Marselis Rik - The PointZERO vision: stop wasting time and money

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Right first time is an important principle in this visionary book. A vision sounds quite distant from concrete operation and getting fast results. Nevertheless, paying closer attention to the deeper meaning of what is offered in this vision is essential to achieving results.

Initiating the development of a new information system too quickly, without properly structured descriptions of (business) requirements, is a well-known problem in IT. Simply saying things needs to change, as we have been saying for over 50 years now, will not solve this. However, something peculiar is going on. IT specialists seem to rule the IT world, which has resulted in end-users receiving systems that are no smarter than the developers themselves. For systems development, the sky seems the limit, to the point that IT people start design, development, test, quality and acceptance activities without giving them proper thought. By doing so, the result of these activities (and whether or not we can use the software) often comes as a total surprise. This way, the IT world sustains the current volume of people that work in IT, the volume of resources spent on development and maintenance, and the belief that the time-to-market of business services is dictated by IT instead of business.

This calls for a new way of working in IT, which starts with being aware of what is ahead of you, so you can get it right first time. And as Rome was not built in one day, we know this approach will not change overnight. Solid learning, change and implementation are key to achieving this transformation.

Its success will depend on the willingness of organizations to change their way of working, while resisting the internal and external forces that ask them to skip the analysis and to build immediately. Once this hurdle has been taken, things can go fast. Significant savings in design, development, test, acceptance implementation and maintenance activities are right there waiting for us.

This first book dives deeper into the underlying issues and offers a result-driven vision. The anchor of this vision is PointZERO: the virtual point everything revolves around, the turning point from thinking about quality to implementing it, the starting point, and the checkpoint.

Same old story told in a different way? No, so its time to finally listen. Be inspired by this vision as a first in the PointZERO series. I am convinced that implementing this new vision will not only help your organization improve the quality of your business solutions, but also set a new standard that enables you to reach business success and stay competitive in your market.

My thanks go to everyone that has worked to create this vision. I am sure that it will continue to make a significant contribution to the IT profession in the coming decade.

Nijs Blokland
Vice-president
Community Management & Innovation

For good there is an internationally known, customary gesture: a circle with thumb and forefinger. A gesture you usually use when you are not able to talk: in noisy environments, when diving under water, in a restaurant when the waiter asks you how the food tastes but your mouth is still full Without a doubt in every situation in which you want to convey the same message: Good ... Top!

In Shodo Japanese calligraphy, only when the calligrapher is confident enough that he will get it right first time, without any subsequent changes, will he put brush to paper. He is ready for this when he knows that his calligraphy can be replicated several times in a row in exactly the same way. He needs to be very confident and thorough in his preparation before putting his brush to paper. And this is particularly the case when his calligraphy is the Enso circle: Complete ... Perfect!

Combine thorough preparation, perfection of the moment, predetermined quality and completeness, and the choice of this illustration to represent PointZERO becomes more than obvious.

This book is the result of the work of numerous people. In 2010 Nijs Blokland of Sogeti in the Netherlands started sharing his observations on the imperfection of the information technology business with a small group of people. He introduced the term PointZERO as a carrier of this vision. The idea first ripened within the Solution & Innovation unit coordinated by Marc Valkier, and Wim van Uden started spreading the word. Inspired by Michel de Meijer and Nijs Blokland, and founded on our companys global perspective, the cooperation of various divisions in the Netherlands (Business Solutions, Application Services and Software Control) quickly extended to multiple countries.

At the end of 2011 the management team of Software Control at Sogeti Netherlands decided that it was time to lay down the vision in a book in order to have a common body of knowledge from which every PointZERO implementation could start off. Ewald Roodenrijs assumed the role of gathering and sharing experiences worldwide to complete the PointZERO vision. Rik Marselis joined to organize the actual creation of the book.

In creating this book, our experiences in implementing PointZERO at several clients, while gathering their results and feedback, proved very valuable. We sent the first draft of the book for review to several dozens of people all over the world, followed by a high performance session where the content was thoroughly challenged. The final draft was created and again reviewed by a great number of people and thus this book saw the light of day.

We would like to thank the following people for their invaluable contribution in the creation of parts of the content and their inspiration and involvement in the elaboration of PointZERO. In no particular order, we offer our thanks to: Robb La Velle, Clemens Reijnen, David Harte, Bert Noorman, Robbert van Alen, Robert Deckers, Barry Weston, Ben Visser, Daniel Maslyn, Dominique Mhlbauer, Wim van Uden, Marjolein van Dongen, Miroslav Bure, Percy Hilloo, Peter Guldborg, Peter Selles, Swen Vandermeeren, Ron Sintemaartensdijk, Arno Balemans, Stephen Davis and Will Gibbons.

In subsequent discussions, many colleagues joined the team and helped us with the various drafts. This book is a truly international endeavor. Sogeti and Capgemini colleagues from a dozen countries reviewed and contributed to the books content.

In no particular order we would like to thank: Clare Argent, Eveline Moolenaars-Koetsier, Guido Nelissen, Jan-Willem van den Brink, Tjerk Sixma, Yvonne Kraijo, Dan Hannigan, Bob Unsworth, Marlies van Steenbergen, Bart Vrenegoor, Geert Vanhove, Mattias Bergstrmner, Arjan van der Haar, Gro Rognstad, Gert Stad, Hans Kapteijns, Julya van Berkel, Maarten Wijsman, Trude Rosendal, Jan van Egmond, Claudia Beemster, Thomas Veltman, Rob Baarda, Leo van der Aalst, Albert Roos and Richard Ammerlaan.