This coming weekend, the qualifiers for the semi-finals of the Central European FIRST-LEGO-League (FLL) Championship compete in Bonn for a place in the finals in Cottbus next year where the finalists from over 800 teams of 10-16 year-olds pit their skills against each other. Our team made it once so I know how tough the competition is, but this year's leg in Walldorf blew me away.

Or to put it in perspective, the performance of all teams I saw in Walldorf has reached unbelievable heights since I first took part as a spectator six years ago, and I'm sure the same is true for the competition in USA and Asia and the rest of world.

The competition started in 1998 - reached Europe in 2001 (pilot - that's good IT practice) - and is a worldwide event with identical rules (apart from the finals which have "playing fields" made up in imperial inches much to my team's disappointment two years ago).

The rules are simple - ten weeks to prepare for the competition - a robot match and a research project, plus additional prizes for teamwork, design and programming... The robot is built and designed by the team using a LEGO MINDSTORMS robotic kit and any LEGO pieces you can get your hands on. This robot has to be programmed by the team to complete an obstacle course, collecting objects on the way. Apart from restrictions on your robots size and the number of motors and sensors it can use (light, infrared, touch), there are no guidelines about what the team should try in terms of tools (built from LEGO blocks), strategy, movement....

Figure 1: Fault tolerance is what it's all about. Fault tolerance in the robot design, fault tolerance in the programming and fault tolerance in the team. On stage in front of an audience of 400, floodlights, tv-crews, it's not easy and human error ruined this run. This is the face of team spirt after disaster (they did good in the end)

The research project involves researching a theme and then coming up with an innovative solution to a problem identified by the team. My lips are sealed about what the winning solutions were because the competition is still in progress, but innovative and well researched they were. In fact the teams learn all sorts of soft skills as they hone their innovation. Not just presentation, but what preparation is needed to interview an expert;  how do you get past the assistant in order to schedule an interview with that person; how do you pace yourselves; How do you get past simply good ideas to ideas that knock the judges off their chairs? By the way, the SAP Nano Giants used SCRUM methodology to make sure they won first prize in the teamwork category.

Okay, this is blatant advertising, but our own experience is that the SAP Walldorf leg is one the most difficult to get past. Just look at the highscores on the Web. SAP teams  who qualified from here went on to reach world finals in the USA, Asia or the open European event (fond memories of the SAP Allstars with the LEGO tools stuck in their hats). I am so grateful to SAP for sponsoring this event, in particular the doughnuts which give the kids that little extra burst of enthusiasm towards the end of a tough and adrenalin-drained day. Apples, of course, too. Even though this event is hosted by SAP, it is not only the SAP employees' teams taking part. There's the legendary Leimbach Submarines, teams submitted by SAP partners in Walldorf, by local schools...It’s an important event on the local calendar of just about every family living in the area.
Worth an award of their own are  the smaller local events hosted by local industries with an eye to encouraging local youth - a hotpot of ideas, Websites, research, online simulations.... The generation they're encouraging is going to be so focused, so skilled, so innovative... you've got to see it in action to believe it.

Figure 2: This is no longer a niche event. Seats are hard to come by.

In Walldorf, I was so fascinated by the sheer number of genius ideas that I watched every single one of the twenty two robots compete with each other until only two were left in the finals.  It was riveting. At one point I asked the coach of the SAP Robonova XL (who eventually won) how on earth they'd programmed the hydraulics that helped the robot squeeze through a gap collecting objects as it went - his answer - I don't have a clue either, ask the team. I tell you the FLL is inspiring a nation of [start-strikeout]engineers? researchers? programmers? scientists?[end-strikeout] ... there's not a single word that does justice to their skills properly - but they're just what our industry needs. And I’m very proud of the fact that the capacity here in Walldorf has grown too big to handle and overflowed into neighbouring events which are growing too as the word spreads.

And @Parents... for the children this competition really wakes them up to real-world excitement like no video game can do. It’s the difference between playing soccer on the field, as opposed to playing on the games console. Adrenalin is a factor 100 higher. The thrill of seeing changes they’ve suggested implemented in their local environment by the local council, or a response from a major manufacturing company, or even just appearing on stage is something that just takes their self-confidence and into another ball-park. Understanding that things (e.g. robots) misbehave in the real world, but they can control this nevertheless - priceless for the team and their educational development, too. That_S why it's called www.HANDS-on-TECHNOLOGY.de/en over here.

