Aug 10, 2001 1:21 PM
Replying to Robert Adams
...
I am the skills lead for our company in the project management area. So I deal with pre-sales a fair bit.
Michael is correct. Educating sales is way to go. As PM's we determine the cost, sales determines the price. How do you accomplish that?
A couple of techniques that have been successful for me are explaining or justifying estimates and determining metrics for measuring project success.
Justification for estimates is a perfect example of why you need to track metrics. Historical records provide guidance for the team doing estimates and backup to justify estimates to sales and/or client.
Quantifying project success is gray at best. Trying to attach some level of numbers to rate project success is sometimes beneficial. Measures are time, cost, functionality, quality and in the end over all customer satisfaction. If you are able to have the client rate the 5 areas as to how much weighting they have, then rate you performance on each piece. As we know sometimes time is more important than cost. So the cost is increased, if the driver is time to market (hate those ones) you may get a 35% weighing on time and 5% on cost. The rating * the weighting gives you a score. Add them up and get he overall project success rating.
Again, building historical records of which projects went well and which didn't is important. Once you have a track record you can see it gives more credence to your proposals. I find sales people like numbers, which is why I started trying to quantify project success. It is not a cure, but it has been helpful.
Here's a sample success measurement from a project client project we just completed did. Of course I included one where we got a good rating ;)
