Satisfaction Guaranteed

Buyers of enterprise software have typically have had very few, and mostly unpalatable options available to them to remedy a systems implementation project gone awry.

Let's say the company is seven months in to the project, the software is either not functioning properly, the project team is either understaffed, incapable, or dysfunctional, or funding has been withdrawn.

What are the options?

1. Cut bait - Scrap the project, send away the consultants, don't renew the software and maintenance licenses, and perhaps write-off the project costs to date, (and possibly look for a new job). The project was important but not important enough to cripple the organization.

2. Vendor wrestling - Needed when the primary cause of the problems are software bugs. Hopefully you have enough juice to lean hard on the vendor to get some action on outstanding issues, and while you are at it maybe you can wring some free training credits or a couple of passes to the next user conference out of them.

3. Clean the decks - Sack the consultants you are working with, install a new project manager, form a new 'core team', and re-launch the project.  Toss in a (second) big kick-off meeting and make a few stirring speeches about lessons learned, and a need to change processes, etc.  This might work. Maybe.

4. Re-open the vendor evaluation - This is the old 'it's not me it's you scenario'.  Maybe the organization did not take enough time in the vendor selection process and a 'fit' between the client's needs and the solutions capabilities did not materialize.  Starting all over again with a new solution might work.  Or it might not.

5. Sue - Who can the organization sue?  The software vendor, the consulting partners, maybe both.  There are some celebrated and high-profile cases of organizations suing for damages over failed enterprise software implementations.

6. Get a refund - What? Refund?  There are no refunds in enterprise software are there? Typically not.  But this week Halogen Software, a leading provider of Talent Managment software announced a new 'money-back guarantee'. According to the company:

After using one of our assisted implementation programs to bring any one of our products into your organization, if you’re not happy with it, we will refund in full your unused subscription fees – as long as you let us know within 6 months of your purchase date

Halogen is the only vendor in this class that offers such a program, and I think it's uniqueness is a testament to Halogen's faith and track record of excellent customer support. 

But it is also telling that in projects that can be incredibly complex, expensive, lengthy, and risky that having a guarantee of any kind is extremely unusual. Full marks to Halogen for having the courage to offer such a guarantee, we will see if any other vendors follow suit.

Does anyone have any knowledge of other enterprise software vendors that offer a comparable guarantee?

While you contemplate the question, have a look at my favorite 'refund' scene, from 'Breaking Away'

O Canada

This week has been crazy, first getting accosted in a mall parking lot on the way to RecruitFest, and then the fantastic RecruitFest event itself (and an even better party afterword), and followed on Thursday a chance to meet the team at Rypple and Halogen.

If you don't know about Rypple, you really should take some time and check out their service.

Designed to enable individuals to solicit anonymous feedback from trusted advisors, colleagues, friends, customers, or students, it is a fantastically simple, yet powerful solution.  Users craft a simple and concise question, and get feedback that they can use to improve their performance.  The feedback is stored by Rypple, so users can track their performance over time.

Rypple was selected to present as the Cool New Technologies session at next week's HR Technology Conference, and I recommend you check out what is happening at Rypple, the team is constantly improving and innovating and some really interesting new features are in the works.

I left the team at Rypple to head to Ottawa, home of Halogen Software, a provider of strategic talent management solutions and a long time supporter of my HR Technology class.  Halogen continues to innovate in the talent management space, with the recent release of next generation Talent Profiles and and a new Activity Tracker, that collects all activity related to performance and development and presents the information in a consolidated feed.

And most fun of all, today Friday September 26 at 6PM EDT the folks from Halogen will be my guests on the HR Happy Hour show - 'Talent and Technology'.  We will be talking about the role technology can play in helping organizations manage, assess, and optimize talent to help the organization meet its strategic objectives.  Since we are in Canada, I imagine we will also talk a little hockey and perhaps enjoy a few Tim Horton's donuts.

Thanks again to Connie, Maggie, Brent, Donna, Sean and the entire Halogen team for welcoming me to Halogen and letting me broadcast the show from Halogen HQ.

Social Networking vs. CB Radio

I am hitting the road later today traveling to Toronto for RecruitFest, meeting with the great folks at Rypple, then on to Ottawa to visit my friends at Halogen Software (and do a live HR Happy Hour show).

I am driving so there will be lots of time in the car, and that pretty much means lots of time 'off the grid' and disconnected from social media and networks.

