Selective Adoption

Last month at OpenWorld, I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel moderated by Marc Weintraub. In case you are interested, the session was CON8300: Real-World Experiences with PeopleSoft Selective Adoption. The purposes of the panel was to discuss and provide real experiences of organizations leveraging PeopleSoft Selective Adoption. I thought it would be beneficial to share with a broader audience the general direction of the questions and answers. I say general as there are no PowerPoint Slides to leverage, simply my memory of the questions and answers provided.

Question 1: What do organizations think of the new model of selective adoption?

Answer: For the most part we are now seeing organizations just beginning to put more of a focus on selective adoption. Many organizations upgraded to 9.2 and made the decision to address a selective adoption strategy at a later date, once 9.2 was up and stable. Organizations are now realizing that this is an entirely different process of receiving content, both fixes and new functionality, than has ever before been delivered with PeopleSoft. They are starting to understand the value and power of selective adoption and asking the right questions about how to get started with a strategy.

Question 2: Do organizations fully understand the magnitude of the change of the new model?

Answer: As mentioned, organizations are transitioning to understanding selective adoption more and more. They understand it is a fundamental change in the delivery model and that it is not just about bugs and fixes but how they receive new features and functionality. What we have not seen yet is an understanding of the significance of the change such as:

• Impact on staffing
• Impact on budgeting
• What a new selective adoption strategy entails

Question 3: What are organizations asking about in regards to the new model of selective adoption?

Answer: For those organizations that are just getting started, the number one question is “Does it work?” Then followed by questions such as:

• How is it different than previous methods of fix/bug delivery?
• How do we get started with selective adoption?
• How are other organizations addressing selective adoption?
• How do we as an organization support applying updates more often?

Question 4: Where should an organization begin when starting with selective adoption?

Answer:

• Research: There is a lot of information available out there. The PUM home pages on My Oracle Support (you will need your Oracle username and password to access these pages) along with the videos on Oracle’s YouTube channel offer a lot of information. Organizations should do their research to learn as much as possible about selective adoption.
• Engage with a consulting organization such as MIPRO who has experience with selective adoption and execute a Selective Adoption Strategy Workshop. The workshops are designed to educate and provide that crucial direction on establishing a strategy.
• Create a strategy specific to your organization. Not all organizations are equal or alike. There are unique constraints that must be accounted for that can drive each organization to a specific strategy. This is not a one size fits all approach.
• Think differently. Selective adoption requires a different approach at the core even as far as how the organization is staffed down to a different budgeting approach. No longer is the organization budgeting for a large upgrade every 4 or 5 years, but rather continuous, smaller projects.

Question 5: Any lessons learned?

Answer: Make sure your selective adoption strategy is actually documented and published for the organization. It is a big change and can have tremendous value and the business as well as IT needs to be actively involved. Make sure your selective adoption strategy document contains at a minimum:

• Maintenance strategy defined
• Staffing defined
• Image calendar defined
• Communications plan defined
• Selective adoption criteria
• PeopleTools update strategy
• PeopleSoft Test Framework approach

If you are in the same position of having upgraded to 9.2 with the objective of addressing selective adoption at a later date, your organization is not alone. If you have similar questions as noted in this blog, you are not alone. If you have not yet created your selective adoption strategy, you are not alone. But, know that with selective adoption, you must act and you must have a strategy. No strategy will result in not leveraging the value of selective adoption and you will be in the position of having a major upgrade in a few short years.

Need help with your selective adoption strategy? Our one day Selective Adoption Workshop can help. Reach out to me at Larry.zagata@miproconsulting.com for more information.