What are the challenges in Virtual leadership?

Managing a team in person is a challenge. Now, managers around the world are confronted with a new dimension that is virtual team management. For the current COVID-19 pandemic, we can't expect it to be only for the short term, but for many of us (such as IT), virtual work will be the future. Major tech giants are embracing remote work.

Whether we are managing the team virtually short-term or long-term, it is presenting a set of interesting challenges in addition to the classic obstacles we have. The most difficult part, but it is important, is to keep the team in touch with their way.

Here are the challenges I have experienced in my virtual leadership career.

Communication

When we are physically present, communication is very easy. We can see the body language, read non-verbal communication, and other natural observations. However in the virtual space with efficient communication is the most difficult part.

We have so many technical tools available to us, but the most important is to inculcate a culture of communication. As managers and team leaders, we should begin by providing daily updates, check-ins with your team, and communicating on a case-by-case basis. It's a little cumbersome at first, but eventually, the team follows us.

Productivity

With virtual teams, it is very to hard see who is working who is not. Setting smaller goals, the short deadlines will help you to manage them to a certain extent. The use of tracking tools (JIRA, Planner, Trello, etc.) will assist in keeping the team on track.

Trust

When it comes to trust it is two folds. To demonstrate trust and earn trust. A strong communication culture will build trust within the team. We must listen more and engage in frank conversations. Showing empathy, especially in today's COVID context, can build a strong relationship with the team.

Emotional Stability

Naturally, People are looking for social interaction, interaction with their Family. In this pandemic situation specially, lack of such interaction and working long hours at home may adversely affect mental health and emotions. Emotional stability is strongly related to productivity and efficiency.

Things we may do,

• Contributes to work-life balance.
• Do not continue to stretch the time they have used for evening exercise or commuting.
• Have a flexible schedule. Also, a few short pauses between work.
• Take a moment to recognize and appreciate their long hours of work and achievement.

Moving to The Cloud

Infor M3 has taken the approach to move into the cloud by releasing  major version of M3 Cloud Edition (M3 CE) in early 2018. With this release Infor is encouraging customers to move as well, highlighting the key benefits that they are gaining.

M3 Big Picture (courtesy  of Infor)

Key Highlights

• Single Version 
• You will always have one version across your environments. 
• Incremental developments.
• Continuous delivery of new features. 
• To stay "Super Current".
• Automatic Updates
• No more upgrades. You will receive recent updates automatically to make sure the system is up-to-date. 
• Controlled through Toggles and Parameters not to have impact on existing business processes.  
• Scalable
• As it is in the cloud, by nature, we don't have to worry about the load of the system. We can scale the system to fit into out load. 
• Secure
• Infor is making sure the security factor by implementing 3 SD concepts. 
• Secure by Default.
• Secure by Design. 
• Secure by Deployment.
• Extensible 
• Ability to extends existing feature to suit your needs. 

Having said that, practically you will have challenges when providing the solution. For an example, you know the relationship between the hammer and the nail. depending on size of the nail, you have to choose the type or size of the hammer. Like wise, our solutions has to be adjusted accordingly the Cloud concepts. 

However, as the time moves on,  Infor M3 CE will mature to the level where these challenges become insignificant.  

Single Tenant Vs Multi Tenant

In the Cloud, we are talking about Multi-Tenancy.  In short, Multi Tenant is, the System is shared with multiple organizations(tenants), as shown in below diagram.

Single-Tenant Vs Multi-Tenant (Courtesy of  https://www.peoplefluent.com/blog/learning/single-tenant-lms-vs-multi-tenant-lms-security)

For M3 same multi-tenant (MT) principle applies and separation is based on the Tenant ID. The individual organization will have separate Tenant ID, which make sure no overlapping will happens with other tenants.

M3 Solutions for The Cloud

As we are more used to providing solution for M3 On-prem or Single Tenant, working with MT environment may be a paradigm shift. Because, We have to work with the certain constrains, selective technology and tools. 

For an example, we cannot run SQL commands, we used to execute in On-prem version, in MT environment. For me it is hard to work without SQL (similar to the feeling that my both hands were tied and ask to develop) , but due to this constrain I have to think about differently.  

What is next

M3 world is changing and Infor is investing in M3.  We should be ready.

I'm planning publish few posts with regards to M3 MT technical solution in future.

Breaking the Silence

After so many silence months, started to write.....!

It is almost  one and half year since my last post. During the time I was in a 13.4 upgrade project. In this project I worked with Info and working as Infor Technical Project Manager.

