How Latest EU Project Fiasco Helps You Beat Bigger Bangs
Any organisation ran by its bureaucrats soon becomes not fit for purpose. With the EU running way past this point, even when one member state quits in no small part due to such dysfunction a decade back, can it ever be saved?
Never passing up a chance to show the world their ineptitude, we come to their new EES airport 'foreign' passenger arrivals screening system.
I've blogged on big bang huge project rollout disasters and their implications for our solution selling down the years. I look back and find an early post of mine from 2008. On Heathrow's then new Terminal 5 gleaming, but left passengers, staff and airlines steaming.
Featuring two priceless steers; Incremental Commissioning & Component Projects.
I first came across the tension between all-in and toe-in as a concept in October 1986. The knowingly labelled Big Bang project bringing the London Stock Exchange up-to-date.
That and today's EES shared many traits.
Both sought to swap manual for automation. For instance where 'open outcry' chaos of yelling traders got replaced by screen-based electronic trading, read border control guard passport stampers making way for biometric self-serve kiosks.
And both got considered an embarrassing failure for day one disasters.
London then saw an instant system collapse. Europe now almost a year on remains beset by a lottery of anxiety inducing, flight-missing, insane steadfast 'refusal to adapt the rules' Kafka processing.
Both London's stock exchange and airport terminal proved a success long-term. Eventually. So there is hope for travellers into Europe.
But at the cost of catastrophe. Which is eminently avoidable. Will these people ever learn?
I've long advised the pilot approach. There's Test Marketing adjacent to our field. I often talk of Test Selling in similar mould internally. And prospects considering their own big bang launch are always better advised to try somewhere specific first before attempting at scale.
When a cubrep myself, selling ERP systems before the category got fully formed, my implementation guys would never go for a full switch on. Either what they termed parallel running or a small element of specific workflow first alone which we'd today call either 'ring-fenced' or 'slicing'.
In this EU case, they actually claim to have piloted.
Yet you wonder, really?
A pre-register trial doesn't seem to have wrought any lessons. One country's airports trialled ahead (Italy) was deemed a success, but couldn't seem to be replicated. And there was still a safety net of six-month phased 'soft launch' rollout elsewhere. To no avail.
Indeed, one broadsheet summed up five glaring "ridiculous" errors sub'n req'd];
- Airports weren’t consulted
- The technology is buggy
- There is no pre-clearance (yet)
- There is no carve-out for UK nationals
- It’s a sledgehammer to crack a nut
Detailing when any phasing or, to use the sofware term vertical slicing, is not really so.
A trap we must not let our prospects fall into.
Competing larger bidders can often push buyers down full launch mode because they pitch sheer scale. Yet down such path madness lies.
They may also claim piloting. But how, precisely? Don't forget slicing too here. Which single workflow, end to end, has it actually run in production, not just piloted in isolation?
Taking further that final bullet above, let's not ignore the sheer folly of this overhaul too. You need only look at the American pre-register system working and, even more starkly, Dubai's facial recognition 'carpet' eliminating friction all together to see the future is already with us. What a waste of EU time, money and reputation.
In time, we hope smoothness reigns. But if the pattern stands for your prospect - falling for the trick of a pitch for going live everywhere at once falsely conveying confidence and capability - your buyer will likely not be around to see it in their company. Let them know that.