What are the key elements of the plan for Joel and his team to get the Energy Telematics project unsuspended. The plan will need details of who, what, when, where and why.

330 ess smarts, technol- now, they ALL had weeks to get my outline how Section IV . IT Portfolio Development and Management nature few companies had tried. It was going to take it all-business smarts, ogy, data, people's commitment at every level, and processes. Somehow, they ALI to tie together effectively to deliver real business and environmental value. "I'll do my very best for you sir," he replied. Give me a few weeks to thoughts together and to speak with Cheryl and the other VPs and I'll outlin I suggest we implement this strategy. With a curt nod of his head, and a clap back, Alan left the room leaving Joel with a million thoughts swirling in his head, Over the next few weeks, Joel had meetings with every one of the VPs to asses the scope of the opportunities involved, identify issues, concerns and potential obst! cles, and to quietly evaluate who was really on board with the Green strategy. In addition, he met individually with the two IT members of his team, who had been hand-picked by Cheryl. She had chosen good people, Joel thought. Susan Liu was a data warehouse specialist. She understood what data the company was already col- lecting from its various systems, how "clean" it was, and what types of analyses were being done at present Mario Fortunato was an analyst who had helped implement the company's ERP system, which was now its processing backbone. He was a good choice, thought Joel, because he had an excellent overview of the entire company's operations from suppli- ers to consumers. Joel had asked Alan to hold off appointing the last business member of the team until he better understood the business expertise that might be needed. In their first team meeting, Joel outlined their mandate as he saw it. "Going green is both a huge opportunity and a huge challenge. So far, we've never used our data and systems to help us use energy more effectively. While we've had some energy-saving ini tiatives at CFI, these have been entirely initiated by our building maintenance group doing generic things like installing energy-efficient light bulbs and such. What we need first is a 'quick hit' so that everyone in the company can see what we're trying to do and why! Susan jumped in. "We could start with our data centers. There seem to be lots of ways to save energy there." "You're right of course Susan," said Joel. "We should be doing this and I'll make sure that Cheryl has this in her plans. But what we need here is a much more visible way to demonstrate the business value and energy efficiency of this initiative." Mario looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure if this is what you mean but we know how much each of our buildings, offices and warehouses across the continent use in electric ity, water, and heating and cooling. Our ERP system gathers this information from the utility bills that are sent to us electronically. Each building is considered a separate un for billing purposes and has a separate set of metering. Could we run a contest that would post each building's energy usage each month and provide prizes when they reduce their usage relative to their previous three year average?" "That is an absolutely brilliant idea, Mario!" Joel exclaimed. "It's quick-at least I think it is; it's visible; it uses data we already have; and it involves everyone. And best of all, we can run with it while we work on a more comprehensive energy infor matics strategy." Joel was right on all counts. Three months later, the team launched the Gren Green Challenge with an energy utilization dashboard on everyone's desktop as well as on special monitors in the warehouses. This showed each building's utilization of the three main resources and enabled staff to understand their usage not only in compari- son to previous years but also by time of day and month. They could also compare their Working Smarter at Continental Furniture International 33 usage against other collected employ ment them. Pri monthly decline in acainst other similar buildings. Each building had a green committee, which d employee suggestions and worked with the appropriate people to imple- them. Prizes would be awarded in various categories, such as biggest percentage thly decline in usage, most innovative suggestion, and largest annual cumulative entage decrease. The team also posted the most effective ideas on its collaboration others could see them. Prizes were small-coffee and donuts for all staff, movie and virtual gold starsbut the contest gave the whole company a focus for fforts to reduce its carbon footprint and its staff clear information about how they ld work to save energy. Everyone was motivated by this program and within a few onths after the launch, utility bills were reflecting small, but significant declines. Alan even dropped by to congratulate the team on its success. Success gave the team, which had now grown by two new members, further ideas for other energy informatics projects, so Joel called a strategy meeting to help chart out passes, and virtual their next move. "What if we were to tap into the computers in our trucks?," asked Menakshi Deena, who had joined them from the Operations Division. "They collect lots of data about everything from seatbelt use to oil pressure to the amount of time spent idling Since we have thousands of trucks, we could really save a bundle if we could figure out how to use them more efficiently and safely." They hashed the idea around, growing more and more positive about it as they did. "I like it." Joel said at last. "Let's make Energy Telematies our next major Green team initiative." After running the idea by Alan, who gave it the go-ahead, the team started into the project in earnest. Sue and Menakshi were put in charge of data collection. "We can get over 200 vehicle-related elements from every truck," Sue reported "If we put a GPS chip in each truck, we can collect data on what the trucks and the drivers are doing at every stop in their route. We can then use this data to optimize all sorts of energy use." "But we're going to need to develop some software to help us analyze and report all this data," said Mario doing some rapid calculations. There will be literally thou sands of data points every day for every truck." it took a lot of work to figure out all the technical details. The company's trucks had a variety of different hardware and software platforms in its various vehicles and