13.4 Speeds and Feeds

< Day Day Up >

Part of a project manager's job is proselytizing your project's benefits, as was described in the Big Thirteen interrogatory introduced in Chapter 1. With many stakeholder audiences, such as operations, networking, and so forth, the pedantic facts of your project are generally adequate for this purpose. With customers and beneficiaries, however, it is crucial that you have a sales pitch that is truthful and thorough regarding the intended value of your project. Even customers need a pretty complete briefing because, although they probably suggested the original project scope, they cannot be expected to:

Infer the same deliverables that you and your team came up with as a result of the requirements gathering you sweated your way through
Agree with your implementation strategy and proposed risk management Plan Bs

The best way I know to do this sort of thing is through the use of a sales presentation strategy known as "features, functions, and benefits." I was introduced to this approach at a sales training boot camp in the 1980s. Do not be alarmed by the date because, even in business, things other than wine age well. We dubbed this approach as "speeds and feeds" in a somewhat sarcastic characterization of the nature of IT sales. In those days, the sizzle was all about automating the paper chase, compared with today's obsession with "Webifying" everything. Exhibit 2 is an abbreviated version of the target state document presented in Chapter 3 for the purpose of illustrating the value of the speeds and feeds approach.

Exhibit 2: Target State Sample

Deliverable	Description
Telephony	IP Telephone
IP mainframe printing	Print jobs rerouted to IP-LAN printers
Wireless LAN	Conference rooms and other public spaces

Exhibit 3: Target State Feature/Function/Benefit Sell

Feature	Function	Benefit
IP Telephone	Traditional telephony services, plus interactive handset screen gives access to directories, other features.	Uses same cabling as LAN. Lower switching upgrade costs. Less costly to install and support. Longer product life cycle. More user features.
IP mainframe printing	BAU mainframe reports now available across IP-based LAN system.	Standard reports available on ubiquitous LAN printers. Costly printers only required for high speed or forms. Costly legacy mainframe network retired.
Wireless LAN	Users can access LAN services with wireless laptop when unplugged from wall or floor data jack.	Laptops can be moved to common or shared workspace to enhance collaborative work and productivity at meetings or in the cafeteria.

As we go through this concept, remember the key messages that the customer and the beneficiary are seeking:

The customer wants to feel comfortable about the return on his project investment.
The beneficiary wonders what the fuss is all about. ^[2]

I have seen many project managers flounder in this area because they cannot effectively communicate, in clear business terms, how each proposed project deliverable adds value. That is one reason why I included the second of Big Thirteen questions presented in Chapter 1 (i.e., the benefits, or "why are we doing all this?" question). When you are preparing your sales pitch to reassure customers and engage beneficiaries, keep in mind that it is not your mission to justify project scope. It is your job to:

Present the solutions or project deliverables.
Explain what they do.
Illustrate why those results will serve beneficiaries well.

In fact, it is a wonderful idea to start thinking about these presentations when you are working with the team on requirements and specifications. As each potential deliverable pops up, ask yourself and the team how you would justify that particular solution to a customer or beneficiary. It is possible that you find you cannot. Chances are, if that is true, that the real driver for that suspect requirement could be the dreaded "if you build it, they will come" approach. This condition evolves when a project team gets so enamored with a technology that they want to spread it all over the world whether or not it is truly needed (and cost justifiable).

Let us walk through the feature, function, and benefit analysis with these three target state elements (see Exhibit 3).

There is nothing revolutionary about this approach. The beauty of it is that it helps you be net and crisp, and thus command your audience's attention. Notice the dearth of technical information in the example. The setting we are discussing is not well suited for "tech talk." You can also be certain that the audience is not the crowd who would take much interest in all the "gee whiz" features you might want to boast about. They may drag their technologists along with them, but you do not want to go there. Technical discussions in mixed crowds, that is to say group settings where attendees are both technical and nontechnical, tend to lapse into argumentative one-upmanship that, in turn, bores, annoys, or frightens the senior beneficiaries you are looking to engage. Trust me on this one!

^[2]She also wants to know the risk to which she will be exposed.

< Day Day Up >