I’m extremely tired, and after talking to many clients of and executives at Successfactors (SF), I feel more enthused about their product direction. We’re not alone when it comes to our admin issues and our flexibility needs! It’s refreshing to meet other clients with some of the same issues and hopefully, we can leverage these in the future. Their foray into social collaboration seems timely given the economy and the potential impact it can have for companies trying to create more value with less people. This is intriguing. If they can add some meat to this offering (security, reports, workflow), then they might have something unique in the marketplace. Let’s wait and see.
The two days began with an Advanced Admin Boot Camp training session. I was cautiously optimistic when we saw this offering. We have challenges managing forms and processes given the dynamic and flexible nature of our organization. To my dismay, my cautiousness was warranted. The ‘Advanced’ workshop was more basic than expected and didn’t address our needs. Don’t get me wrong, I did learn some things and the instructor was engaging and informative. However, our hope was to learn how we might be able to manage the admin craziness that we deal with on a daily basis. With that as success criterion, we failed.
The official conference began with Successfactors’ CEO talking about their roadmap (and Employee Central as the headline), a case study by a Vail project manager, a look into mockups of Successfactors’ revamp of their ATS, and a deeper dive into Employee Central.
The ATS looks impressive. Rich and dynamic but it’s still too early to make any conclusions. Thanks to the Siemens deal, the ATS looks like it’s going to be extremely robust. A big plus, given the potential integration benefits with other SF tools. Wait. No integration to competencies! What? Seems like a waste if you’ve developed some valuable strategy aligned competencies.
Employee Central. Is SF getting into the Employee System of Record (SOR) business or is this simply a new way of managing core HR data? I didn’t get a definitive answer. One thing is for certain however. For some companies that don’t have an HRIS system, Employee Central may meet their needs, especially if SF adds configurable custom fields (which sounds like is on the roadmap). It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds.
The second day began with a talk from SF executives about how a company might align the SF tools with business strategy, more learning and sharing with other clients, and chats with SF product management about product direction. Message to SF. Project based companies are a reality, learn how to capture the formal and informal relationships inherent in these organizations (employees and non-employees), build security, reporting tools, and workflow around these relationships, and you will be on your way to capturing the future of organizations.
Thoughts?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Same Class.. Different People, Systems, and Technology...
The summer session has begun, and amidst all the changes going on in my personal life, the constant of my class is now a reality. Going into my third semester, common wisdom would assume that things should be easier. In some ways, things are easier. The nervousness associated with standing in front of your peers and speaking intelligently about a subject where you are the 'expert' lessens, but the content, because of the nature of content (technology) changes and therefore the class inherently changes.
I've always been a individual who values continuous improvement, and this class is no different. Last semester, things went well. However, the traditional way of 'testing' with midterms and finals rubbed me and the students the wrong way. Even though the students were comprehending and internalizing the content, the midterm and finals simply got in the way of learning. It became a formality. Grades are still required and important because it provides valuable objective feedback to the students. However, I wanted to eliminate the angst associated with cramming for midterms and finals, but still have a way of gauging comprehension.
This semester, we're going to have weekly class quizzes instead of midterm and final tests. This, I hope, will be better for everyone. It would provide students more immediate feedback, allowing them to make a correction with a smaller impact on their overall grade (what a concept, wouldn't it be great if work was like this! :-) This would also, I hope, increase retention of the material allowing for more effective learning in the long-term. Granted, this might be a little more work for me, but thanks to testing technology, the work should be a lot less compared to a manual process.
The other change I hope to make is with homework. In the past, homework was given in the traditional fashion. They were given, read, and credited. I found this difficult to manage because of the volume of homework and it's relevancy. Because of the subject (HR technology), I would need to continue to find current and relevant content related to the class themes. This semester, I hope to leverage the brain trust out in the 'HR technology' world to provide content for homework for my class. This would make the homework 'assignments' more relevant and current, and the homework process becomes a more sustainable part of the class.
How do I propose to do this? Using the power of twitter technology, we will create a small community consisting of our class members. We will communicate using this tool, using the hashtag of #hrst, for posts on the public timeline. I will post articles, videos, blogs, and other relevant topics, and will add the hashtag of #hrst if relevant to our class. I will also retweet (RT) other posts that might be of interest to the class. I would hope that the students would explore and do the same if they follow posts that might be of interest to others in the class. In this way, we can multiply the content that's available to the class that's relevant to our topic for the week. To get credit for homework, the student would read, watch, listen to something relevant to our class and blog about it. Once blogged, post link to twitter with a summary (eg great read on future of work, http://link), and add the hashtag #hrst. This would allow not only me, the instructor, to read the blog and give credit, but also others in the class, as well as other people who are following that student can also read that person's comments and opinions. Thoughts are then shared easier across the class and potentially the world, increasing the knowledge available to the world. Wow!
Thoughts?
I've always been a individual who values continuous improvement, and this class is no different. Last semester, things went well. However, the traditional way of 'testing' with midterms and finals rubbed me and the students the wrong way. Even though the students were comprehending and internalizing the content, the midterm and finals simply got in the way of learning. It became a formality. Grades are still required and important because it provides valuable objective feedback to the students. However, I wanted to eliminate the angst associated with cramming for midterms and finals, but still have a way of gauging comprehension.
This semester, we're going to have weekly class quizzes instead of midterm and final tests. This, I hope, will be better for everyone. It would provide students more immediate feedback, allowing them to make a correction with a smaller impact on their overall grade (what a concept, wouldn't it be great if work was like this! :-) This would also, I hope, increase retention of the material allowing for more effective learning in the long-term. Granted, this might be a little more work for me, but thanks to testing technology, the work should be a lot less compared to a manual process.
The other change I hope to make is with homework. In the past, homework was given in the traditional fashion. They were given, read, and credited. I found this difficult to manage because of the volume of homework and it's relevancy. Because of the subject (HR technology), I would need to continue to find current and relevant content related to the class themes. This semester, I hope to leverage the brain trust out in the 'HR technology' world to provide content for homework for my class. This would make the homework 'assignments' more relevant and current, and the homework process becomes a more sustainable part of the class.
How do I propose to do this? Using the power of twitter technology, we will create a small community consisting of our class members. We will communicate using this tool, using the hashtag of #hrst, for posts on the public timeline. I will post articles, videos, blogs, and other relevant topics, and will add the hashtag of #hrst if relevant to our class. I will also retweet (RT) other posts that might be of interest to the class. I would hope that the students would explore and do the same if they follow posts that might be of interest to others in the class. In this way, we can multiply the content that's available to the class that's relevant to our topic for the week. To get credit for homework, the student would read, watch, listen to something relevant to our class and blog about it. Once blogged, post link to twitter with a summary (eg great read on future of work, http://link), and add the hashtag #hrst. This would allow not only me, the instructor, to read the blog and give credit, but also others in the class, as well as other people who are following that student can also read that person's comments and opinions. Thoughts are then shared easier across the class and potentially the world, increasing the knowledge available to the world. Wow!
Thoughts?
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