doing it on your own: when to call in the consultants, when to leave them out
TRANSCRIPT
Doing It On Your Own: When to Call in the Consultants, When to Leave Them Out #12NTCDoing
Pam Kingpetcharat Gabriel Nichols
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Prepare: What you need to know before you consider consultants
Define: What you need to do to clearly set the ‘bar’ for service and performance
Shop: Where to look for the right team
Select: How to establish a system to objectively weigh choices & estimate risk
Manage: How to increase the probability of success
Evaluate: How to learn & build on each engagement
Topics for discussion
Prepare
Know your Organization’s IS / IT Team
• Current ongoing workload
• Larger expectations for performance
• Each person’s responsibilities, capacities, capabilities
• Each person’s areas of interest & desired growth path
• Vision of IS / IT at organization
Define
Clearly define: • Problem being solved • Key questions remaining • Required expertise • Preferred process • Expected deliverables • Expected timeline & timing
penalties Request: • Recommended approach &
timeline • Management plan & risk
analysis • Staff to be assigned • Cost quote
Statement of Work (SoW) / Terms of Reference (ToR)
for contract
Use the process to explore & test solutions
Shop
Strategy / Management
Implementers / Integrators
IT Service Providers
Independent Contractors
Consider:
• Needs based on ‘define’ phase
• Size of your organization relative to Contractor
• Contractor specialization & track record
• ‘Fit’ with your organization
Select
• Expertise in-house (long/short term)?
• Comparative advantage?
• Credibility / need for objectivity | politics?
• Pros / Cons / Risks / Cost / Timing
Considerations:
Evaluate by objective scoring: Criteria Option 1 Option 2 Option 3
Recommendation
Experience & track record
Demonstration
Management plan
Consultative approach
Cost
Manage
Kick-off meeting Pre-scheduled check-in
meetings on deliverable due dates
Regular weekly project updates
Standardized project update
memo Completed this week, To be done next week, Key issues to be addressed (requiring client attention), Project risks
Evaluate
Final documentation
Close out presentation / meeting
Provide formal feedback
Ensure payment close out
Internal documentation & ongoing relationship management
Questions to Ask
What expertise does the project require? 1. Does your internal staff have/can the get that
expertise
2. Will you need that skillset moving forward for additional projects/maintenance of the new systems
3. Is this a growth opportunity for someone on your staff?
Questions to Ask
What is the deadline? 1. Is there a hard deadline by which completion
is required?
2. What costs, in budget, additional work, and opportunities lost will slippage cost
3. Are internal stakeholders sufficiently committed to the project to accept setbacks
Questions to Ask
What resources do you have to devote to this? 1. Your staff have full time jobs, can you devote
the time for training and work?
2. Be realistic. When an expert gives an assessment of time expected for a project you should add 50%, for internal staff triple it.
Three projects, three approaches
Exchange 2007 – 2010 migration 1. Fully outsources, staff managed
2. Clearly defined SOW with concrete deliverables and specific timeline
3. Transition needed to be completed by set date to fit in with larger infrastructure plans
4. One time task, expertise would not benefit the organization moving forward
5. All staff were fully committed to other projects. No ability to make space
Three projects, three approaches
Network/Application Redesign 1. Partnership between internal and external
assets
2. SOW was flexible, project evolved as conditions changed
3. Time slippage was expensive but original systems could continue without error
4. Consultants provided planning support, specialized expertise and training for staff on continuing maintenance
Three projects, three approaches
CMS Website conversion 1. Internal assets only 2. Staff included a web publisher expert in
HTML/CSS for template design and developer who could do PHP coding
3. No set deadline, separated from a larger project which had been too large to gain organizational support
4. Website is dynamic with frequent changes both to content and structure. Having the expertise to do this internally has improved responsiveness and flexibility.
5. Success in this step helped produce buy-in for larger project which will be out-sourced
Advantages
1. Budget – there was none, this project served as a proof of concept for further investment in the website
2. Staff Development – during the project the web publisher taught himself PHP and started learning mySQL
3. Flexibility – because staff were completely familiar with the structure and design of the site they are better able to make changes going forward
4. Greater Internal Understanding of Systems - Discovery process for the project taught us about strengths and weaknesses of the site we otherwise would not have gained
Costs
1. Time – Project took 6 months from beginning to rollout during which time we did not have the benefit of the new system which a more experienced firm could have deployed far more quickly
2. Wasted Effort – four months in we realized that we had made a key error in the design of our templates and information infrastructure. While this did not require starting from scratch it required significant additional effort to fix.
3. Opportunity Costs – the time staff spent on this project were not spent on other work.