Category Archive

This time a short post (for me) as I am in the middle the series “Learning from the past to understand the future” and currently collecting information for next week’s post. However, recently Rob Ferrone, the original Digital Plumber, pointed me to an interesting post from Scott Taylor, the Data Whisperer.

In code: The Virtual Dutchman discovered the Data Whisperer thanks to the original Digital Plumber.

Scott’s article with the title: “Data Management Hasn’t Failed, but Data Management Storytelling Has” matches precisely the discussion we have in the PLM community.

Please read his article, and just replace the words Data Management by PLM, and it could have been written for our community. In a way, PLM is a specific application of data management, so not a real surprise.

Scott’s conclusions give food for thought in the PLM community:

To win over business stakeholders, Data Management leadership must craft a compelling narrative that builds urgency, reinvigorates enthusiasm, and evangelizes WHY their programs enable the strategic intentions of their enterprise. If the business leaders whose support and engagement you seek do not understand and accept the WHY, they will not care about the HOW. When communicating to executive leadership, skip the technical details, the feature functionality, and the reference architecture and focus on:

• Establishing an accessible vocabulary
• Harmonizing to a common voice
• Illuminating the business vision

When you tell your Data Management story with that perspective, it can end happily ever after.

It all resonates well with what I described in the PLM ROI Myth – it is clear that when people hear the word Myth, they have a bad connotation, same btw for PLM.

The fact that we still need to learn storytelling is because most of us are so much focused on technology and sometimes on discovering the new name for PLM in the future.

Last week I pointed to a survey from the PLMIG (PLM Interest Group) and XLifcycle, inviting you to help to define the future definition of PLM.

You are still welcome here: Towards a digital future: the evolving role of PLM in the future digital world.

Also, I saw a great interview with Martin Eigner on Minerva PLM TV interview by Jennifer Moore. Martin is well known in the PLM world and has done foundational work for our community

. According to Jennifer, he is considered as The Godfather of PLM.  This tittle fits nicely in today’s post. Those who have seen his presentations in recent years will remember Martin is talking about SysLM (System Lifecycle Management) as the future for PLM.

It is an interesting recording to watch – click on the image above to see it. Martin explains nicely why we often do not get the positive feedback from PLM implementations – starting at minute 13 for those who cannot wait.

In the interview, you will discover we often talk too much about our discipline capabilities where the real discussion should be talking business. Strategy and objectives are discussed and decided at the management level of a company. By using storytelling, we can connect to these business objectives.

The end result will be more likely that a company understands why to invest significantly in PLM as now PLM is part of its competitiveness and future continuity.

Conclusion

I shared links to two interesting posts from the last weeks. Studying them will help you to create a broader view. We have to learn to tell the right story. People do not want PLM – they have personal objectives. Companies have business objectives, and they might lead to the need for a new and changing PLM. Connecting to the management in an organization, therefore, is crucial.

Next week again more about learning from the past to understand the future