Case Study 2: Business System Conversion. Wherever human beings determine to be productive, they will come up with systems to help them achieve. Prior to the revolution that accompanied the development of relational databases, this usually meant that the accounting department had their system, the manufacturing department had their system, and so on. Relational database technology changed all that. One database could meet the needs of the whole organization. Oracle was the database technology chosen by Sprint International in the early 1990's. When the Alcatel Data Networks organization was formed in 1993, the Oracle application suite was chosen to support the business.   As head of the IT department during the transition from many self-contained systems, to a single corporate database technology, I had to manage several newly emerging types of problems. These included: Cross Functional Project Teams: Use of end-users from different departments as participants in the implementation created interesting dynamics. Often I found that the only time users spoke to each other was during project meetings. Everyone had their own way of doing things and their's was the right way. Managing the Consulting Budget: Emerging with this new technology was the emergence of the $225, $175, and $150 per hour paid consultants that were required to implement the systems. Detailed project tracking, and the ability to insure that the right level of consultant was doing the right level of work, were mandatory skills to keep this type of project on track and on budget. Graceful System Obsolescence: Transition plans had to be created to migrate each department from their homegrown systems to the corporate system. This required equal parts: insistance and diplomacy. Data Migration: Data migration is a huge task. But before data can be migrated, it has to be "scrubbed and cleaned". The accounting department may define a customer one way, while manufacturing views the customer in another way. The process of data scrubbing is the only way to insure that the "relational-ness" [or integrity] of the systems which are implemented.