I have been parachuted into a troubled customer implementation! The situtation is that the client has multiple products in production that have lot of issues. No one has a single view as to what the overall status is. Moreover, there are some new projects starting on the side that may impact the delivery of the other sub projects. Another challenge is that the product teams are based in the US and the delivery is outsourced to an IT company from India. This brings into bearing multiple timezones as well complex matrix relations within different products
I have to bring this program back on track and take control as quickly as possible. Can the experienced members throw some light on what are some of the immediate things I should do in order to gain some quick wins and establish credibility with the customer.
Thanks in advance
Gary Saving Changes...
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Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Hi Gary, you may have already done this, but one quick and helpful tactic is to get everyone on the same page with respect to the issues, the issues management process, the issue management tool, as well as your service level agreement (SLA). As a vendor, you may have an internal system that does this. We see a number product firms using external collaboration platforms such as eProject, Intranets.com, and the many others to enable all parties (Customer, Vendor, and Outsourced Developer in India, etc.) to deal with the issues, priorities, remedies, and of course time zones and resources required to best meet the committments of the SLA. Irrespective of tools, constant and effective communications is key. It would be great to hear from others as your deliver model is very common these days and customers can often become frustrated with the outsourcing model. If your are looking for external assistance in addressing some of these issues, you might have a chat with John Schlichter of OPM Experts. He is an expert in organizational processes and best practices and recently spoke at the QAI conference in India on a number of subjects including yours. Good luck...! -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
George JucanManaging Partner| Organizational Perfomance Enablers NetworkWoodbridge, Ontario, Canada
Well Garry, I’ve been in a similar situation myself (except for the outsourced development) so I do not envy you. As each situation is unique and requires adequate solutions I can only tell you what I did, maybe some of it it’s applicable in your case.
What I focused on was to paint a clear picture for the client as a basis to regain the lost trust. Most clients are pretty intelligent, they will feel right away if you’re hiding something and they’ll start suspecting you. And from there it’s only downhill.
So, I got a clear status of all the projects under my umbrella and presented it to the client. I identified all remaining work to be done on current initiatives to achieve success, added other projects they were thinking at (luckily not started yet – in my case), and estimated all human and financial resources required to get it done.
The figures were outside of reach, so I sat down with the client and prioritized the actions to stabilize the environment first, and then evolve. The issue was that they never realized they were stretched over the limits and this was the major cause for delays and failures. Once they started to focus on priorities they started to get their activities done faster and better, so we could roll our activities as planned and recover the projects.
The key to success (in this case): gain client’s thrust, to see you as a partner and adviser, nut just as a supplier. Hope it helps.
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John SchlichterFounder| OPM Experts LLC http://opmexperts.comAtlanta, Ga, United States
Gary,
Based simply on what you wrote in your message....
You need an Issue Management process.
You need an inventory of the approved projects and an inventory of the proposed projects.
You need to establish approved project schedules that define, among other things, the network logic or dependencies among projects as well as shared resources and bottlenecks.
You need a documented project management process that explains, among other things, how projects will be tracked and reported.
You need definitions of roles and responsibilities specifying, among other things, decision rights and privileges and protocols for communication and conflict resolution.
You need a governance structure for making project related decisions across projects, addressing among other things alignment and prioritization. The governance structure should include a body that can set policy regarding how projects shall be managed, how processes shall be standardized, i.e. processes documented, documented processes communicated, and communicated processes operated in a conssitent manner. This body would designate who approves the inventory of projects, and all other things referenced in this posting.
Thank you for the inputs: they have given me a good start. The situation has cleared a bit: there are some projects that are in maintenance phase (requiring support to resolve open issues, enhancements etc.), ongoing projects, future projects that have just been approved. I will be the customer delivery SPOC (program manager/ delivery mgr.). The sponsors want me to put some project controls is place (communication plans, issue management, status reports etc.) to quickly get things under control. Currently no one knows what the consolidated status is at a program level! As things settle down a bit my role would be to make sure that the customer can come to me and get an overview of the entire vendor implementation status (a consolidated view of all projects at a hi-level).
I need some advice as to how to go about developing a communication plan and issue management process and my hands around this mosnter ;-). My concern is that I need to be operating at a program level and not get too bogged down with project issues. I would love to hear recommendations on frequency of status reporting, steering committee meetings, executive overviews etc. along with how to report status for multiple projects at a program level.
Thanks once again for your support. I really appreciate it.
In answer to your question as asked by you, I would suggest management consultancy services like those provided by Deloitte and address management related issues faced by the industry. These services are developed to leverage the combined experience of literally hundreds of person-years on related projects and programmes much much more experience and person hours than the average person can look back upon, and are designed to allow our consultants harness this experience in their own programs.
Hey Gary,
Glad to hear things are starting to look up. Regarding your latest question about the communication and issues and risk management at the program level – just think about what it is that you want to know and develop your plans accordingly. Some tactics I’ve used in the past is to have each project report to me the top five risks, five issues, etc on a weekly basis (timing depends on how long your projects typically run, could be bi weekly for longer projects) or risks that have been triggered, issues that require executive follow up, etc… If you want some examples of reporting to executives, send me an email at [email protected] – I have some templates you can use.
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