Why do you want that?

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It is a quiet morning here at work and I am in my thoughts.

I started working at my current company ~3 years ago. I was familiar with the concept of ERP and I had experience with other software, but I had never heard of Epicor until my first day on this job. Since then it has been a journey of learning about the unique challenges here, and Epicor itself.

I view two major components of my role here to be first cultivating engagement from everyone to constantly learn the capabilities of the system and discover new ways to leverage it to make their jobs easier and work more effectively, and second, to be the steward of this system and to mold it and shape it in a way that I feel best accomplishes this.

One aspect I find, maybe not difficult, but at least interesting to navigate, is when these two things conflict with each other.

What do I mean by this?

I believe one important aspect of cultivating engagement is giving people what they ask for, or at least having their experience of expressing an idea be a positive one. When someone cares enough to come to me with an idea or a question, the last thing I want to do is tell them their idea is bad or their question is misguided, even when it is. How I handle these situations can directly impact the likelihood of them engaging with me in the future, not to mention their receptiveness to a new process or initiative that affects them.

So do we just say yes to everything? This actively goes against component two. If I do not apply enough scrutiny to a request, I run the risk of creating something that is redundant, perhaps obviated by the functionality of an existing report or dashboard, or maybe I am applying a band-aid to an issue, when the correct course of action would actually be addressing the root cause and eliminating the need for the request altogether.

I will fully admit my willingness to engage in these types of discussions is directly related to my knowledge and understanding of the topic in question, and my relationship to the individual making the request. When someone from the accounting department asks me for something, for example, my usual course of action is to give them specifically what they want, no questions asked. Mostly because this aspect of the business is, shamefully, a hazy mystery to me. Conversely, when the subject is related to supply/demand, I feel much more comfortable ‘pushing back’ and getting to the meat of the issue driving the request.

Here, at this company, I am navigating these waters mostly alone, but on this forum, I know many of you share these same responsibilities. Wondering how you feel, and how you handle it.

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There’s another thread like this, I’ll try and find it. I enjoy these discussions.

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My approach has always been an unconventional particularly for a former consultant. But I alway ask WHY?

What is the end goal and the problem you are trying to solve. Asking why can sometimes lead to a lot of frustration (see almost every post on this forum where I ask… why?) but it is the best way to assess the need and determine the ROI, Impact and whether or not the request actually solves the problem.

75% of the time the request doesn’t solve the initial problem because while people generally have good intentions there is a hell of a lot in the Epicor world (and everywhere else) so knowing what’s the right and wrong approach can be tricky. We go back to one of my favorite laws “Maslows Hammer”.

Asking WHY allows you to start from scratch and come up with the best possible solution or determine that it isn’t an idea worth pursuing.

Also Solves the X Y Problem

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I agree, the hard part about asking that question is whether there’s a mutual respect between you and the person you’re talking to. Because that can very quickly turn into feelings of disrespect or doubt about the other person’s idea.

I still always ask it though :man_shrugging:

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Yup, that’s where Tone and intent come into play

“That sounds like a great idea, but let’s take a step back together and figure out what you are trying to solve to make sure we arrive at the most efficient and practical answer, I have a couple of little tricks up my sleeve that will probably help”

vs

“You wanna do what??? :confounded: Why!!!”? :rofl: ← I may or may not use this one more often than I should

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I can hear your tone right now haha :rofl: I may or may not have heard this at insights a couple times.

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sorry barack obama GIF by NowThis

I may get a tiny… tinsy bit passionate about stuff particularly after my friend Gin gets involved.

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Hahahaa nah, I almost didn’t post that… What happens at insights stays at insights

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It’s all with respect every time, I also know that.

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I’ve managed to spread a saying around here after a year of determined effort: “no urgency without clarity”

It’s crazy that “psychology today” - level turns of phrase actually achieve anything, but I’ve trained myself to say “what” are “we” trying to achieve, when I mean “why”.

