Many businesses want to embrace the latest technology. But how do you ensure your investment is going to make a positive impact and not just result in a shiny new toy with little business value?
As a consultant at Fujitsu I’ve helped clients answer this question by running proofs of concept (PoC). I’ve seen a number of common issues arise that can hinder the process.
I like to think of PoC as the business equivalent of a science experiment, and it’s standard practice to describe science experiments with the following subheadings:
If you think about your PoC in this way, it helps to structure your thinking and you avoid some of the more frequent challenges.
When it comes to materials, there’s a tendency to let technology lead the discussion instead of business insight. But it should be the other way around. Understand the business goals, then work out how technology can help support that. Many people tend to skip this step.
The method can be poorly defined, and the results collected haphazardly without any kind of baseline to benchmark against. And without a complete dataset you simply can’t carry out objective analysis of the results.
All these errors make it very difficult to trust the resulting conclusion, and the PoC process therefore bears limited value itself.
If you are thinking of embarking on a PoC process yourself, here are six tips that will improve the quality of the results…
1. Link the PoC with wider business goals
PoC need to be fully integrated into the real world, meaning your business operations. Don’t just think about what new technology to bring in – focus also on the business architecture surrounding it, including your people and your processes.
2. Try running the PoC without the technology
At the beginning of the PoC process you don’t necessarily need to use technology. Think about what you can achieve through scenarios, mock-ups and storyboards. This will help you test the organisation’s acceptance of a new idea with
limited up-front investment or disruption.
3. Use a platform that scales
Any new technology platform you bring in needs be scalable, i.e. able to cope with being rolled out across vastly increased user numbers. And you will want evidence of that scalability in the PoC process, or else risk ending up with a platform not fit for purpose in the long run.
4. Measure in a robust way
The whole point of this process is to measure the value of something, but in relation to what? You need to have predetermined measurement criteria that align to business needs and give you a solid benchmark to work with.
5. Measure the right things
To gain a full picture of whether a PoC is worth rolling out more widely, you need to capture user feedback in both a quantitative and qualitative way. And you need to capture not only feedback on the technology, but also on the user experience and the business process.
6. If it's not working, pull the plug
If it is clear that the PoC process is not demonstrating the results you wanted or expected, don’t be frightened to end it early. Better to do so before you’ve invested too much time and money.
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By Patrick Smith, Head of Strategic Consulting EMEIA, Fujitsu Digital
