Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

My Product Development Committee (PDC) within the International Oracle Usergroups Community (IOUC) is where users groups work together for the benefit of all users.

Since Fusion Applications were first announced we have worked to ensure users are as educated as possible and have their say into the process. Oracle has been great here and I must thank them for their commitment to us throughout the process, but more about that in my next post.

For the past few years Dr Nadia Bendjedou who works for Oracle in the EBS technology area, has been presenting her dynamic white paper The Evolutionary Path to Fusion to many users groups around the world. In fact the PDC are often seen in the front row of her presentations as dedicated groupies.

About 18 months ago we thought it would be a good idea to do a follow up on the paper, it is great to feel motivated by the presentation but when you get back to the office it is more difficult to explain to your colleagues or boss, why this is useful and how it my relate to your organisation. So we worked on a simple tool that might help.

I say simple but actually a lot of people in the PDC and especially Nadia put a lot of hours into how we should do this. We are based all oer the globe and the calls were very early morning for those in Australia and New Zealand and late at night for those of us in Europe, poor Nadia lives in Paris which meant we were finishing at 11pm for her.

But we finished the tool named 'Oracle Applications Planning Tool' and I showed it for the first time at Open World 2008 at the end of one of Nadia's presentations. This was the start of a great double act which we have taken around the world, and people see value in it.

Only problem was we had to get so many people in Oracle to check we weren't given mixed messages or confusing people before we could make the tool available and this has been a long struggle. I work for a big organisation and I know that makes for lot of hurdles when you want to do something out of the ordinary but I still found it very frustrating. The PDC itself is fueled by enthusiasm and passion and that was coming very close to being extinguished as we waited and waited to get this tool out to you.

BUT WE HAVE and it is now live.

Give it a try and then let us know on Oracle Mix what you think.

Thanks to Nadia, Cliff Godwin who has helped make this happen and to all the PDC who worked on getting this together. And thanks to Bambi Staveley in Oracle who put together the web page and made my many edits.