Six years ago our team came right at the bottom of the list in terms of points, but they spotted that one or two things went right, and for the next twelve months everyone of the team fevered for next year’s competition. Some things go wrong, some things go right - there is no failure in this competition.

Figure 3: The SAPollo 7 failed by the skin of their teeth to get through to the next round for two years in a row - did they give up? - read their jubilation at making it in 2011!

So if you get the chance to go to Bonn or one of the other regional finals, do it. Take your own or your neighbours' kids with you. And with a bit of luck, after feeling the buzz first hand - you’ll be forming a team of your own to compete in next year’s competition. But watch out for the winners of the Walldorf heat: SAP Robonova XL, SAP Nano Giants, SAPollo 7 (three qualify from Walldorf because of the large number of entrants here) because they are hot, hot, hot.

Now, if only I could persuade my adult colleagues to take up some of the strategies our FLL team devised - this would take my project at SAP to new heights ;-)

*** Update - through to the Central European Final are:

SAP Robonova XL.
SAPollo 7 came 5th and so just missed (by the skin of their teeth again) getting to the final (the top 4 qualify) but they did get to the final of the robot knockout where they were beaten by GermFree (Rheine.) I wish I'd been there to see GermFree getting a staggering 285 points in the robot competition, the high score of the day. Also qualified are Epunkt e. (the champion of this heat from Paderborn) and  RtS (also Paderborn - that's clealy another hotspot of talent.)

This video shows how to get your access to the new process flow tool in SAP StreamWork which is in beta release as part of the gravity project.

There's a Sketching the process to making a good decision- and then executing on it. (and what the tool enables) and another blog describing it's The specified item was not found.

And please by all means invite a colleague (or more) to join, because it is much, much, much more fun and valuable evaluating this with a colleague at the same time. If you're on your own, it's only as much fun as writing e-mails compared with using a chat program with friends ;-)

Two chance happenings in the Web convinced me that when a Web site is presence-aware and aware of the context the users are working in - hey presto - you have something almost as useful as tele-transportation.

First happening: While remote members of the development team and I were in an SAP StreamWork activity with the context of deciding on the next steps in a new product development, Richard Hirsch (one of the design partner council) sent a chat message with a really nice compliment about the work we were doing - completely out of the blue!

Because we were doing a web conference at the time, the message was appreciated by each and everyone one of the contributing team. So much more effective than forwarding an e-mail.

Second happening: In a Web conference where my SVP addressed his entire team he paused because he was not totally sure of one (minor) fact - I was webbed-in remotely, so I just posted a "Yes" back in the chat window. It's a sign of the Facebook/Twitter times that everyone nowadays is comfortable with the "chatter" of background streams so being able to chat in a  private stream is non-disruptive. Apart from a short giggle - SVP "I stand supported", the web broadcast continued uninterrupted.

Presence-aware and context-aware is the Web equivalent of being in the same (Web) place at the same time. This is the equivalent of bumping into a colleague in the coffee corner, car park, iPad queue.... and it is the ideal opportunity of exchanging ideas and making real progress in short burst of focus.

That is what I so like about working in SAP StreamWork. You don't have the uncertainty as with generic online chat or telephone where there's an element of "is this a good time or will I disturb my colleague's work?". I can see that they are in StreamWork already and this is a good time to get their attention. Now I can get the expert opinion I need to solve the problem, reach a decision, determine the next action item or next steps in a process. It's the difference between getting something done in a week or getting it finished right now.

Presence-aware merged with context-aware is technically nothing new (Gmail chat, forums, Facebook chat..)  .  But this makes it so much easier to find solutions; make breakthroughs; or even reach decisions. It's a small step forward from read/write web - but such a huge added convenience that it's worth taking into account when you plan what tools to use for what purpose. The more context-aware the meeting place is, the more likely you are to reach that magic moment of being in the right place at the right time with the right people.

SAP StreamWork got so it right by being not just read/write in the Web-Browser - but presence-aware, too.

Following the announcement just over a week ago that Google Wave is being closed down, I have been asked several times if our decision to develop the first version of Gravity on the SAP^® StreamWork^TM application platform was cunning, vision, luck or what?

