A system replacement case study and how CLEAR would have set the right date

Episode Overview

How many times has a go-live date moved on one of your technology projects? In this case-study episode, Jim Kineon walks through an electric utility that replaced its old customer system (CRM) so call-center staff could see everything about a customer in one place. The plan was right, and the project eventually succeeded, but go-live slipped several times as data migration, custom functionality, and undefined processes surfaced one after another. Jim then replays the project through the CLEAR Framework to show where each delay could have been caught and how the right go-live date would have been set from the start. If you're planning a system replacement, or living through one that keeps slipping, this episode is for you..

In This Episode, You’ll Hear

• What happens when your staff become the connection between disconnected systems

• Why a project with the right plan can still miss its go-live date several times

• How writing training materials exposed processes nobody had defined

• The real cost of a delayed-but-successful go-live

• How the five steps of CLEAR would have found the root causes and set a realistic date

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THE FRAMEWORK — CLEAR

1. Check: Assess your current technology health across Initiative, Organization, Process, People, and Technology, and identify the root causes creating friction.

2. Link: Connect the root-cause fix to a measurable business outcome, not a feature list.

3. Establish: Prioritize improvements, define responsibilities, identify dependencies, and build a practical sequence of action.

4. Activate: Implement the roadmap while managing communication, testing, training, and support.

5. Review: Measure progress, compare it to the outcome you wanted, and keep refining until you get there.

Connect With Me On LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/in/jimkineon

Subscribe to My YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/@jameskineon4185

Episode Overview

Is your team paying for software capability it never actually uses? In this episode, Jim tells the real story of a small nonprofit with fewer than 25 employees, running mostly on volunteers, whose CRM had grown far more complex than the organization needed, with training nobody could find, support that couldn't keep up, and event data that had to be reconciled by hand. Jim uses their story to walk through CLEAR, his five-step process for making any technology decision: Check, Link, Establish, Activate, and Review. This episode is for business leaders and nonprofit executives who suspect their current system has outgrown their actual needs, and want a real, step-by-step example of how to right-size it.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

Six lessons this case study teaches about any CRM decision:

1. Right-size the software to your actual needs, not your ambitions.

2. Follow a real implementation plan — don't skip steps because the system feels smaller.

3. Clean your data before it moves, so you're working from one reconciled set of contacts.

4. Decide, on purpose, how much history you actually want to bring with you.

5. Train people for the job they do, not just the buttons in the software.

6. Match your support agreement to how fast you actually need an answer.

THE FRAMEWORK — CLEAR

1. Check: Assess your current technology health across Initiative, Organization, Process, People, and Technology, and identify the root causes creating friction.

2. Link: Connect the root-cause fix to a measurable business outcome, not a feature list.

3. Establish: Prioritize improvements, define responsibilities, identify dependencies, and build a practical sequence of action.

4. Activate: Implement the roadmap while managing communication, testing, training, and support.

5. Review: Measure progress, compare it to the outcome you wanted, and keep refining until you get there.

Connect With Me On LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/in/jimkineon

Subscribe to My YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/@jameskineon4185

Episode Overview

If the person who runs your financial system disappeared tomorrow, would your business still function? In this episode, Jim Kineon shares a true story from a company he worked with in the World Trade Center that had just finished replacing its financial and supply chain management systems the week of September 11th, 2001. Their technology backup worked perfectly, but no one had documented who could approve an invoice or release a vendor payment if the usual person wasn’t there, and it took months to get the business running smoothly again. Jim breaks down what this means for any business running financial or supply chain systems today, and offers a simple test for finding out how exposed your own organization really is. This episode is for any leader who has never asked what happens to their approval process the day the one person who knows it isn’t in the room.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• The real story of a financial and supply chain system that survived 9/11, and the business that struggled
• Why a technology backup and a business continuity plan are not the same thing
• What happens when an approval workflow only exists in one person’s head
• The One-Person Test, a quick way to check your own organization’s exposure
• What to document before your next system goes live
• Why organizations of every size, from 25 employees to 250, carry this same risk

Connect With Me On LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/in/jimkineon

Subscribe to My YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/@jameskineon4185