daily data collection and standardization routines had to be developed. Then, the cam had to develop algorithms to analyze what was collected in order to determine the problems were occurrine. Ted Prior, from Logistics, helped design a pilot test A 30 trucks in their Omaha depot, flying out personally to be there when the data receivers were installed. They work great," he reported Friday afternoon just before flying home. "We Only had a fi y had a few glitches but otherwise, when the trucks pull in at the end of the day, the is simply push a transmit button on their dashboards and all the data is transmit- ted. We're going to be up and running in no time!" Monday morning Joel arrived bright and early to find an urgent voice mail from Alan's EA. "He wants to see you immediately!" said the message. Hurrying up to the executive suite, Joel wondered what the problem could possibly be. Everything was on rack and running smoothly as far as he could tell Alan's face told a different story. "Sit down," he barked when Joel peered in the doorway, "I've just heard that our drivers in ted. We're going to be up and ved bright and early the message. Husruthing was on 12 Section IV . IT Portfolio Development and Management Omaha are threatening to strike," he said as Joel took his seat. "They think you're going to use your system to monitor their behavior. What's going on?" "I have no idea sir," Joel stammered. "We've just done a technical pilot." "Well, I've told them out there that the pilot has been suspended indefinitely." Alan said. "Clearly, you haven't been careful about the impressions you're giving so you'd better go back to the drawing board." Back in the team room, Joel called an urgent meeting to explain the situation. "We've done a lot of work to collect this data and it could have a huge impact on our costs, energy efficiency and safety record," he noted. "But we will not get a chance to prove this if we don't figure out how to get the drivers onside. We didn't need to sell' the Great Green project, but this hostile reaction suggests that we may have some sell- ing to do with other parts of the organization as well as our truck drivers. Anybody got any other ideas about what could go wrong?" "Well, our front-line operations managers are super busy," said Menakshi. "We'd better be careful how we present this program to them or it could be seen as a lot of extra work." "Our mechanics should be involved as well," said Ted. "They seemed quite inter- ested in the information we could pull off the trucks. They could be quite helpful if we get them involved." "We've got all this great data," said Sue,"but how are we going to get the drivers to act on it? Just collecting this information isn't enough." "We've also got to consider how to roll this project out across the company," said Mario. "If the drivers can get this upset about a simple technical pilot, what are they going to do when they see the information we're planning to collect!" The team fell silent and Joel turned all these thoughts over in his mind. He knew his future at CFI depended on what they did next. They'd barely started this project and it was already in trouble. "Okay," he said. "We've hit a snag so now we've got to find a way to get Energy Telematics back on track. I told Alan we'd work up a plan and, if he likes it, he'll unsus- pend the project. Who's got some ideas?" 330 ess smarts, technol- now, they ALL had weeks to get my outline how Section IV . IT Portfolio Development and Management nature few companies had tried. It was going to take it all-business smarts, ogy, data, people's commitment at every level, and processes. Somehow, they ALI to tie together effectively to deliver real business and environmental value. "I'll do my very best for you sir," he replied. Give me a few weeks to thoughts together and to speak with Cheryl and the other VPs and I'll outlin I suggest we implement this strategy. With a curt nod of his head, and a clap back, Alan left the room leaving Joel with a million thoughts swirling in his head, Over the next few weeks, Joel had meetings with every one of the VPs to asses the scope of the opportunities involved, identify issues, concerns and potential obst! cles, and to quietly evaluate who was really on board with the Green strategy. In addition, he met individually with the two IT members of his team, who had been hand-picked by Cheryl. She had chosen good people, Joel thought. Susan Liu was a data warehouse specialist. She understood what data the company was already col- lecting from its various systems, how "clean" it was, and what types of analyses were being done at present Mario Fortunato was an analyst who had helped implement the company's ERP system, which was now its processing backbone. He was a good choice, thought Joel, because he had an excellent overview of the entire company's operations from suppli- ers to consumers. Joel had asked Alan to hold off appointing the last business member of the team until he better understood the business expertise that might be needed. In their first team meeting, Joel outlined their mandate as he saw it. "Going green is both a huge opportunity and a huge challenge. So far, we've never used our data and systems to help us use energy more effectively. While we've had some energy-saving ini tiatives at CFI, these have been entirely initiated by our building maintenance group doing generic things like installing energy-efficient light bulbs and such. What we need first is a 'quick hit' so that everyone in the company can see what we're trying to do and why! Susan jumped in. "We could start with our data centers. There seem to be lots of ways to save energy there." "You're right of course Susan," said Joel. "We should be doing this and I'll make sure that Cheryl has this in her plans. But what we need here is a much more visible way to demonstrate the business value and energy efficiency of this initiative." Mario looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure if this is what you mean but we know how much each of our buildings, offices and warehouses across the continent use in electric ity, water, and heating and cooling. Our ERP system gathers this information from the utility bills that are sent to us electronically. Each building is considered a separate un for billing purposes and has a separate set of metering. Could we run a contest that would post each building's energy usage each month and provide prizes when they reduce their usage relative to their previous three year average?" "That is an absolutely brilliant idea, Mario!" Joel