The answer is.... natural evolution. Google Wave was a great environment for experimentation, and prototyping different aspects of collaboration.  It enabled us to embed "Gravity" (nickname of a collaborative business process modeler) to make a very important point about business process management: process modelling needs to take place within a larger context, in this case a conversation on a process in a general purpose tool.

Then along came SAP StreamWork, an SAP Web Platform with a very specific goal (originally available as a beta version called "12 sprints"). We've again embedded Gravity to show that process modelling takes place in a larger context, that of collaborative decision-making. This does not mean that SAP StreamWork will necessarily be the only platform where you find Gravity, but it almost certainly will be the first.

The reason for this move is not so much Gravity itself, but more a consequence of what SAP StreamWork is there for. SAP StreamWork has a very specific focus. It is not an all-purpose web portal (such as Google Wave tried to achieve), it is a portal to help business users satisfy real business needs - occasionally alone in vacuum; but more often together with colleagues in collaboration, in a structured, easy to follow way.

The business needs here are very focused. If it may be about visualizing a hurdle to overcome;  it may be about a decision that needs to be made; it may simply be about describing a roles and the separation of responsibilities (RACI diagram)... So the Web tools to support this have to be equally focused.

But complex problems or complex interactions are not simply solved by one interaction. They always involve a whole sequence of interactions, often involving different companies, departments or individuals. And it is this route to the solution, the process followed, that determines how good or timely or effective the solution will be. So defining the process, collaboratively with different stakeholders and participants, is a key success factor. And the same applies to redefining an existing process, so often the root cure for a series of emergency decisions such as a production or delivery bottleneck. And let's face it, emergency decisions are best handled in a collaborative decision-making environment - enter SAP StreamWork - so Gravity fits this Web platform perfectly. If you want more detail about how this is done visit the Gravity - Collaborative Business Process Modelling and Application Development. 

Gravity is the tool that supports this - so Gravity is being developed for the SAP StreamWork platform as a first-class citizen. Incidentally, this also has the advantage of being able to influence some of the platform aspects of SAP StreamWork, so that additional technical capabilities developed to support graphic process-modeling in real time, can be offered to other tools in SAP StreamWork and the whole platform evolves to the benefit of all.

Yes, as someone who actively dabbled with Google Wave at the beginning I am sad to see this platform go. But as a committed SAP StreamWork user (hey - it can be used for free and is open to the public right now) , I'm very glad the decision was made early on to focus on the SAP StreamWork application instead.

My old boss (pre-SAP) used to jokingly say he makes decisions immediately, with authority, and usually wrongly. That company is still around and although we used to laugh about that statement there's more than a chunk of truth in it. Trouble is, with tight margins and tight operating costs there's less room than ever before for wrong (or to be blunt about it - bad) decisions.

This blog shows how to make sure the decisions are executed immediately, with authority and correctly. It is illustrated using the SAP environment but I think it is safe to say that the rules apply equally to whatever environment you work in.

1. Decisions are irreversible.

This has to be clear in everyone's head. Decisions, once made, are irreversible. They unleash actions, money-transfers, armies of colleagues and a torrent of workstreams. You cannot simply switch the system off and start again.

True, you can compensate. But compensating for a bad-decision is a messy process of trying to reach out to different colleagues or partners, trying to shutdown workstreams, and writing off losses. This is something to be avoided.

If your process is automated, compensation can be built into the process. Indeed, many of the most important business processes in a company's repertoire are compensation processes - but that does not mean they are there to be used. They are there to be avoided.

Mopping up is a huge drain on company resources so do everything you can to make good decisions easier to achieve.

2. Decisions need to be transparent

What is the point of a decision if half the work force works against it? Do you rely on e-mails, phone, chat ... to propagate the decision. The unfortunate answer is usually "yes" - because many decisions are one-off responses to crises. However, the more repetitive a required-decision is, the more it is worth investing automating the process.

This is one of the strengths of SAP. The automated business processes that are delivered as part of the SAP Business Suite; the customization that can be done; and the tools available to automate new processes. But irrespective of the tools used, that fact that a process is automated means there's no lull in the process once the decision is made.. the ensuing actions, work-streams, money/goods transfers follow automatically. The workforce and system-components pull together to see this decision through.

Invest time in automating processes. Invest time in making sure the process-automation is flexible enough to change with time.

