Download Customer Success as a Project Manager*s Friend

Customer Success Executive as a
Project Manager’s Friend
D. Wayne Harmon / ALFISIG
08/27/2014
Photo “Project Characters Show Venture Projects and Tasks” courtesy of Stuart Miles on
freedigitalphotos.net
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Scenario – You are managing the rollout of a new
piece of equipment for your company that will be
used in an assembly line. The new equipment’s
implementation is one of the first anywhere of its
type, but you do not know this. The project sponsor
feels the equipment, though new, should not be
problematic to implement, especially with an
experienced PM like you on the job and after having
believed the assurances he heard from the sales
representative.
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Scenario, page 2 – Despite the initial confidence,
however, your implementation is running behind
schedule because of seemingly simple glitches that
the usual support channels are not turning around.
You have also encountered unexpected issues that
no one has ever seen as far as you can tell.
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Scenario, page 3 – The product help desk is meeting
your SLA’s for issue acknowledgement, but is not
resolving the issues. You are unable to find anyone
in Support who appears willing to tell you how long
the problems will take to resolve.
You have already used the normal escalation
channels, but progress is still not being made
although everyone (including the vendor) is working
lots of hours.
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Scenario, page 4 – In the meantime, your team is
becoming visibly worried, and your executive
stakeholders are quietly wondering why you are not
managing the situation as effectively as you
normally do. Your budget is in trouble, too.
You aren’t totally sure yourself what to do.
Photo “Stressed Businessman in Office” courtesy of Imagerymajestic on
freedigitalphotos.net
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What Is Really Going On Here?
Can you relate to a similar situation, even when it
was for something you bought for yourself or your
family?
How much trouble is the PM in here, even though
at a glance it may appear everything has been
done correctly despite the results so far?
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What Is Really Going On Here?
The simple truth is that with any new product,
whether physical, software, or anything else, we
don’t know what we don’t know.
Projects implementing new things are not as
predictable as most other types of projects.
PM’s with long, successful track records often
struggle or even fail in this scenario.
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The Pain of Implementing a New Product
PM’s are expected to develop project plans and
schedules that are predictable, on target, and have
contingency plans for the likely problems that
might be faced.
With a new product, however, you don’t know
what might be faced, so you will remain on
uncertain ground with unusual challenges possible
at any point.
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The Pain of Implementing a New Product
- Sponsors will expect you to deliver on time and
budget no matter what happens. Sales execs will
usually tell them this is no problem and any good
PM can deliver on time and budget.
- Consultants will usually say they can handle
anything during the hiring cycle – their real job is
to bill hours and working OT to solve problems
helps their bottom line.
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The Pain of Implementing a New Product
- Support organizations typically state (in sales
cycles) they can handle whatever, and will provide
premium support for added fees. This often works.
With new products and new troubles, however,
they are constrained by their access to the right
engineering resources to help, and in some cases
those might not exist.
Photo “How Can I Assist You Today?” courtesy of Stockimages on freedigitalphotos.net
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The Pain of Implementing a New Product
At first glance, our PM faces serious challenges, but
he really needs to take advantage of the situation
instead of becoming another victim of it.
How is this so if time, budget, and cost are all set
and we need a lot of help?
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Ever heard of the Customer Success Office?
If so, what is it, and won’t they just send me
another bill?
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Tip - Most successful companies who launch new
products, software, and services are VERY
concerned with their brand names and products in
today’s competitive environments.
They also do not like litigation against them, which
can cost more in future sales than the costs to
defend the cases, even when they win.
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The response to this situation has been, in part, to
launch Customer Success Offices. These groups are
empowered to correct situations by realigning
corporate resource focus, including development,
and by making concessions needed to improve
products and services to protect brand names and
prevent litigation so that new implementations of
new products go well and lead to satisfied
customers.
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So how does our PM get access to Customer
Success?
Getting a project selected for Customer Success
engagement after the project has begun is not an
easy thing to do. The process is not generally
published, and may be subjective.
It usually takes more than just the PMO.
