Getting Plone introduced into large scale business operationsA “New to Plone” Talk

Peter Breithaupt N.V. Nederlandse GasunieCEO WedgeMatch, BioBench & Vertogas

Who’s talking?Peter Breithaupt

Ph.D. combustion engineering

business development for renewable energy and energy efficiency service companies

executing merger & acquistions in the gas industry

entrepeneur: developing new web-based services for renewable energy ventures

“very” new to Plone!

Who is Gasunie?Continental Europe’s largest independent natural gas transport company

length of pipeline network:14,600 km

yearly transport volumes:126 billion m³

number of employees:1,730

yearly revenues:ca. € 1.7 billlion

asset growth 2007-08:ca. 40% including assets under construction

Provide a storyline for using PloneOutline an implementation strategy which creates endorsement by creating an “epidemic” using smart business experiments

A typical IT landscape of a gas infrastructure company

Hardware

Entire infrastructure outsourced to “blue chip service provider”

Server park largely Microsoft-based

Closed network

Applications

SCADA proprietary

Billing proprietary

SAP Oil & Gas

Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft Desktop

Current state of IT-systems?The “Not Invented Here” and “Cover Your Ass” syndromes have created lots of risks and costs!

Can Open-Source help?

Gartner (February 2008)

“By 2012, 80 per cent of all commercial software will include elements of open-source technology”

“Many open-source technologies are mature, stable and well supported”

“Ignoring this (rem: open source) will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage.”

So why are we not using it?The open-source conundrum is kept alive by both, the “hardcore” OSS community and commercial software vendors.

A lesson learnt:Avoid direct confrontation with the “corporate IT establishment”.

Instead,outsmart the “bulls”.Our approach: Introduce the concept of executing smart business experiments to penetrate innovation into business operations.

The idea of the tipping pointThe Tipping Point is that dramatic moment when little causes drive the unexpected to become expected and propel the idea of radical change to certain acceptance.

The Tipping point (an epidemic) is a function of:

The Law of the Few: A tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work to build momentum.

The Stickiness Factor: Stickiness means that a message makes an impact – it’s memorable.

The Power of Context: Human beings are a lot more sensitive to their environment than they seem.

source: Malcolm Gladwell, The tipping point, Little Brown, 2000

What are smart business experiments?

Too many commercial software solution initiatives are launched on “a wing and a prayer” - despite that it’s now reasonable to expect truly valid tests.

With small investment in training, readily available software, and the right encouragement, an organization can build a “test and learn” capability.

Companies that equip managers to perform small-scale, yet rigorous experiments don’t only save themselves from expensive mistakes - they also make it more likely that great ideas will see the day of light.

source: Harvard Business Review, February, 2009

What was our problem?Rapid growth has generated lots of documentation and focus on external business networks.Urgent need to provide a safe platform to store, search & share information with the outside world.

The corporate IT solution

Microsoft SharePoint

Imbedded in corporate IT system

Not accessible for external parties

Lousy search functionality(remedy: higher costs)

Corporate project management

10 “ICT managers” involved

complex & customised

Turn-around time more than 6 weeks

High costs

Customer lock-in

The corporate IT solution

What we really wanted ...Search, Search, Search

Finding documents back is more important than a “smart” folder structure!

Secure & Safe access every time & everywhere

Services which allow rapid upload of data from other mass storages, such like CD’s.

But above all, we wanted to create an epidemic!

What we really wanted ...Search, Search, Search

Finding documents back is more important than a “smart” folder structure!

Secure & Safe access every time & everywhere

Services which allow rapid upload of data from other mass storages, such like CD’s.

But above all, we wanted to create an epidemic!

A lopsided comparison

SharepointICT project

managementPlone

Goldmund, Wyldebeast & Wunderliebe

Search

Secure & Safe

Services

Speed

Costs

poor, high costs

best in class

bad track recordprovensecurity

distributed,non-core activity

single-point,core offering

months days

at least5 to 10 times higher than Plone

Setting up the scene for the smart business experiment

Product

Setting up the scene for the smart business experiment

Product

Contracts

Create single point responsibility.

Setting up the scene for the smart business experiment

ProductDocumentation

Training

Contracts

PlatformServices

Outsource entire service.

Then secure the project against corporate hi-jackers

Set-up very strict governance guidelines

Mirror single point responsibility in your organisation!

No customisation! Standard Plone interface!!!!!!!

Training mandatory!

All additional services to be agreed in Service Level Agreements!

What have we achieved...GTKY

Sep.’08

3 days toproof-of concept

with real documents

3 days

Oct.’08governance guidelines

service levelagreements

CMS system operational Google “look”

create tipping point

Feb.’09

2nd application

search function drives further interest

Mar.’09

1

25

rapid growth of portals

12

1st Plone user day

Nov.’09

No. of Plone portals

103

204070

No. of Users

Aug.’09

add OCR functionality

So why did it work?The tipping point

Law of the Few: Some “Mavens” started the project

Stickiness Factor: Google “look” & superior search functionality

Power of Context: Sense of urgency to store documentation

Smart business experiment

Low-cost (simple & standard)

All-in-one service provision by partner company

Rigourous safeguarding of portal application

And finally:Always celebrate!Success has many fathers and mothers.