3. Decisions need to be immediate

Please, managers, no dawdling.  When I have reason to go on a business trip, I need to know now, rather than in a week's time that your budget cannot cover the costs. That way I can create alternative plans. And what is the value of approving late, if the costs of a late hotel/flight/train booking have doubled?

Late decisions mean delayed processes (late shipments, product launch, acquisition-lost...) or frantic scrabbling to cut corners in the next phase of the process. My old boss was right - there is no excuse for delayed decisions.

The IT department is responsible for helping the manager make decisions well and quickly. Ideally it is guided by the following principles: 

• The decision must be delivered to the manager immediately!
• The manager should not have to search for decisions to make.
• The manager should not have to wade through obsolete decision-requests.
• The manager should see all facts at a glance
• The manager should be able to confer with colleagues right-away.

I'll show you how you can get this to work using cutting-edge technology, in this case the SAP integration with Lotus Notes, Alloy. If you are not using Alloy, or Lotus Notes, or even not using SAP, the basic premises are just as true (but more difficult to achieve).

Alloy delivers the decision item to the manager's Lotus Notes client as soon as the manager is online. Domino replication and the Alloy software deal with that side of things. The decision is presented as an item in the inbox, but also in the sidebar (Alloy plugin) so that even if the decision has been pushed further down the inbox by other mail, the view of all pending decisions is still accessible in the sidebar and there's a visible reminder that it is not empty.

Let's assume the manager uses David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology (GTD) then the very first step is to decide whether or not to make the decision now or later. If she sees at a glance that it will take more than 2 minutes, then she'll postpone this. She presses  the "remove from inbox" button and the decision disappears from her inbox. Mission accomplished. Later on in the day, she may well be offline. she decides to spend say 15 minutes to work off pending decisions and she needs to bypass the clutter of her inbox to cut straight to the pending decisions. She can either do this from the sidebar or by visiting the "pending decision" view. What's important here is that these are not simply static e-mail notifications, but a view of pending decisions which are automatically updated according to whether or not they have been processed by her or a colleague or whether the process has made them obsolete.

Figure1. Clean, tidy list of pending decisions. 

With the confidence that each item is a pending decision, she can execute them one by one without having to wade through  a list of valid and invalid notifications. Alloy is a quantum leap forward from e-mail notifications and it is right in the heart of her standard desktop productivity tool - in this case Lotus Notes.

We'll handle how to arrange the facts-at-a-glance in the next section. But before moving on let's assume that she decides it can be handled GTD-fashion in under 2 minutes and hence she wants to make the decision right away...

• she's opened the decision item
• knows from experience company guidelines and what is required of the decision
• glanced at the facts of the decision

No problem - she just presses the approve/reject/redo/release/escalate... button in the Lotus Notes form. In Alloy, if the decision has been modeled with SAP Business Workflow these buttons are rendered automatically based according the decision-choice that is modeled in the SAP workflow. Neat - IT hasn't had to remodel the existing workflows when implementing Alloy.

And finally the last item in the laundry list of prerequisites for prompt decision making: "The manager should be able to confer with colleagues right-away" ...

Since the decision has been modeled in Alloy she will see immediately whether or not the colleague (e.g. trip-requestor, functional expert...) is online and can fire off a chat directly from the decision item to get the feedback required.

E.g. "Why you, why not Tim who's in Chicago that week?", "Doesn't chemical xxx require special-handling?" "Isn't customer xxx starting to default on payments?"...

Getting such simple items out of the way immediately is like detonating the remains of a rockfall to free a road. Someone else can get on with their job without you being in the way. The more simple decisions you can get out of the way immediately, the less of a pile-up you have to deal with later, much later. 

4. Decisions need to be based on facts

This is simple but often neglected. Make the effort to show the most important facts in the subject line of the decision item so that it can be assessed for urgency (or 2 minute GTD rule) without even opening it.

Make the effort to show the basic facts in an orderly, consistent, tabular format so that the facts can be seen at a glance.

Revisit this periodically and discuss with the decision-makers to make sure the facts displayed do really reflect the current policies. Quality? Time? Value?..