Too bad I don't have my old CB Radio.I could do some 'old-school' social networking in the car.

For those who don't remember CB's check out the lengthy article on Wiikipedia.

CB Radio culture was celebrated in movies, television, and music.

In many ways the CB Radio was the early form of technology-enabled social networking.  The band served many of the same purposes that social networks like Twitter do today, news, ('the bridge is out on I-77'), inside information, ('Kojak with a Kodak on US46'), and pure socializing, ('Breaker one-two, this is Greasemonkey, anyone have their ears on, come back?').

But are today's social networks, like Facebook and Twitter superior to the classic CB Radio? 

The Tale of the Tape:

Feature	Social Networks	CB Radio	Advantage
Primary users	Pretty much everyone	Long haul truckers	CB Radio
Iconic figures	Robert Scoble, Ev, Jack	Betty Ford, Jackie Gleason	CB Radio
Star power	Hammer, Ashton Kutcher	Burt Reynolds	Push
Theme song	'United Breaks Guitars'	'Convoy'	Social Networks
Business Benefits	Connect with customers, prospects, candidates	Find cheap gas	Social Networks
Signature vehicles	Mini Cooper, Smart Car	Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am, Kenworth 18 Wheeler	CB Radio
'Anti-social' features	Multi-level-marketing	Disregard for traffic regulations	CB Radio
Networks fostered by	Friending, The 'ReTweet', 'Follow Friday'	Keeping each other out of jail, Truck Stop parties	CB Radio
Signal the end was near	Grandma is on Facebook	Cell phone technology	Social Networks

Well, it is clear- CB Radio tops Social Networks!

Time to figure out a new handle, I hope it doesn't wreck my personal brand.

Thanks to Jerry Albright for the original idea to write this post.

Steve's HR Tech: Hitting the Road

In the next few weeks I will be getting out of the ROC (finally) and hitting up a series of events in the coming days, and thought it made sense to summarize them here.

September 23 and 24 - Recruitfest 2009 - Toronto

I am really looking forward to this event.  While I am not myself a recruiter, the tools and technologies that recruiters are adopting are really interesting to me, they are a part of my HR Technology class topics, and the chance to see a live Animal show were all too compelling to pass up.

September 25 - Heading to Ottawa to meet with my friends from Halogen Software.  Regular readers of this blog will remember that Halogen has been a fantastic supporter of my class, and the HR social media space for a long time. I am really looking forward to learning more about their latest product developments. 

In addition, we will do a special 'remote' HR Happy Hour show from the Halogen offices on Sept 25, more details on that show will be posted on the HR Happy Hour site.

September 30 - I am speaking on HR Technology at the WTPF annual professional development event in Washington, DC. The WTPF is a Business Forum for HR Professionals, comprised of Human Resources professionals and thought leaders in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area.

September 30 - October 2 - The HR Technology Conference in Chicago.  I will be meeting many leaders in the HR Tech space, getting interviews, doing some video blogs, and overall trying to learn and share as much as I can about the future of HR Technology. 

I am talking to some folks about doing another remote HR Happy Hour show from HR Tech, more details to come.

November 6-7 - The HRevolution - Louisville, Kentucky.  The first ever HR Blogging/Social Media Unconference. I am really excited about this event and have been honored to be a small part of the event planning.  This promises to be a great time and I will be leading a session on new and innovative technologies that HR pros can leverage.

A New HR Blog Search Tool

My friends at Halogen Software have launched a neat tool on their site, an 'HR Blog Search Engine'.

The tool does a custom Google search of the many if not all of the top HR and HR Technology Blogs for relevant content.  So if you want to know what the HR Bloggers are writing or thinking about on a particular topic, this is a tool worth checking out.

Just enter your search criteria in the 'Search' box and you are on your way.

For example a search on 'Leadership' brings the following results from some top HR Blogs like 'Great Leadership' and 'Fistful of Talent'.

And happily for me, a search on 'HR Technology' yields the following list of results:

Thanks very much to the good people at Halogen for building this neat tool for searching the HR blogosphere, and of course for including my HR Technology blog in the search results so prominently.

I will definitely make use of the search tool to help find information, insights, and when I find myself thinking, 'I know that the HR Bartender wrote about that, let me find that post again'.

If you are a blogger, or a fan of an HR Blog that you would like included in the search results, contact pr@halogensoftware.com and let the folks at Halogen know.