# Automated Business Systems: The Myth, Mystery, and Magic

Marc Montgomery, May 23, 2002

"Story on the Story" by Susan Hendrickson

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Marc Montgomery is Manager of Institutional Business Systems division
and the project manager for the original New Business Systems (NBS)
implementation project, and the recent NBS upgrade. Marc started out at
JPL 23 years ago as a buyer in the Acquisition Division.

Marc stated that his thoughts do not necessarily represent those of
management. The story is, instead, "Marc's random thoughts about the
challenges and pleasures of business systems."

In answer to the soul-searching question, "Why do I do this kind of
job?," Marc's reply is "I don't know!" The nature of business systems is
that there are a number of challenges. Marc quoted Machiavelli: "There
is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or
more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction
of a new order of things;" which is exactly what the introduction of a
new business system is all about. Consequently, the natural reactions of
those who will be affected by such major changes to their work lives is
at least trepidation, sometimes fear, and often resistance.

In 1998 the Standish Group analyzed the success rate of new business
system implementations and found that 34% are complete failures; 52% are
"challenged" (over scheduled, over budget, or didn't deliver what they
planned to deliver in the first place); and 16% are considered a
success. Why would one pursue something where there is only a 16% chance
of "exciting folks on a regular basis?" Marc replied that he

is fascinated with the concept that productivity can be increased with
the same amount of resources by changing the processes and tools people
have to work with. (As a teenager, he first read about this concept in
an article about Frank Gilbreth, time-motion study guru, of *Cheaper by*
*the Dozen* fame). That fascination seems to be behind most of his
career choices ever since.

With tongue-in-cheek, Marc noted the characteristics of a good project
manager of business systems: A nice mix of ignorance and naivete (a
complete ignorance of what lies ahead); complete, unexplainable optimism
in the face of overwhelming facts; teflon skin; hearing impairments; and
a wife who will put up with anything. A case of Tylenol PM is also
helpful.

The first two attempts at creating automated business tools at JPL
started before Marc became involved in the world of business systems;
these were unsuccessful. First Myth: What sounds good on paper often
doesn't work out well in practice. Like the idea that, "All we need is
to define a good database of all the business data elements. It can't be
that hard to get the elements into the database once we have that
defined." (This was the basis for unsuccessful attempt Number 2.)

The third attempt sort of jelled: In January 1986 (this is where Marc
comes into the picture), Frasier Draper in Acquisitions developed the
requirements for an automated procurement system. Two weeks were spent
off-site at the Balboa Bay Club developing the requirements. A short
time later a Human Resources team went through a similar session to
develop requirements for an HR system.

Separately, the Procurement and HR teams issued requests-for-proposal
for commercial, off-the-shelf software that met the requirements. In
August 1987, within two weeks of each other, the two teams independently
announced that they had selected McCormick & Dodge software and Andersen
Consulting as the implementation consultants. This was the beginning of
an integrated business system. Since both Procurement and HR had
selected the same software and integrator, it seemed to make sense that
the financial system software should come from the same vendor. Soon a
program was born, called the Management and Administrative Support
System (MASS), under the direction of Jay Schmuecker. The first
component of MASS to go live was the procurement system (called SAS) on
July 24, 1989.

One of the myths of the MASS Program was: We will change the way we do
business to match the software. Within two weeks of going live with the
procurement system, management was shoveling that idea out the door, and
they began modifying the system like crazy to recreate in an automated
way the same processes that were being done on paper.

One of the important decisions of the MASS Program was to go with
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, which turned out to be the key
to JPL's first business system success. JPL had tried to build its own
system in the past but had failed because developing business software
is not our core competency. There are a lot of capabilities and
constraints with COTS, however, and you don't really find out what a
system can and cannot do until you turn it on and discover what creative
users *can* do with it. From that point it is a mad scramble to enhance
and enable the things that are working right, and trying to fix,
eliminate (or at least minimize the impact of) things that aren't
working. When you throw in the fact that you have just completely jerked
the rug out from under the comfortable world the users have been
enjoying, you don't find a lot of accolades and excitement surrounding
your well-intentioned efforts.

Marc spent five years working on the MASS Program. In April 1992, Marc
decided he was "running out of steam." As he departed, he wrote the poem
below to capture his thoughts and experiences of his SAS days, and to
reflect on his future with business systems:

# *FAREWELL TO SAS*

April 9, 1992

# I arrived at work that fateful day

# Seemingly without a care

I had my lunch, I had my smile

I had a lot of hair.