Alloy displays the summary in the preview pane (Figure 1) and allows sophisticated formatting using the native Domino Designer to make sure that what the manager sees is what she needs to know. It also ensures that the layout of the standard functions (decision buttons, related reports...) are consistently displayed. Templates can be used to make different decisions consistent with another, irrespective of which SAP system they come from. Similarly if you're using the SAP Portal make sure the Web Dynpro follows a similar technique. Ditto for SAP Windows GUI.

Figure 2. Clear display of facts in this standard-delivered decision items. The same is true for the important functions: decision buttons, related reports, pending decisions reminder-list 

5. Decisions need to follow guidelines

Don't take it for granted that the managers making the decisions all have the current corporate interests at heart.  They will follow what they believe to be the corporate interest but juggle in their own interests and ideals too which will vary from manager to manager. What is it that ensures that they know the current corporate interests and apply the same consistent logic or priority?

Be specific. Describe the factors that the corporation places most value on when making a decision. In the decision, provide a link to this description (corporate guidelines).

When the guidelines change, alert the managers to this fact by updating the template for the decision items with an appropriate headline. E.g. "News 14th July: More degrees of freedom for your employees" (Hey - it is Bastille day after all).

6. Decisions involve analysis

Many decisions are tough decisions. Forget the 2 minute rule here. This is when the manager needs to shut out all distractions and concentrate fully on the task at hand. Purchase a new production plant? Accept the end of a newbie's probation period? Agree on the budget for a marketing campaign?

It's easy to press the reject or approve button - but is this the right decision? As I described at the beginning, industry is less-forgiving than ever when it comes to poor decisions. So making the best decision, and being able to justify the decision is what keeps a company, and a manager's position, alive. The justification is not simply a matter or asking expert opinion, or consulting a transaction to see a status, it's more likely to be structured reporting data - in other words spreadsheet summaries of data from the system. Getting these reports can be time-consuming which means there's a risk that either the reports will be ignored, or out-of-date reporting data will be used.

Figure 3. Reporting analysis used to reach a decision

To avoid this pitfall the decision should be delivered with the reporting data. And the manager should be able to request (by push-button) the very latest data if there's any doubt in the mind of the manager. So when IT configures the decision in the SAP system they should make the effort to configure the related reports that are going to help the manager make and justify the decision.

By the way, justification is simple and often neglected. The manager simply types in a short comment and this is transferred to the workflow so that anyone can remind themselves later why this decision was reached. It's often neglected, but if the manager's know this is available, then as the focus moves towards better and better decisions, the comment field will become more and more important.

7. Decisions can be delegated

A manager can delegate decisions (corporate and SOx restrictions accepted) by setting up a substitute. Indeed, a manager must set up substitutes when she goes on vacation. Once done, the decisions will automatically appear in the colleague's inbox. This will probably be Lotus Notes if the colleague is using Alloy too - but it could be a different inbox, such as the UWL in the portal or Windows GUI Business Workplace. So the multi-channel aspect of decision-rendering is very important. The nice thing about Alloy is that the user-interface of a decision can be enhanced for Alloy, or left as the default, without affecting the existing user interfaces for portal or Windows GUI.

Another aspect of this is the day-to-day delegation of non-critical decisions to a assistant, again, within the corporate/SOx framework. Typically the assistant performs the non-critical (e.g. low value purchase requisitions) and leaves the costlier items to the manager. Critical here is that the manager can see at a glance which items are left over (pending) and this is where e-mail notifications just don't go far enough. The e-mails litter the inbox irrespective of whether the decision has been made or not. Alloy not only shows the pending items (those remaining) but also has a view of items that the assistant completed.  This is good for tracking and transparency as in "Yes, Tina released that yesterday".

The manager will need to know how to activate and deactivate a delegation (it can be quite sophisticated when different types of decision require different delegates) but once done, the routing is automatic.

Tip: Use the Alloy configured links to link to a portal page showing the managers how to set up substitutions.

8. Decisions are collaborative

The judgment comes from the manager making the decision. But the expertise she collects on the way is collaborative. The sky's the limit as to what can be done to locate and reach the experts. I mentioned Lotus Sametime for the instant messaging. This is automatically enabled in Alloy where names are added to the decision form. I believe a good manager will reach out to all experts related to a process before making an important decision so it is worthwhile including them in the decision form itself. Engineering change requests, financial decisions, product decisions all involve a bevy of experts and even if they have already given their ok upstream in the process you may want to quickly touch-base with them before making the final decision to commit (or let the decision move downstream to those above you).

