A Roadmap for the Successful Implementation of Competitive Intelligence Systems

THE SUCCESSFUL DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF A SUCCESSFUL CI system requires a good project plan. Much [ike a roadmap, this plan serves to identify important miLestones and provide information about alternative routes that can help the project team(s) avoid delays. According to a survey by the Delphi Group, 58% of the useful knowledge of an organization is recorded information (documents and databases) and 42% resides in employee brains (Hickens 1999). Integrating knowledge management and competitive intelligence encourages their use, improves their quality and allows the firm to respond more rapidly to changing business conditions (Senge 1994), so the best CI system uses what is already inside the organization. One of the first decisions is whether to improve access to the organization's recorded information or elicit knowledge that currently resides in employee brains. Regardless of format or location, an organization's knowledge is generally filtered through both a cognitive dimension and a relatio nship dimension.

The cognitive dimension focuses on the "stuff," but to identify the important attributes of the relevant "stuff," it is important to know how it is filtered through the relationship dimension. The relationship dimension has the following characteristics:
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Purpose -- the organization's business purpose, its vision, mission, goals and objectives

Process -- the means by which strategic initiatives are moved from "clean sheet" to launch

People -- the "four - ics"

* Demographics -- personal characteristics of current and potential users (e.g., position, education and training, learning style)

* Psychographics -- personal belief systems that impact action/reaction/interaction

* Geographics -- factors of culture, distance and time

* Politics -- formal/informal lines of authority, innovation and trust (Shelfer and Goodrum 1999)

The planning process and the project itself must take these characteristics into consideration in order to be successful. In fact, the successful CI system might also be likened to the steps involved in successful community gardening: (1) seed the ground, (2) water and fertilize what you plant, (3) weed the garden, (4) reward the gardeners, (5) discourage the predators, and (6) harvest the value.

Indicators of Project Failure or Project Success

Experienced consultants have identified the following critical failure indicators: (1) lack of informed consensus; (2) acceptance of the status quo; (3) unwarranted trust in the vendor; (4) failure to support the business purpose; (5) a short term, internal, myopic approach; (6) paralysis by analysis; (7) sabotage by external predators; (8) suicide through ignoring project constraints; and (9) failure to consider business, human or technology limitations imposed on the project (Tyson, 1998). Careful planning is the best form of failure prevention. There are both management constraints and technical constraints to be considered. Management constraints involve three key problem areas--time, money and scope. The flexibility needed to deliver a quality project is severely hampered if any one or two of these three are fixed. For example, project constraints impact deadline constraints. A fixed budget with deadline constraints generally kills any chance of success. Regarding technical constraints, is there any fle xibility in terms of the tools available? It is imperative to avoid getting caught up in the "trade rag" hype, so a warning is appropriate here: NEVER buy off vendor presentations! Other key factors to consider include experience, whether legacy systems are involved and whether the system will be "bleeding edge" or a patch. It helps to know if this system will be a pilot for knowledge-sharing in the organization.

Unlike failure, success can't be guaranteed, but it is much more likely if the project includes: (1) flexible design; (2) willingness to implement a mechanized "less than ideal" system; (3) use of an evolutionary approach with prototyping; (4) giving users substantial (to total) control; (5) coordination by individual business units; and (6) active networking. Though there are many factors contributing to software project success, the presence of a committed project sponsor is one of the most important early success factors (Proccacino and Verner 2001). A committed sponsor has a significant impact on many of the project phases and project functions, including the (1) schedule estimates, (2) quality of the project team members, and (3) degree of interaction with other stakeholders.