July the second 1986

Dawned bright and blue and clear

And my boss said, "You're gonna love this job.

> It should last just a couple of years."

"What we want you to do is build us a car

To take us on to the future.

Here're some specs and a few old parts."

I discovered what I needed was sutures.

But I launched right in and got me a team

Some good souls, brave and true.

I said, "Guys, we're gonna build us a car."

And they eagerly asked what to do.

So we got us some wheels and a frame and some seats.

And we hammered and banged and we polished.

The work was hard, with some honest sweat,

With an occasional weekend demolished.

But finally we said, "She's ready to tow.

To bring her up to the line.

She ain't nothin' fancy, just solidly built

And I think she'll really do fine."

So some managers piled in and they waved and they smiled

And said "We're ready to go."

So they set the brake and chocked the wheels

> And said, "OK, SAS Team, you can tow."

"We finally made it," our team did shout,

"It's all downhill from here.

It's July the 24^th^ at last."

We opened champagne and beer.

So we started to roll, to pick up speed

With friends and supporters around

But we'd barely gone a hundred feet

When we heard a funny sound

It was people bailing, jumping overboard

Like rodents from a ship

I looked at Carol, I looked at Bob

"This could be an interesting trip."

## That's when we noticed some funny things

A moment to realize

That wheels and seats were part of the deal

But brakes were customized.

"Minimize customization;

Put it in with little change."

Those words were starting to haunt me now

My stomach felt a bit strange.

Now it's hard to transform a speeding car

To add on many new features.

But we had lots of help as the users shouted

Suggestions from the bleachers.

It took me a while to figure out

Why our reception was so sorry.

We were given the parts for a Volkswagen bug

What was expected was a Ferrari.

But slowly things began to change,

For out of the cheering hoard

# In spite of suggestions from their friends

Some brave souls jumped on board.

And with their help we started to add

A few things that were needed.

Like a windshield and doors, and a rearview mirror.

Even the brakes are almost completed.

Now it wasn't so long ago I got the news

### As a brave soul stepped up from the rear

"We lost something on that last curve, Sir.

We think it was your career."

"That so?" said I. (I took a draught from the bottle)

Must be a sign to leave SAS.

A call from above, a swift kick as it were

That landed right on my.....pants.

So I'm handin' the reins to the next generation

Some wiry and tough young fellows.

And I'm going to move to Division Staff

And quietly graze through the meadows.

But I've been thinking, when Jay departs

That I might like his job

And a bed of nails, and a horsehair shirt

And T.P. like corn on the cob.

###### Marc Montgomery

JPL got into TQM \[Total Quality Management\] right around this time,
and Marc worked with John Heie on that for three years. And although
many think of TQM with some distain as just another fad, people now talk
about "process improvement" and "customer satisfaction" as if it was
always that way; the TQM principles have just become a part of the JPL
landscape.

One of his TQM tasks was to facilitate the "Fast Start" reengineering
team that eventually came up with the design for the Just-In-Time
purchasing system. Dennis Horgan then led the team that implemented the
JIT design. Following the success of JIT, Marc's boss asked him to work
with Dennis Horgan and PriceWaterhouse on "Team ELAN," and five months
were spent doing studies to determine where the next reengineering
investments should be made. In September 1995 the group recommended that
new financial and purchasing systems be created to meet the needs of an
environment that was changing from one or two long-term flagship
projects to many short-duration projects. And since Human Resources data
was critical to any business system, it was decided to launch into a
complete reengineering of the business processes, and a replacement of
the legacy MASS systems.

Dennis Horgan was a wonderful change agent -- that was his genius,
according to Marc -- but in February 1996, Dennis departed JPL. A few
months later Pat Monahan, the line manager for JIT, became the project
manager for this as-yet-unnamed project. This time, after going through
weeks of on-Lab demos by various proposers, JPL chose Oracle software to
be the basis for the new systems. Shortly thereafter, a team from Ernst
& Young and Oracle was selected to help guide JPL through the process
reengineering and system implementation.