The animated screenshot from the SAP live demo system (IDES) showcases how Alloy enables this chat from a customized workflow decision.

Figure 4. Direct chat integration within the decision.

What Alloy also offers is the ability to collaborate on the related reports when analysis is involved in order to reach a decision (see point 5). This is out of scope of this blog, but a powerful capability indeed. Also out of scope, but maybe the theme of a future blog, is how to locate and and discuss with experts using technology already at hand on the desktop. In the Lotus Notes world this could be Connections, for locating the expert with Quickr used for private discussions with these experts.

Bottom line: Informed decisions helped by direct consultation with experts, stake-holders and experienced colleagues are simply are more reliable decisions. I.e. Better.

9. Decisions are irreversible (revisited)

Out of sight, out of mind. But the processes rumble onwards so at the end of the day it may be worth a quick glance at your outbox (Alloy - status view) of the decisions you have made during the course of the day so you're prepared for any repercussions the next day.

In any case - there's nothing like leaving work with a clear conscience, and a glance at the decisions you've made during the day with a reminder of the quality you've invested in those that are significant is as good a way as any of going home with the feeling of a job well done.

Checklist for Effective Decision-Management

I've put together a checklist of items that I believe you might be useful before rolling out a new decision to your workforce. The more questions that can be answered affirmatively the more reliable the decisions that are made.

The raw questionnaire is attached to this blog for your own use but to give you and idea of scoping I've answered the questions based on Alloy below.

1. Are the decisions delivered automatically to the manager?
   Yes. They arrive in Lotus inbox directly and even when they are removed or dragged and dropped elsewhere they can be accessed from the decisions folder.
   
   
2. Can the manager distinguish between obsolete and pending decisions?
   Yes. There is a view which only shows pending decisions. All other views (e.g. type-of-decision) also show the status.
   
   
3. Can the manager make the decision on-the-spot?
   Yes, including offline.
   
   
4. Are  the results of the decision propagated to colleagues and systems?
   Yes. The underlying workflow or in the case of Alloy leave-management - the underlying MSS configuration tables) drives the process through completion. In Alloy, the show-case processes deliver the results to the requestors directly through Lotus Notes. In two cases a calendar entry representing a request is even updated accordingly.
   
   
5. Are the underlying facts easily digestible?
   Yes. Standard Lotus forms are delivered for the show-case processes. Native tools are used (Domino Designer) to create decision-forms based for new decisions based on the data coming from SAP. Validate the design with the business users before deploying a new decision.
   
   
6. Are the criteria for reaching a decision documented?
   Yes. Company guidelines should be described and linked to from the Helpful Links section.
   
   
7. Is it easy to propagate changes in decision-criteria to the manager?
   Yes. Update the form to alert managers when the criteria or company policy changes. And include this information in the linked guidelines ("Helpful links").
   If the decision options are changed in the Business Suite the new options are automatically propagated to Lotus Notes.
   
   
8. Are reports available to support more in-depth analysis?
   Yes. Reports can be assigned to decision types and these are listed in the sidebar when the decision is opened in Lotus Notes. If the admin has scheduled the report to be delivered periodically the latest report can even be used offline, or an ad-hoc run requested when absolute up-to-date information is required.
   
   
9. Can the manager document why a decision was reached?
   Yes. Comments are always possible and these are transferred to the underlying workflow. It is even possible to configure the decision so that a comment is obligatory for certain decision options.
   
   
10. Is collaboration with experts possible?
    Yes. Sametime chat directly from the within the decision. In addition reports results can be shared to collaborate on the analytics (authorization required).
    
    
11. Is substitution for vacation/illness supported?
    Yes. Configured from the portal or Business Suite using whatever sophisticated rules have been created there.
    
    
12. Can the manager see the decisions that a colleague has performed on her behalf?
    Yes. The status is updated in her view of decisions.
    

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BTW: I'm all for collaboration, so if anyone knows how to upload a pdf attachment to a blog I'll create an Adobe form for download.

Similarly, if anyone is interested in improving this very rudimentary form I'd be thrilled to hear from you.

