. Have a discussion with your CFO, business units, and departments to understand the strategy past the initial pain point; understand what they need and want to make better business decisions.
You can then put together a roadmap of how to get there:
Phase 1: solve immediate pain,
Phase II: incorporate other needs,
Phase III: extend to additional processes and operations, etc.
With this road map in mind, you can then define your requirements for a solution that will solve the immediate pain, accommodate changes to your business, AND grow with you.
Impossible? No. I was recently at our annual Users Conference and I saw presentation after presentation of companies on this journey, or have already taken their companies to new heights in their world of Corporate Performance Management. Insurance companies, banks, manufacturers, retailers - medium sized to very large. Each with unique needs, but each with the foresight to look beyond their immediate pain. And now they are reaping the benefits of that foresight.
So as you look to a CPM solution to solve your pressing problem, think bigger, but plan a realistic, phased roll-out. Solving immediate pain is important and you should not compromise on that, just don’t let it blind you to the fact that there will be another mole that pops up after that one. That is inevitable so make sure you plan for it.
By Paul Giardina, from: http://www.tagetik.com/blog/authors/paul-giardina/2014-10-03-cpm-whackamole#.VDLpcWddV8E