Using External Resources


There comes a time in every organization when a project is presented that is so huge, so complex, or so undesirable to complete that it makes perfect sense to outsource the project to someone else. In these instances, no matter the reason why the project is being outsourced, it is of utmost importance to find the right team to do the job correctly.

Outsourcing has been the buzz of all industries over the last few years ”and certainly IT has been a prevalent reason for companies to get someone else to do it. There are plenty of qualified companies in the marketplace that have completed major transitions and implementations of technology ”but there are also many incompetents that profess to know what they re doing only to botch an implementation. Don t let that happen to you.

Finding an Excellent IT Vendor

Finding a good IT vendor isn t a problem. Finding an excellent IT vendor is the problem. The tricky thing about finally finding excellent vendors is that they keep so busy (because of their talented crew), they are difficult to schedule time with. So what makes an excellent vendor? Here are some attributes:

  • Ability to complete the project scope on schedule

  • Vast experience with the technology to be implemented

  • References that demonstrate customer care and satisfaction

  • Proof of knowledge on the project team (experience and certifications)

  • Adequate time to focus on your project

  • A genuine interest in the success of your organization

  • A genuine interest in the success of your project

  • A fair price for completing the work

Finding an excellent vendor to serve as your project team, or to be integrated into your project team, is no easy task. Remember, the success of a project is only as good as the people on the project team. It s not just the name of the integrator, but the quality of the individuals on the integrator s implementation team that make the integrator great (or not so great). Never forget that fact. Figure 6-8 demonstrates how a vendor can be integrated into your project team. The success of the project is dependent on the payment of the vendor. The project manager should oversee the process.

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Figure 6-8: A vendor must have vision and dedication to the success of the project.

Size doesn t always matter. Those monstrous integrators and technical firms that have popped up in every city over the past few years don t always have the best people. Some of the best integrators you can find anyway are small, independent firms that have a tightly knit group of technical wizards. Do some research and consider these smaller, above-average tech shops . You may find a diamond in the rough.

To begin finding your integrator, you can use several different methods :

  • References Word of mouth from other project teams within your organization, contacts within your industry, or even family and friends are often the best way to find a superb integrator. A reference does something most brochures and sales letters cannot: it comes from a personal contact and lends credibility.

  • Internet If you know the technology you are to be implementing, hop on the Internet and see whom the manufacturer of the technology recommends. Once you ve found integrators within your community, peruse their web site. Use advanced searches to look for revealing information about them on other web sites, in newsgroups, or in newspapers, or magazines. Know whom you are considering working with before they know you.

  • Yellow pages When all else fails, open the phone book and call and interview the prospective team over the phone. Prepare a list of specific questions that you ll need answered. Pay attention to how the phone is answered , what noise is in the background, and how professional and organized the individual on the phone is. Is he rude? Is he happy to help? Take notes and let the other person do much of the talking.

  • Trade shows If you know your project is going to take place in a few months, attend some trade shows and get acquainted with some potential vendors. Watch how their salespeople act. Ask them brief questions on what their team has been doing. Collect their materials and file them away for future review.

  • Previous experience Never ignore a proven track record with a vendor. Past performance is always a sure sign of how the vendor will act with your project.

Interviewing the Vendor

Once you ve narrowed your search to two or three vendors, it s time to interview each one to see to whom the project will be awarded. In the interview process, which the vendor will probably consider a sales call, remind yourself that this is a first date ”it s a chance to find out more information about the vendor.

Document all parts of the meeting: How difficult was it to arrange a meeting time? How polite was the salesperson? Did the salesperson bring a technical consultant to the meeting? All of these little details will help you make an informed decision. In such meetings, pay attention to several things about vendors representatives:

  • Do they pay attention to details? Are they on time? Dressed professionally and appropriately for your business? Are their shoes shined and professional? How vendors pay attention to the details in their appearance and presentation to win your business will be an indicator of how they will treat you once they ve won your business.

  • How organized are their materials? When a salesperson opens his briefcase, can he quickly locate sales materials? Are the brochures and materials well prepared and neat, and not wrinkled or dog-eared? Again, this shows attention to detail, something every project requires from the start.

  • What is their body language saying? Pay attention to how they are seated, where their hands are, and how animated their answers become. A salesperson should show genuine interest in your project and be excited to chat with you. If she seems bored now, she will likely be bored when you call to discuss concerns down the road.

  • What does your gut say? Gut instinct is not used enough. The meeting with the salesperson should leave you with a confident, informed feeling. If your gut tells you something is wrong, then chances are something is. If you re not 100 percent certain, and you probably shouldn t be after one meeting, do more research or ask for another meeting with the project integrators.

