I started a new job a few weeks ago, still in IT at IBM, but out of the collaboration and social media space. It’s a big change for me as I have been focused for the past 8 years on end user applications and I will now be focused on the engine that drives the flow of business in IBM. The project is called Blue Harmony.
Blue Harmony is the internal name for a major SAP based project that is already in progress and about to the deliver the first phase of function to the first pilot country. Eventually, it will transform how IBM does everything from opportunity management to order processing to customer fulfillment to invoicing and financial management – on a global basis. It will support much of IBM’s business including software and hardware products and services. I am responsible for the global deployment plan as this project moves from the first pilot country to production across the world. Getting to this set of common systems globally will deliver great benefits to IBM. It is IBM’s largest IT project.
I’m currently drinking from the proverbial fire hose and trying to add value as we close our plan for 2011. I’m looking forward to bringing my past experience to the table and defining improvements to the deployment plan that will help us be successful over the next several years.
I also hope to use what I have learned about collaboration and social computing to help this project. This is a large, global project team operating across multiple time zones bringing together people from different cultures and native languages. How people find expertise, get to know and trust each other, exchange information and perform work in teams is critical to our success. I would like to contribute some best practices that will help make us more productive.