Those two points have changed things a bit, and my next goal is that the various teams will agree on companh-wide priorities between themselves BEFORE they come to me.

It’s as much about developing the stakeholders as the software.

To that end I’ve started publishing stats on change requests by business area and strategic capability:

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And then to help them see the associated cost, estimated workload, also based on requests by area and strategic capability.

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I’m not doing this aggressively, just asking them to show me where requests fit into these two graphs. We have about 1800h backlog and about 1600h resources per year.

I think this has helped people really focus on making requests that make sense for the big picture.

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Simply brilliant. :clap:

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I land somewhere between @josecgomez & @SteveFossey .

I can sometimes be a little brunt with my “why”, but I will usually try to convey the reason as to why I am asking.

Which then comes down to, I want to make sure we have the best solution we can, with the resources we have available to get there.

I don’t have the fancy graphs though. Can I get those on a Trapper Keeper?

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Washington, D.C.?

(Jacksonville and Montreal)

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I’ll say I land in the middle as well. I’ve taught my users that requests are great things, but you must come with a reasonable justification for the expenditure of time that includes a well-formed ‘mission statement’ illustrating the effects on those who will benefit/not benefit from the changes.

I make sure they understand that this is just a conversation starter so that I can get up to speed as quickly as possible and that we will evaluate all the ‘ripple effects’ of any changes together and decide the best course of action. At that point, one of us has to go ‘sell’ it to the others effected and get some approvals.

I never ever ask Why - for all the reasons previously discussed plus people are just too sensitive nowadays. But I do always ask for their perspective to the question “Who benefits, and how?”

And I have snacks in my office, which helps when it looks like I may have hurt their feelings…

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It is always tough when it comes to personalities and the work place. I tend to start at the extreme and then walk it back. It does not work well, but it is who I am. I definitely need to work on my bedside manner. I made an image to show where I land.

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If you talked to me that way, you’d make an immediate new friend.

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If you think about it as People Hacking, it makes it a lot easier to change your terminology.

“the definition of insanity is writing a brute force script that only tries the same password over and over”

  • Abraham Einstein
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One that I use often that is basically a Why (especially for reports) is “What decisions will be made with this information?” or some variation on that.

On occasion the honest answer is “It would be nice to know”. That becomes really really really low priority. It may have some value, but not near enough.

A perfect example is when I’m asked to write a report for how many jobs we closed in a day. The number has no value. We won’t change how we operate based on that information nor is it a good indicator of throughput for us. We could produce 1,000,000 bags on Monday and close 3 jobs then produce 250,000 bags on Tuesday and close 13 jobs. Really aren’t going to parade around and high five that we closed 13 jobs, we still didn’t distribute overhead.

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I was once asked to create a report for one person in the accounts, payable department who needed some detail that wasn’t available. We got into the details of what the needs were, and I realize that this was going to be a very large project. I started asking even more details of what the report was used for and Why it was used.
The end result was, she said that she had to create this report manually every month, and it took her at least 30 minutes per month to generate the report. I had already calculated that it was gonna take me two or three days to extract the data and summarize it properly. I told her that she needed to have a better ROI in order for me to do this report for her 16 hours of my time to save her 30 minutes per month was not going to cut it.

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I think the right answer starts with the leadership and the tone set from them. Too much red tape makes people view you as an obstacle but too little acquires technical debt at an alarming rate.

Do we do things just because someone asked for it? Do we change a process because an individual doesn’t like it? Am I doing this because it’s cool or because it’s a necessary tool (although I have yet to have delved into a “cool” project that didn’t’ end up helping me later, but alas)?

If done right, the solution implemented will have gather the requirements and been thoroughly tested with users (or their representative) before it’s deployed. After that, changes are incremental and need to make a compelling business case to be implemented. That said, I don’t think you can rule by committee all the time. There does have to be an authority ultimately calling the shots.

I’m lucky that I work at a small enough company where the vision and alignment decisions are relatively easy, but I’d imagine the larger the company, the more difficult this becomes.

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