Looking for a STAR

When you are interviewing the potential integrators, you need to ask direct, hard- hitting questions to slice through their sales spiels and get to the heart of the project. One of the best interview techniques, especially when dealing with potential integrators, is the STAR methodology. Figure 6-9 demonstrates that STAR means Situation, Task, Action, Result.

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Figure 6-9: STAR is an interview methodology.

When you use the STAR method, you ask a situational question, such as Can you tell me about a situation where you were implementing a technology for a customer and you went above and beyond the call of duty?

The vendor should answer with a specific Situation, followed by the Task of the situation, the Action he took with the task, and then the Results. If the potential vendor doesn t complete the STAR, add follow-up questions, such as How did the situation end? to allow the vendor to finish the STAR question.

This interview process is excellent, as it allows the project manager to discern fact from fiction based on the vendor s response. Try it!

Know What You Want

When you procure materials or resources from vendors, know exactly what you want from the procurement process. In the Statement of Work (SOW), the seller fully describes the work to be completed and/or the product to be supplied. The SOW becomes part of the contract between the buyer and the seller. It is typically created as part of the procurement planning process, and allows the seller to determine if it can meet the written requirements of the SOW.

Particular industries have different assumptions about what constitutes a SOW. What one industry calls a SOW may be called a Statement of Objectives (SOO) in another. A SOO is a document describing a problem to be solved by the seller. Some specific terms the project manager should be familiar with are shown next .

Document

Purpose

Bid

From seller to buyer. Price is the determining factor in the decision- making process.

Quotation

From seller to buyer. Price is the determining factor in the decision- making process.

Proposal

From seller to buyer. Other factors ”such as skill sets, reputation, or an idea for the project solution ”may be determining factors in the decision-making process.

Invitation For Bid (IFB)

From buyer to seller. Requests the seller provide a price for the procured product or service.

Request For Quote (RFQ)

From buyer to seller. Requests the seller provide a price for the procured product or service.

Request For Proposal (RFP)

From buyer to seller. Requests the seller provide a proposal to complete the procured work or provide the procured product.

Cinching the Deal

When you ve just about made your decision, it s time to follow up with a phone call to a few references. Now most references that you ll be given by the vendor will no doubt be excellent and prepped. Not that anything s wrong with that; everyone wants to put her best foot forward. Ask the vendor what type of work was performed for the client and when the work was done.

If the work the vendor completed for the client is not directly associated with your project, ask if that vendor can provide you with another reference where similar work was done. In addition, the date of the work should be fairly recent, hopefully within the past six months.

Once you ve called the references, reviewed your research, and have narrowed the field down to at least two integrators, ask for a quote in response to your Request For Proposal (RFP) by a specific date. Be firm about your deadline, but at least a week from the request is adequate time for a vendor to complete and return a proposal to you.

An RFP is a formal request from your company inviting the client to create a proposal of the work to be completed and provide you with a cost estimate. An RFP does not guarantee anyone the job; it simply formalizes the proceedings of the selection process.

Once you have the vendor s proposal in place, read it. If the technology to be implemented is not within your grasp or the grasp of anyone in your department, ask for a second opinion. Hire an IT consultant whom you trust, who is somewhat familiar with the technology to be implemented, and have him read the proposals and rate them. Having another set of eyes look over the proposals can help you make a more informed decision.

Once you have made your decision on which vendor the project is awarded to, get the scope of the project in writing, including the price, in the form of a contract. The vendor may, and should, have their own contract that they use whenever implementing technology. Review the vendor s contract, and if necessary have your attorney look it over and make any amendments or changes.

As painful as contracts are, they protect you and the integrator. Contracts should require that the vendor guarantee their work for a specified amount of time. The technology to be implemented will determine the amount of time expressed in the warranty and the type of guarantee provided.

There are many different types of contracts available. Based on the project work, the expected duration of the project, and the relationship between the buyer and seller, the contract type will be determined. Here s a quick overview of the common contract types and their attributes:

Contract Type

Attribute

Risk Issues

Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF)

Actual costs plus profit margin for seller.

Cost overruns represent risk to the buyer.

Cost Plus Percentage of Cost (CPPC)

Actual costs plus profit margin for seller.

Cost overruns represent risk to the buyer. This is a dangerous contract type for the buyer.

Cost Plus Incentive Fee (CPIF)

Actual costs plus profit margin for seller.

Cost overruns represent risk to the buyer.

Fixed Price (FP)

Agreed price for contracted product. Can include incentives for the seller.

Seller assumes risk.

Lump Sum

Agreed price for contracted product. Can include incentives for the seller.

Seller assumes risk.

Firm Fixed Price (FFP)

Agreed price for contracted product.

Seller assumes risk.

Fixed Price Incentive Fee (FPIF)

Agreed price for contracted product. Can include incentives for the seller.

Seller assumes risk.