exclaimed. "It's quick-at least I think it is; it's visible; it uses data we already have; and it involves everyone. And best of all, we can run with it while we work on a more comprehensive energy infor matics strategy." Joel was right on all counts. Three months later, the team launched the Gren Green Challenge with an energy utilization dashboard on everyone's desktop as well as on special monitors in the warehouses. This showed each building's utilization of the three main resources and enabled staff to understand their usage not only in compari- son to previous years but also by time of day and month. They could also compare their Working Smarter at Continental Furniture International 33 usage against other collected employ ment them. Pri monthly decline in acainst other similar buildings. Each building had a green committee, which d employee suggestions and worked with the appropriate people to imple- them. Prizes would be awarded in various categories, such as biggest percentage thly decline in usage, most innovative suggestion, and largest annual cumulative entage decrease. The team also posted the most effective ideas on its collaboration others could see them. Prizes were small-coffee and donuts for all staff, movie and virtual gold starsbut the contest gave the whole company a focus for fforts to reduce its carbon footprint and its staff clear information about how they ld work to save energy. Everyone was motivated by this program and within a few onths after the launch, utility bills were reflecting small, but significant declines. Alan even dropped by to congratulate the team on its success. Success gave the team, which had now grown by two new members, further ideas for other energy informatics projects, so Joel called a strategy meeting to help chart out passes, and virtual their next move. "What if we were to tap into the computers in our trucks?," asked Menakshi Deena, who had joined them from the Operations Division. "They collect lots of data about everything from seatbelt use to oil pressure to the amount of time spent idling Since we have thousands of trucks, we could really save a bundle if we could figure out how to use them more efficiently and safely." They hashed the idea around, growing more and more positive about it as they did. "I like it." Joel said at last. "Let's make Energy Telematies our next major Green team initiative." After running the idea by Alan, who gave it the go-ahead, the team started into the project in earnest. Sue and Menakshi were put in charge of data collection. "We can get over 200 vehicle-related elements from every truck," Sue reported "If we put a GPS chip in each truck, we can collect data on what the trucks and the drivers are doing at every stop in their route. We can then use this data to optimize all sorts of energy use." "But we're going to need to develop some software to help us analyze and report all this data," said Mario doing some rapid calculations. There will be literally thou sands of data points every day for every truck." it took a lot of work to figure out all the technical details. The company's trucks had a variety of different hardware and software platforms in its various vehicles and daily data collection and standardization routines had to be developed. Then, the cam had to develop algorithms to analyze what was collected in order to determine the problems were occurrine. Ted Prior, from Logistics, helped design a pilot test A 30 trucks in their Omaha depot, flying out personally to be there when the data receivers were installed. They work great," he reported Friday afternoon just before flying home. "We Only had a fi y had a few glitches but otherwise, when the trucks pull in at the end of the day, the is simply push a transmit button on their dashboards and all the data is transmit- ted. We're going to be up and running in no time!" Monday morning Joel arrived bright and early to find an urgent voice mail from Alan's EA. "He wants to see you immediately!" said the message. Hurrying up to the executive suite, Joel wondered what the problem could possibly be. Everything was on rack and running smoothly as far as he could tell Alan's face told a different story. "Sit down," he barked when Joel peered in the doorway, "I've just heard that our drivers in ted. We're going to be up and ved bright and early the message. Husruthing was on 12 Section IV . IT Portfolio Development and Management Omaha are threatening to strike," he said as Joel took his seat. "They think you're going to use your system to monitor their behavior. What's going on?" "I have no idea sir," Joel stammered. "We've just done a technical pilot." "Well, I've told them out there that the pilot has been suspended indefinitely." Alan said. "Clearly, you haven't been careful about the impressions you're giving so you'd better go back to the drawing board." Back in the team room, Joel called an urgent meeting to explain the situation. "We've done a lot of work to collect this data and it could have a huge impact on our costs, energy efficiency and safety record," he noted. "But we will not get a chance to prove this if we don't figure out how to get the drivers onside. We didn't need to sell' the Great Green project, but this hostile reaction suggests that we may have some sell- ing to do with other parts of the organization as well as our truck drivers. Anybody got any other ideas about what could go wrong?" "Well, our front-line operations managers are super busy," said Menakshi. "We'd better be careful how we present this program to them or it could be seen as a lot of extra work." "Our mechanics should be involved as well," said Ted. "They seemed quite inter- ested in the information we could pull off the trucks. They could be quite helpful if we get them involved." "We've got all this great data," said Sue,"but how are we going to get the drivers to act on it? Just collecting this information isn't enough." "We've also got to consider how to roll this project out across the company," said Mario. "If the drivers can get this upset about a simple technical pilot, what are they going to do when they see the information we're planning to collect!" The team fell silent and Joel turned all these thoughts over in his mind. He knew his future at CFI depended on what they did next. They'd barely started this project and it was already in trouble. "Okay," he said. "We've hit a snag so now we've got to find a way to get Energy Telematics back on track. I told Alan we'd work up a plan and, if he likes it, he'll unsus- pend the project. Who's got some ideas