Rudimentary checklist:

The Atlantic's been crossed... What was being developed by IBM and SAP over the last year under the codename The Atlantic Cruise (nautical roadmap to Lotus integration) has just been announced as the product Alloy™ in front of an audience of 5000 during the IBM Lotusphere Keynote in Orlando today. Planned release date is March 2009. SAP and IBM had already installed the beta version at several customer sites before the end of 2008. That's a good omen. The companies met their joint commitment and I can write about a product with the confidence only won by hearing from the customers directly - based on their hands-on experience of the beta code.

This lightening fly-by account just gives a taste of the design goals IBM and SAP had in creating Alloy together. Future blogs and online material will give you more in-depth information... Alloy is about accessing SAP directly in Lotus Notes. If your company uses SAP for its business and uses Lotus Notes for e-mail and collaboration then Alloy is worth looking into.

This product is not a mashup - it's an alloy. It combines two great development environments, SAP NetWeaver and IBM Domino, to form something greater than the sum of the parts.  That's what alloys are about. Gold is a good example of an alloy. Yes, there such a thing is pure gold which you'll find in the vaults of a country's national reserves, but the gold you see on daily use is an alloy. It's the mix of gold, silver, zinc and copper in an 18 carat gold ring that makes it strong enough to wear on a daily basis. From AL-LI to stainless steel, alloys are the bread and butter or modern engineering.

That being said, it's not a material that  SAP and IBM are delivering, but a complete product. Based on this alloy technique, it's a truly beautifully engineered product.

Take Reports Management in Alloy. Yes, there are many different places a manager can go to see the latest up-to-date summary of information. Do they? Do they really? Let's face it, e-mail is still the primary source of business information for most. And if you cannot adjust it to your needs, and have it stored automatically in an easy to retrieve nature, even information arriving by e-mail loses its value. Alloy offers the manager the chance to subscribe to the reports they want, and personalize them directly in Lotus Notes, offline too. When the reports arrive, irrespective of which folder they are moved to, the manager can also retrieve them from an automatically generated structured view of the different report types that this user subscribes to. Sure, no company wants to distribute reports willy-nilly to it's users so there is a role-based customizing that determines who can receive which report (SAP ERP ALV or SAP BW). Also there is control over what parameters are made available. But the final personalization is done by the managers themselves.

Once Alloy Release 1.0 has been deployed on the Domino server and the users activated, the users can also create leave requests or travel requests directly in Lotus Notes. In fact the user would have to look pretty carefully at the logo in the sidebar to determine that they are in fact doing this using SAP Business Suite in the background. SAP Business Suite is not just recording the information, but generating what is available in the Lotus Notes Alloy request. For example, if a new leave type, such as "casual leave" is configured in the SAP Business Suite, the option will automatically be offered in Lotus Notes together with the adjustments to the user interface to reflect this (such as only allowing requests that span days rather than hours). And just as the  user expects, this request shows up in his or her calendar automatically and reflects the approval status which may or may not be automatic, depending on the customizing in the SAP Business Suite.

If the request requires one or more approvals, these are automatically generated in the managers' Lotus Notes inboxes. Again, the manager would have to look pretty closely to detect that this is coming from SAP because it blends in so perfectly with Lotus Notes. This is something that SAP could not have achieved on its own. It is the close teamwork between IBM and SAP developers that has magicked up this deep integration, even to the extent of enabling the manager to chat with the requester via Lotus Sametime if the requestor happens to be online.

The manager wants to approve offline? No problem. Just as you'd expect when you work in Lotus Notes the processing of the approvals and requests can be done both online and offline. But it is always done using the authentification for that user so there's no loss of data integrity. No hacks - this is based on alloyed techniques.

How about different types of approvals? How about managerial decisions with more than two outcomes? No problem. The decisions steps that you have embedded in SAP Business Workflow can be selected and automatically propagated to Lotus Notes and they are treated in the same way as the approvals that Alloy delivers out of the box. If you want to customize the user interface then it's a simple matter of using Lotus Domino Designer to do this. It's a Lotus user interface so making use of the standard development tools is the obvious way to do this. You want to add more context data from the SAP Business Suite? Then you'll do this using the ABAP environment of the business application (exits not modifications). You want to add another branch to the workflow decision step? Do this in the Workflow Builder directly and lo and behold the new option appears as a new button in the manager's Lotus Notes approval form.

This is the design philosophy of Alloy: Using the native tools of whichever system is relevant and see the results automatically.