Time and Materials (T&M)

Price assigned for the time and materials provided by the seller.

Contracts without not-to-exceed (NTE) clauses can lead to cost overruns.

Unit Price

Price assigned for a measurable unit of product or time (for example, $130 for an engineer s time on the project).

Risk varies with the product. Time represents the biggest risk if the amount needed is not specified in the contract.

Before any implementation begins, and once the contract details have been worked out, do some prep work before the project begins. For example, if the project is an operating system upgrade on your servers, create a full backup or system image of your servers. If the technology is a new application to be developed with hooks into your database, assign the appropriate levels of access security to the database for the developers, but don t give the developers greater permission than what they need to accomplish their work. In other words, prepare for the worst-case scenario, but hope that you never have to use it.

After Hiring the Consultant

Consultants know what they know ”and what they do not know can hurt them and your project. In other words, consultants need to learn about your environment, how your standard operating procedures work, who they should talk to, and so on. Consultants need to know how to get things done within your organization. You cannot throw a consultant into your organization and expect him to have the same level of detail, same level of expertise, and same organizational knowledge that you have. It takes some time and some guidance.

For this reason alone you should demand and require that the consultant attend project meetings, be located close to the project team, and take an active role in meeting the project team members and stakeholders. He needs to get involved in order to be successful and productive. Most consultants and experts, if they are worth anything at all, will be eager to follow these rules and requirements. Often it s the project manager who wants the consultant to feel comfortable and not get into the mix of things so quickly. This limits the consultant s ability to contribute.

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From the Field

Interview with Bill Farnsworth

Name: Bill Farnsworth
Title: Senior Partner Strategy Consultant
Company: Microsoft Corporation
Years as an IT project manager: 5

Bill Farnsworth is the Senior Partner Strategy Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services in Northern California. Bill is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, a Microsoft Certified Trainer, and a Microsoft Solutions Framework Master Trainer. In addition to his Microsoft certifications and experience, Mr. Farnsworth is also a Certified Novell Engineer, a Certified Novell Instructor, and a Certified Internet Architect.

Q: What is the best thing about IT project management?

A: The best thing about IT project management is being able to take a concept to completion. Projects develop for a variety of reasons: to solve a business problem, to address technical issues, to provide proof of concepts, and so on. But all successful IT projects result in a delivered product that, in some way, addresses a need in the company. I like working on the team that delivers that solution.

Q: When you begin to create a team for an IT project, what do you consider first?

A: Ideally, I look for the business problem we are solving by forming the team. This is a critical element in determining the composition of the team. While technical expertise is also critical to the success of an IT project, having representatives on the project team who understand the business problem we are trying to solve is the main consideration.

Q: When a project has been initiated, that is, management has approved it but no formal implementation plans have been created, how soon do you begin to organize a team?

A: Organizing the team as early as possible is very important. Setting an environment where you can best ensure consistency by having the same team evaluate the business problem, define the scope of the project, propose the solution, and then develop and deploy the solution is the best case. By forming the team after some of these steps are already complete, the team may not support or understand some of the underlying justification or may not agree with the scope of the project from the outset. I feel successful projects depend on forming the project team at the earliest point possible.

Q: How does a project manager recruit and motivate team members to be excited about an IT implementation?

A: Project team members like to have a sense of ownership. Owning an identifiable piece of the solution to a problem the company is facing is motivating. Approaching candidates for the team and demonstrating how their contribution will directly affect the team, the project, and the company is an effective way to recruit and motivate team members.

Q: What are characteristics of a successful project manager in regard to creating a project team?

A: A successful project manager needs to be able to motivate, coordinate, and facilitate the activity of the team. No project manager can complete all, or even a significant portion, of the work the team needs to accomplish. The project manager should work to ensure that the project team has what it needs to accomplish its goals. A successful project manager will also seek to prevent herself from being a bottleneck for communication and information with the project team, or within the team itself.

Many failed projects result from a project manager who interacts with team members individually, and then represents team members' needs, concerns, and input to other team members. Similarly, project managers also place themselves between the project team and the project sponsor for the project, reducing the team's exposure to the business requirements, and the impact their project will have on the business. Being a bottleneck in these ways is one of the easiest methods to ensure partial or complete failure of a project. Removing yourself as a bottleneck, and ensuring communication and information sharing within and between the project team and the business, is one of the key contributors to a successful project.

Q: What are characteristics you look for in IT professionals when you are considering adding them to a project team?

A: The IT professionals' technical knowledge is, of course, very important. However, it is just as important to identify team members who are willing and able to participate on the project team. Having a less experienced, more motivated team member could be better than a more experienced , time-restricted member. Looking at team candidates' time commitments, technical knowledge, organizational understanding, creativity, and ability to work within a team will give project managers some insight into how effective they can be as team members.

