Sidebar: Ready, Set, Go!

August 29, 2005 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - "One of the biggest challenges -- aside from 'Here's technology we have never used and let's make it work' -- was we did the entire project in five months," says K.C. Condit, director of technical infrastructure at Rent-A-Center.
When you work that fast, you learn things that not every IT manager knows. For example, it's not easy to buy 3,000 chairs all at the same time. But that's what the company had to do to deploy its kiosk-based employment application system within that condensed time frame.
"We pushed some vendors to the limit, to put it mildly," recalls CTO Tony Fuller.
Indeed, a gaggle of furniture, computer hardware and software vendors had to run to keep up with a project schedule shaped by a company with a flat organizational chart and an informal management style.
"We take pride in having a very small management staff in our home office, and we have very open lines of communications," Fuller says. "From when we decide to do something to implementation has always been a short time. We like to get in and get it done."
Fuller explains that for a project of this magnitude, which includes multiple departments such as IT, HR, purchasing and real estate, "we have the ability to get all the right people into the room all talking the same language. And we get the vendors into the loop from Day One also."

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