Alloy merges the structured processes in the SAP Business Suite with the unstructured collaborative way of doing things that business users so rely on in Lotus Notes. Nothing is broken. Nothing is restricted unnecessarily. Efficiency and autonomy is what Alloy enables.

We think We have been told by customers who have seen it, that Alloy is just what the doctor ordered to enable domain experts, managers, decision makers, (in other words your company's most valuable HR assets) to do their job efficiently and dilligently. It does this by providing comfortable familiar environment in their e-mail/collaboration environment to do their SAP work there directly.

So if you're a Lotus shop - check out the demo on www.sap.com/alloy to get a feel for what Alloy looks like in practice.

*Update: Release announcement see below *

Some good things take a long time coming but they're worth the wait.  Today's announcement is a welcome move for SAP customers around the world committed to Lotus Notes as their groupware platform.
 
The first release will come with all manner of out-of the box capabilities to enable the manager in particular, but also those companies' employees with access to Lotus Notes, to perform standard business activities from the comfort of their Lotus Notes environment. So the manager can research trends using the latest internal business reports or make approvals while the employee can trigger their approval processes or track their status. The first release will offer very useful basic capabilities, saving time, frustration and of course leading to better decisions, less redundancy and more transparency.

Of course, not every customer has the same business focus or priorities and this is reflected in the SAP customizing, be it in the customizing settings, or some other means - no two customer installations are identical.  This is difficult to take into account in third party software integration so the really good news is that developer extensions will be supported in the initial Release of this joint SAP/IBM product.

In fact , Lotus Notes installations have always been a hot-bed of activity for Lotus Notes developers extending the standard capabilities to the customer's requirements in any number of directions so it really is good news that this product will enable the same sort of flexible adaptation at the customer site from the very first release

And that is why I say, on behalf of SDN,

      A warm welcome to all Lotus Notes Developers :-)

Welcome to SDN, welcome so the world of SAP and welcome to the new opportunities that this will open up for you.

So if you're new to SAP - now is the time to get familiar with SAP Business Suite, SAP NetWeaver and all the capabilities that the platform offers. It's time to get prepared.

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Update: The project code-name "Atlantic" mentioned above has now been announced for release in March 2009 as the product Alloy. 

Alloy: Bonding SAP with Lotus Notes

Public website: www.sap.com/alloy

There's two ways of looking at workflow. You either look at it as a high up birds-of-view of the process and what the process automation will achieve.... or..... you look at it from within the thick of it - as a user interaction experience.

Neither is right and neither is wrong. You either can't see the forest for the trees, or can't see the trees but the forest. If you don't cover both, you lose, because the best designed processes will fail if the users don't understand what they're meant to be doing at their particular branch (groan) of the process. And the best designed user-interaction will fail if the the process doesn't lead anywhere or do anything useful.

Duet, when it comes to workflow, is about getting in as close to the process as you can. It's about looking at the user interaction in detail. It's about making that branch of the process so easy to use, so intuitive, so attractive to deal with right away, that that part of the process is executed in record time and record dilligence.

The consequence: Approvals are performed on time. And rejections, which are what prevent a company making mistakes and losing money, can be made because the complete context information is available and instantly interpretable.

So Duet offers the following in MS Outlook:

• Offline and secure approvals (no crossing your fingers and hoping that an smtp mail isn't spoofed).
• Approvals can be done directly from your e-mail as you receive it.
• User interface hides the technology used below the surface (that might change with time and release).
• You control the configuration of the context information displayed with approval
• Above all - you can do the approval and handle the sporadic ad hoc requirements such as adding attachments as intuitively as you handle your e-mail.

And it offers this without disrupting the process in any way. The forest doesn't change. In other words you don't have to call the workflow consultants back in. It's purely a matter of getting the trees to sprout new leaves.

This is one of the scenarios that SAP and Microsoft are offering in their next release of Duet. And to prepare you for what is coming there is a workflow education session at Teched (UP202) . In addition I'll be leading a birds-of-a-feather discussion session at the community day, Tuesday, the day before the official teched program begins in Munich. It's a chance to discuss face-to-face the possibilities that Duet offers to workflow, consequences and how to prepare for it.

If you plan to attend this BOF session, please add your name to the Wiki (linked above) and drop me a line so that I know what expectations I can address.

And don't forget the Teched education session UP202 on Friday.