Kim Miller - The Oracle Way to Consulting

Copyright 2015 by Kim Miller. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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For those who inspire me to try to do my best every day:

Challenger, Charlotte, Ladybug, Kenny, B, Sadie, Tommy, Ouija, Leo, and Vincent

A special thanks to my son, Ryan Cunningham, for his contributions to this book. He is the person I admire most in this life.

DO THE BEST YOU CAN WITH WHAT YOU HAVE TO WORK WITH.

My mom, Gram Cracker

O racle consultants enjoy a reputation for being the best in the industry. What is their secret? Oracle consultants start with the huge advantage of being employees of the company that develops the software they support. Traditionally, this relationship has been referred to as one throat to choke; that is, any issues that arise can be blamed on only one company instead of several companies blaming one another. At Oracle, we prefer to think of it as several voices singing in harmony.

The software development effort at Oracle is a coordinated effort. The software, hardware, database, and middleware teams work together to assure that all of Oracles products work seamlessly. Oracles consultants have access to the individuals who wrote the software as well as a host of exceptionally experienced consultants. Oracle consultants frequently have the opportunity to contribute feedback on product performance and recommend enhancements, and so they are deeply invested in the overall success of the software.

Oracle offers all its employees access to training in software and industry and soft skills. Any training that is available to customers or partners is generally available to Oracles consultants without charge. Employees benefit from access to training materials before their general availability to the competition. Oracle is an awesome company that genuinely cares about keeping its employees well trained, engaged, and happy. The result is an exceptionally productive workforce.

The last and perhaps most important investment that Oracle makes in its employees is in the area of soft skills. Soft skills are talents that are needed to communicate effectively, excel in productivity, and be the type of person from whom others want to learn. Oracles human resources team provides a library of soft skills training for all roles and levels of employees. Oracle consulting offers its consultants and project managers training in the specific soft skills with an eye toward developing world-class consultants and managers. This focus on excellence in soft skills is one of the key differentiators between Oracle and its competitors.

In the mid-2000s I ran a program within Oracle Consulting called The Path to Certification. This program was designed to ensure that all of Oracles consultants had a well-rounded education. One branch of the program was a five-day consulting skills class that included best practices that I had developed or observed during my decades on the consulting side of the organization. All North American consultants and project managers were required to attend the training, and written feedback from the instructors was provided both to the students and to their direct managers. The program was a success as 95 percent of the participants met the program requirements.

Word of the success of the consulting skills class got out, and we started to receive requests for the class from our customers and partners. By 2010 I had moved into partner enablement in a role in which I manage programs that provide a variety of types of training to Oracles partners to ensure that they are able to implement our products. Even though the consulting skills course hadnt been formally offered for years, I was still receiving requests for it. I redesigned the course to be partner-facing and relaunched it. Much to my surprise, even many of our largest partners didnt have a similar training program available for their own consultants. We, the partner enablement team, did not have the bandwidth to come close to meeting the demand, and so we turned the training materials over to a delivery partner, iLearn-ERP. The demand was still insatiable, and I decided that the only way to meet it was to write a book.

The Oracle Way to Consulting contains my observations and experiences captured over decades of working in the technology industry. I have seen the industry grow and change, software has matured and evolved, and the focus has shifted from pure technology to social, but one constant has been the need for consulting skills. Consultants must have exceptional communication, organization, and documentation skills as well as specific personality characteristics to reach the adult learner.