Myth: Implementation consultants have the processes and templates for
process reengineering and system implementation all set and ready to go.
Much to our surprise, we seemed to be developing the needed processes
and templates along with our consultants as we went along. Also of
mythic proportions is the consultant's compensation. At the time the
market was very tight, and we paid some "interesting" sums to people who
really had good business system experience. Another mystery about
consultants: Their ability to disappear soon after the system is turned
on.

At the conclusion of reengineering and just prior to the start of the
implementation phase (September 1997-December 1998), Pat Monahan left
JPL, and Marc was asked to assume management of the New Business Systems
(NBS) Project.

Now in the middle of all of the chaos, Marc found a rather unique way to
get a bit of time off. He discovered that a slight hearing loss that he
had noticed for several months was due to a small brain tumor. So in
March and early April 1998 he got some forced down time while he
recovered from surgery.

The "Big Bang" took place on Thursday, October 8, 1998. The system was
turned on at 6:44am, and when the first transaction was entered into the
system it actually worked. The first "issue" was discovered 30 minutes
later, and the team worked until 11pm that night to fix it, so that it
would be working the next day.

The team was actually able to relax for one day due to an interesting
phenomenon: users typically spend one day just getting up the nerve to
actually try this new thing out. Consequently, things are surprisingly
quiet on Day One. All the rest that follow are filled with turmoil and
panic. On Saturday, October 10, the team had a celebration party "that
will live in the annals of JPL celebration parties." It was good that it
was scheduled for two days after go-live because for the next ten months
the team seldom came up for air.

At the NBS Launch Party, Marc waxed poetic again on his latest business
system experiences:

####### NBS: A Personal Journey

Subtitle: " If You *Ever* Do This Again\....." -a quote from Peggy
Montgomery

In May '95 I was quietly working

When the boss said, "There's a team you're now on.

The team will decide what we should reengineer

They're calling the thing 'ELAN'."

So I joined six others, all hearty and hale

And we set out on an incredible journey

Little did I know where the dang thing would lead

I'm lucky I'm not on a gurney.

We started with Dennis, but he had places to go,

And for a while there was no one to lead.

Then Pat was selected and the project was whole.

We continued to pick up some speed.

In 96-AUG we picked Oracle.

In December we signed on E&Y.

And we continued to build with great people

From Krystal and CSI.

Now the teambuilding session was something unique.

That's where we learned how to cope.

By climbing a wall and embracing other women,

While hanging in mid-air on a rope.

And Pat's fortieth birthday was really quite special.

It's something I'll never forget.

Especially since they never stop showing

That picture all over the Net.

Then one day Pat said, "I'm leaving the project."

"You're what?!" "You're kidding!" "But why?!"

The answer was fuzzy, but one thing was clear,

It was clear we were all going to die.

Then Karl turned and said, "Let Marc take the job."

And I said, "Are you insane?!

No way; Not ever; I like what I'm doing.

On this point I must be quite plain."

> So I took the job, and in the following months

I learned quite a lot about scope.

Primarily that you need lots of money,

And lots of tequila to cope.

But in March I discovered a really unique way

To get relief from the stress and the strain.

They just opened my head and they reached right inside

And took out a small piece of my brain.

Well the doctor told Peggy, "We've got bad news and good

'Cause we took a little more than we thought.

When he walks he'll tend to list to the left,

But no matter what happens he'll smile and he'll hum quite a lot.

So we worked and we worked and we worked some more,

And we added the weekends for sport.

And although the days seemed incredibly long

The calendar seemed incredibly short!

Then Timekeeping came up and the thing worked quite well

HR had shown us the way.

And when "Buddy" went live I started to think

We just might make the BIG day.

Then suddenly it came, October the eighth,

A day I spent pacing the floor.

We pulled the switch, the lights went dim,

And it was alive at 6:44!!

And now you may ask, "So what have you learned?

From all of this what did you glean?"

Well, it helps if you've had a lobotomy,

But what it takes is a really great team!!

##### Marc Montgomery

##### October 10, 1998

The next major milestone in the life of NBS was to upgrade the system to
the latest versions of the Oracle applications and database. One of the
lessons learned from the MASS Program was not to customize the vendor's
code. It eliminates any possibility of upgrading the software as the
vendor comes out with enhancements and fixes. So, they tried not to do
any customization on NBS that would mess with the Oracle code, and they
were successful.