Q: What type of questions do you ask potential team members to determine their involvement on the project team?

A: I ask candidates for the project team what their approach to the role will be, what they hope to accomplish, how they deal with ambiguity and conflict, what their contribution to the team would be, and what they see as the perfect team dynamic. These kind of open- ended questions give me a good insight into how they are going to interact with the other team members and if they see their role as contributing to the solution or more as an obligation of the job. Positive answers to these questions, as opposed to stories about how projects have failed in the past, typically show an optimistic and productive approach to the project.

Q: What can a project manager do when his team does not have the technical expertise to implement the project?

A: There are several options for the project manager in this case. Dependent on the timeframe of the project, training the project team to enhance technical expertise is an option. If this is not a viable option, recruiting additional team members from within the organization who do have the required expertise is also an option. If this is not possible, or the organization does not have individuals with that expertise, finding outside resources, such as contractors, or hiring to fill the need are other options. Which of these options is best for any given project depends on the time and money available to the project manager.

Q: When it comes to decision making, what is the best approach: allow the teams to make the decision or should the project manager take charge?

A: Project managers who make the effort to solicit feedback, engender discussion, and promote shared decision making typically deal with less resistance from the project team as the project proceeds. If the team makes a decision together, through consensus, votes , or other methods, and the project manager has created a team environment that supports those decisions, the team will develop a culture of bringing up issues or disagreement before a decision is made, allowing for issues to be addressed before moving to the next phase of a project. The team must, however, agree that, after the team makes such a decision, this becomes the team decision and that any individual disagreement must be minimized in light of the team decision. In some cases, the team may not be able to come to or agree upon a decision. In these cases, the project manager may need to make the final decision with the understanding that the initial disagreement will have to be abandoned to ensure the successful progression of the project.

Q: What is the most difficult part of creating an IT project team?

A: The most difficult part of creating a project team is identifying the skills, both technical and soft, that will be required in future phases of the project. Without knowing the architecture or other details of the solution, knowing which technical skills might be required or which organizational contacts and relationships could best be leveraged in later phases is difficult. It's possible to add team members as the project progresses, but having those team members on board as early in the project as possible helps ensure that their skills and contributions can best be utilized.

Q: What methods do you use to deal with conflicts among team members?

A: Conflicts about the direction of the project can usually be addressed by consensus, as long as the idea of consensus has been positioned and agreed to by the team at the very start of the project. If the team signs on to the idea of team agreement at each milestone, and that the team's decision is everyone's decision after that milestone is reached, conflict is easier to address. While this approach does not, in any way, eliminate disagreement, it does allow the team to make progress as the team members agree to disagree , as long as the majority of the team agrees on one course of action.

Q: How do you address team members who are less than thrilled being involved with the IT project you are in charge of?

A: In a perfect world, those team members would opt out of the project. In reality, taking the roles of less-than -enthusiastic team members and assigning them to other team members can help persuade difficult team members that they can either change their difficult attitudes, if they want to remain in their roles, or they can easily be replaced if their attitudes become counterproductive to the project. The project manager should make it clear that those who contribute to the project, with a positive attitude, will be encouraged to do so; and that those who insist on maintaining a discouraging mood will have their role, and thus their exposure to the rest of the team, reduced or, if possible, eliminated from the project team.

Q: What has been the most rewarding experience you've had in regard to creating a project team?

A: The most rewarding experience with regard to forming a project team has been the single project I have run in which the team remained intact for the duration of the project. The initial core team remained on the project from start to finish. The feelings of ownership, accomplishment, and impact were extremely rewarding. In addition, each of the other members became great advocates of the approach we took to the project: a team of peers, decision by consensus, equal valuation of contribution, and so on.

Q: What traps can IT project managers fall into when organizing a project team?

A: One of the easiest traps project managers can fall into is selecting team members based on personal relationship or other characteristics that make them more likely to support the decisions of the project manager. There can be a tendency to select team members, for instance, who support the technology to which the company is migrating. However, this usually prevents the selection of team members who know the legacy system very well, and could contribute a great amount of historical, organizational, and operational information to the project team. Similarly, selecting project team members who will support the project manager under any circumstances prevents the team from benefiting from healthy exchanges of disparate viewpoints and approaches.

Q: What advice can you offer for aspiring IT project managers?

A: Observe project teams you work on and the dynamic that project managers create and maintain. See what works and what doesn't and make conscious decisions to use what has worked and avoid what hasn't. Using historically successful techniques borrowed from successful project managers will often help you succeed in projects you manage in the future. Don't be afraid to develop creative approaches, but don't force a creative solution to a problem when you have seen another approach work in the same situation in the past.

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IT Project Management
IT Project Management: On Track from Start to Finish, Third Edition
ISBN: 0071700439
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 195

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