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Implementing PeopleSoft Financials Early Stephens 1997 | 220 pages ISBN: 138411808 |
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$47.00 | Hardbound print book | |
Preface
In the earliest years of my professional life I had the luxury of working closely with a somewhat autonomous group to develop software applications to support our nation's courts. My personal forte was child support and enforcement. For two years I worked in that role all the while learning as much about motivation, management, work style, team-work and success as I did about software development. That stint was followed by many years as a manager of software projects at a major university in my home town. During the first part of that I made myself a student of software development. I focused not so much on ``what is the best way'' to develop software. Instead, I studied the different tools and techniques available and their overall effectiveness. Then, due to the stress of managing multiple, large and important projects concurrently with a small staff, I began to shift my focus to a study of project management, or project leadership as I prefer to call it. I recognized that more often than not, projects were ending up less than successful.This is about the time that visual development tools, object-oriented design and programming and client/server in general arrived on the scene. This complicated the problems developers and project teams faced. The technology was becoming more complex and more people were involved in the projects. The proliferation of local area networks and personal computers had created a class of demanding end-users--something we Information Systems professionals were not at all comfortable with. It was at this time that I saw an opportunity in these changes. I saw a chance to change my organization for the better by developing information systems applications a different way so as to provide greater productivity and better information to those who needed it wherever they might reside in the organization.
Also at this time, the university purchased PeopleSoft Human Resource Management System and followed that closely with the Financial applications. This convinced me further of the growing importance of information to an organization's success. During the implementations of PeopleSoft, I learned much about these issues as well as about the trials of the projects themselves. PeopleSoft brought great change to many organizations significantly for the better. It brought many improvements to the university as well. Politics and limited resources left me thirsting for significant growth instead of the incremental growth we had experienced. My frustration level increased as I saw more and more opportunity. The Internet was pushing its way beyond its academic walls and was poised to take the world by storm. To ease my frustrations, I moved on to greater challenges where I had an opportunity to apply my studies. To exercise my demons, though, I needed another outlet. That is where this book comes in. I so profoundly believe that this is a defining period for organizations world-wide that I feel compelled to help my fellow Americans in the corporate world succeed wildly because of it. This book represents my efforts to help them attain higher levels of success based on my experience with the software and years of studying information systems projects. To that end, writing it did provide me an outlet. To fully exercise those demons, though, this book must actually help corporations to have more successful implementations of PeopleSoft applications and to make them more competitive because of it. If it can do that for even one project team, then I feel my hard work will not have been in vain and the resistance to change I faced will be replaced with a sense of success and closure.
DESCRIPTION
The PeopleSoft promise is enticing: Here's a way for your company to implement a complete and flexible financial infrastructure in a client/server environment without the burdens of low-level programming. But, implementation remains complex and requires reengineering of the business processes and cultures of the using organizations. The author, an experienced implementor of PeopleSoft systems, discusses the issues that arise and the pitfalls to avoid. Every member of the implementation team--from entry-level accounting clerk through MIS staff to executive sponsors--will benefit from reading this book. The views it contains, coming from an independent authority, will also prove useful to those who are considering adopting PeopleSoft for their companies.
What's inside:
- Skills and staffing: how to ensure adequate expertise
- How to develop your implementation strategy
- Managing the end-user view of financial information
- Use of customization, interfaces and business processes
- Landmines: where they lurk and how to avoid them
- Is your organization ready for PeopleSoft?
- Setting executive-level expectations
- And more
Translation rights for Implementing PeopleSoft Financials have been granted for Japan. If you are interested in learning where to buy this book in a language other than English, please inquire at your local bookseller.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THIS BOOK...
"...this is a wonderful book. All new PeopleSoft customers should
read it as early as possible... people from all levels of the company
will benefit from it."
--Doug Rodgers, PeopleSoft Co-project leader, The John Nuveen Company
"I am helping my client evaluate PeopleSoft Financials-- and already,
this book has helped in some critical areas we had not considered."
--Jim Marshall, EDS/TU Services
ABOUT THE AUTHOR...
Early Stephens has had ten years' experience implementing corporate computer systems. He has worked with PeopleSoft financials since its initial release and was previously a technical resource for PeopleSoft HRMS.