An upgrade involves taking a copy of the current production system, and
then doing a practice upgrade, find out what's broken, fix it, do
another practice run, etc, etc. The challenge is to do the upgrade in a
time frame that the users can live with. The target for the upgrade was
nine days: two weekends and one work week, 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. They did six test upgrades; the first test upgrade took eight
weeks. Not an auspicious start.

The dress rehearsal, which was the first time they practiced the full
24-hour schedule and all of the associated hand-offs among team members,
took place in November 2001. Based on their experience from five prior
test upgrades, the best they thought they could do was 13 days, but it
was completed in 9 days, which was amazing because of the number of
applications they had to deal with (over 60). The actual upgrade took
place in December and took 6 days, 1 hour and 30 minutes, which the team
considered a miracle. That has to set some sort of national record for
Oracle implementations. Marc noted that the success was due to the
perseverance of the team members, which is what the Magic of business
systems is all about.

Marc ended his story with the following poem, which captures the
challenges of an upgrade:

The Miracle

It was early November in '99 when I sat up in bed with a start

My eyes were wide, the sweat was streaming, a hammer was pounding my
heart.

We'd just finished our first year-end close,

In five terrible weeks we had made it.

"Oh, my God! I cried out in the dark of the night,

Now we have to upgrade it!"

So I mentioned to Fred this dream that I'd had and his face went white
as a sheet.

"I've only been here for ten weeks now, and my career's flashing before
me complete.

Who should we get to lead the affair?

Would you consider doing it again?"

"Thanks" said I, "But I like to think of

My spear-catching days at an end."

But Fred resorted to flattery to convince me to take the job and give it
a shot.

He said, "You still look young, like you could take this one on, and you
didn't lose as much hair as you thought.

So I finally agreed. "I think we can do it.

An upgrade must different to do

'Cause if it's not, Peggy will make like a Skywalker fan

With a cry of, "May the divorce be with you!"

So CSA arrived to be our consultants and guide us swift through the
maze.

And Jamie was meeting and cajoling and beating until everyone's eyes
were glazed.

I can't take much more the managers cried

This planning is not for the lazy

"Wow!" said I, "Who would have thought

The first day could have been so crazy!"

So we started with Test Upgrade #1, with Stouffer and Holt in the lead

And eight weeks later we had it complete, "We're dead if we run at this
speed."

But this was the first, "They always go slow."

Our consultants wiped sweat from my brow.

And I quietly wondered if a better career

Might be milking or herding a cow.

But soon the developers were re-writing the code to make it work like it
should

The code was succumbing, their fingers were humming; Man the developers
were good.

I said to George, "Your team's goin' great."

The consultants said they never would make it.

"Bring it on" he replied, "We'll handle it all,

Whatever you throw we can take it."

So the months flew by fast with Upgrades two, three and four and each
one was met with a cry,

"I was just making it work, Why'd you take it away? It'd be better with
Captain Blye.

But the teams hung in tight and they tested away

They worked hard until late in the night.

And the harder they worked, the better it got

We were actually getting it right.

Then finally came time for the big Dress Rehearsal, it was time to give
it a go

With nine days in mind we planned and we squeezed, but thirteen was the
answer -- Uh-oh!

How can we do this? Our users will kill us.

What we need is a giant diversion.

I said, "I'll talk to Sue. I've got an idea.

Let's have a cafeteria conversion!"

But when that didn't fly, we forged on ahead, and then a miracle
occurred.

The time flew right by, the team moved so fast it was hard to believe
what we heard.

"Nine Days!" was the cry, the final result

And you could see the confidence growing.

There lies the grass, and we are the mower!

11i's \<bleep\> we are mowing!

And then, there it was, it loomed up before us, the time had come to
excel.

So we set our alarms for the most ungodly hour, and awoke to the clang
of the bell.

"Goodbye my dear, I shall return" we said,

"In a blaze of fire and glory."

('Cause if you're going to spend the holidays at work

You'd better have a great story.)

But who would have thought the story could come true, that we would
actually do it.

In our wildest dreams we never would guess, SIX DAYS, ONE HOUR THIRTY
MINUTES, to get through it!

"We did it," we said. At first we were stunned.

Could there be a team that's much stronger?

The tough we will do in a pretty short time

The impossible takes just a bit longer.

So occasionally I'm asked, "Why do you take those jobs? Is it something
you feel that you ought to?

And I reply, "When I can work with this Team, I know I'd be crazy not
to."

##### Marc Montgomery