The project went  on exactly one year (plus two months PGL) and it was a upgrade from M3 10.1 to 13.4. This client owned the largest M3 data base ever. It was 13.5 TB in size. Back end is running on IBM iSeries sever.

Additionally they had

1. 200+ MAK Mods.
2. 220+ Jscripts.
3. 220+ M3 Web Services.
4. 640+ Miciost SQL Server Reports.
5. 55+ External Interfaces.
6. 40+ StreamServe modifications.
7. 10 MEC developments.

My responsibilities were make sure all the above developments upgrades to M3 13.4 and planning the UAT.

During the peek of upgrade there were 20 Technical Consultants from 3 different regions (Egypt, Philippine and Sri Lanka).

It was quite challenging and but interesting project. 

What next:

Currently I'm over seeing a M3 multi-tenant (M3 MT) implementation, and hoping to write posts about M3 MT concepts and technologies. 

 

Control Properties in MEC

When we want to keep some parameters in the MEC we often use “.properties” file.  But alternatively we also can use Control properties in the Partner Administrator.

The control properties can be accessed from the MEC mapper using the following code.

String strVariable = getManifestInfo("agr:outputFolderPath");

Hint:

You can add control properties to the individual “Agreement” or to the “Group”.

Depending on the situation, we can choose the suitable method to use. Below comparison will help to choose appropriate method.

Comparison:

	Control Properties	Properties File
Format	Key,Value format	Key, Value format
Deployment	Will be ported to the environment with import/export function.	Possibility to miss the file to copy unless it is documented properly.
Code	Very easy. No explicit initiation of objects. One line required to access the variable.	Not very easy. Need to read the file and initiate property object. Require few extra coding to access first variable.
Usage	Properties to be used in agreement or group level.	Properties to be used as common to share across all the agreements. E.g. data base connections,

Infor M3 TechEd 2017

It is so exciting to be here in Sweden & to participate 2nd Infor M3 TechEd event. In the keynote session today (by Ole Ramsussen – Infor M3 Product Global Director) following key points were mentioned.

1. Infor Xi platform  
1. There are 3 extensibility levels for end users (HomePages), consultants(App Builder) & developers(Mongoose).
2. 13.4 highlights
1. Full support of Xi platform
2. Available both on-prem & cloud
3. Extensibility improvements
4. 288 performance improvements
5. Factory Track as warehouse mobility solution
6. Soho design
3. Cloud strategy 
1. Multi tenant ColudSuites 11.1 M3 CE planned to release in 2018 for F&B , Distribution enterprise, Fashion, Equipment & chemicals
2. M3 Cloud Edition 19.1 panned to release in 2019.
4. Infor M3 roadmap
1. Utilize the power of Xi platform
2. Remove tech legacy
3. Cloud strategy as above point #3
4. Strategically below components are going away.
1. IPA –> ION Workflow
2. LBI –> InforBI/Birst
3. ISO –> M3 H5 client/Mingle
4. Mashup Designer –> Infor App Builder
5. Infor OS : Infor Operating Services
1. A solution to fully integrate industry specific solutions with mobile first design  & science driven analytics.
2. Components incudes: UX, Collaboration, Extensibility, Security, Process integration, API gateway , Analytics, documents & reporting.
6. M3 Core Extensibility Framework
7. In Future, What will happen to the OutFile, & MEC
1. OutFile will completely be replaced with configurable XML file.
2. MEC will only becomes connector to M3. ION will take over all the integrations, including EDI, integration with other systems etc.
8. M3 Solution stack.
   Below diagram depicts it.
   

Access APIs , When you don’t have MI Test

When you want to run an API, MITest (external tool or inside ISO Client ) is a handy tool. But if you have them, for an example in H5 client you cannot call MITEST, still, there is a way to an API. You need to have LCM access or server view access.

Steps:

Following steps were captured in LCM.

1. Go to the Topology View in Infor ION Grid Management pages and find M3ApiWS.  The expand it.
   
2. Then Click on MI-WS. Then click on Global Management Pages (M3-API-WS). In the next
   
3. You will get the page where you can select Program, Transaction & run.
   

A New Beginning

Today we embarked a new journey. Brandix I3 became Fortude (http://fortude.co/) . I’m very proud that I WAS one of the first team at Brandix I3 & I’M now one of the first team at Fortude.

My Team & I, as M3 development team,  supported to grow Brandix I3, working with almost  all it’s customers. We are not going to stop. We are endeavouring as development HUB to grow Fortude exponentially. !