How a CIO can enhance their leadership qualities by making the right calls when it comes to interface design?
How many times have you heard from your DBA that your Kronos interfaces are too complex and that any changes would have to be performed by Kronos? How many times have you sent your most promising resource to a Kronos Connect class only to find they continue to struggle with Connect interfaces? If you are like many Kronos customers your answer is one of frustration and seemingly without a solution. Many DBAs avoid Connect like the plague due to the complexities of Links, Lookup tables and Calculations. We call this a "Kronos Centric Interface Design".
A Kronos Centric Design paints the CIO into a corner because the CIO is forced to staff Kronos Connect talent or keep going back to the vendor. "What can I do? We chose Connect to interface with Kronos and this is how Connect works. To modify our interfaces we must have a Connect expert and they reside at the very expensive Kronos KGS. Right?"
Wrong. Please read on...
First a little about Kronos interfaces and maintaining staff morale. The CIO must keep in mind that the typical Connect experience is not only frustrating at the senior management level but also down through the ranks of the technical support team. Nobody wants to be able support the Connect interfaces internally more that the CIO's technical team. That sounds great but how do we do it? How do we interface with Kronos in such a way that our DBA can say with pride that any changes to interfaces are well within the skill sets of the internal technical support staff?
Simple, design the interfaces using the skill sets the support staff bring to the table and minimize the use of Kronos Connect to only accessing the APIs. The CIO has to make his/her staff want to support the interfaces. The CIO will have to show some leadership and express confidence in the support staff in allowing them to design and build the interfaces. We call this approach a "Customer Centric Interface Design".
But how can that be? Surely if there was an easier way to develop Kronos interfaces everyone would be doing it. Right? Wrong. The customer's PM will have to make a gutsy call against the advice of the Kronos PM. He/she will need the support of the CIO. How gutsy is your PM?
With a Customer Centric Interface Design your DBA will be very confident in his/her ability to support your interfaces. More importantly the technical support will eagerly want to take ownership of the interfaces. The CIO will emerge a true leader because he/she displayed confidence in his/her staff in deciding to use internal skill sets to develop the interfaces rather that outsource the task to Kronos.
The Kronos interfaces do not have to be the headache that must be outsourced to Kronos. They and actually be a very good team building experience. It just takes a little leadership from the CIO.
"Arouse in other people an eager want." Dale Carnegie.
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Integration Guru and Oracle DBA Eugene Harrison, SAP FICO, HCM, PP-APO, ABAP, has opinions about the best way to do stuff. This blog and his white paper are examples of these opinions. We welcome your comments and discussion.
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