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Sometimes Customer Success is assigned to a project at
the beginning, but usually it is not.
It is up to project Governance and the Executive Sponsor
to make the request, which usually comes in the form of
a C-level customer request to a C-level vendor
counterpart.
Without strong Governance and good executive
relationships, this more than likely cannot be achieved.
To get started…
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Remember those risk and issues logs, and the
regular cadence of steering committee reports and
presentations?
This is how to get the help!!!
Photo “Diagram” courtesy of Renjith Krishnan on freedigitalphotos.net
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FACT - Most PM’s do not freely admit in status reports or
risk / issues logs that they need help they cannot
accurately quantify, especially when their budgets are
under stress.
They tend to wait too long to ask for help in these types
of situations. The clock, unfortunately, is ticking.
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The request to the executive sponsor needs to
include hard facts showing the team has done all
that it can do to remediate the problems,
quantifying SLA’s and other metrics supporting the
story. It needs to show how long issues have been
in Support without resolution, not how many are
outside of response SLA’s.
The request should also avoid blaming anyone. If
your organization makes an aggressive request, a
legal response may occur, and that helps no one
but the lawyers.
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The request should make specific requests for
Customer Success involvement – including vendor
investment and personnel to improve the
situation.
It should reference contractual requirements
where applicable, but reiterate the desire to
complete the project successfully despite the
challenges. Focus on the positives and the
outcome that both your organization and the
vendor want.
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In general, the Executive Sponsor for the project will
need to work with the CFO, CTO, or applicable C-level
officer to make the request directly to the vendor C-level
counterpart.
Requests made from lower levels are often ignored or
respectfully declined. Showing the C-level attention is a
big part of getting the “yes” answer to engage.
This sounds absurdly simple, but can take months to
achieve, so be proactive. The project budget suffers
while the requests are being made.
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Once engaged, Customer Success will usually open
discussions with the Project Sponsor, and schedule
a health check or quality assurance review.
It is important to cooperate with these reviews.
Photo “Review Blackboard Means Checking Inspecting and Evaluation”
courtesy of Stuart Miles on freedigitalphotos.net
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The reviews will usually be done in an interviewtype format and will involve most if not all
stakeholder groups including project team,
sponsors, stakeholders, and even some end users.
The goal is to understand the situation.
It will be very important for the team to be able to
define its success criteria for the reviewer.
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Once Customer Success has completed its review,
the vendor will weigh the reasonableness of the
asks to likely outcomes.
This is huge because you may not need to be
technically correct to receive considerable help.
Remember the earlier comment about
subjectivity?
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If our PM and sponsor have made a good case, and the
vendor sees it needs to correct the problems for its own
interests and brand protection (not to mention future
sales references), a Success Remediation plan is a likely
outcome.
The plan will usually include personnel hours or other key
resources that WILL NOT be charged to the project.
The project timeline may be changed as part of the plan,
but most sponsors will accept at this point given the
alternative to be seen as the project sponsor who made a
huge blunder that cost the organization a lot of money
without results.
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So why does this matter?
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A project will usually be canceled when its perceived
costs are judged to exceed its likely benefits, no matter
what caused the original decision to start it, and no
matter whether the project can still successfully deliver
its intended product.
In today’s litigious environment, however, customers
often see vendors as funding sources for their projects
when projects are challenged. This is usually the final
attempt to save a project and possibly the career of the
sponsor.
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In many cases, vendors will agree to Success Remediation
plans even when they are not technically obliged,
because the costs of not doing so are too great.
Sometimes success remediation plans are given because
the customer is well liked and expected to make a good
reference.
Photo “Businessmen Shaking Hands” courtesy of Ambro on freedigitalphotos.net
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Customer Success Remediation plans often include
the following valuable help:
- Vendor-provided technicians or developers
at no charge
- Premium support services at no additional
charge
- Extended post-implementation support at
no additional charge
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Once in place, the project recovery plan can
transform a failing project to a showcase, making
the implementation team rock stars who will be
sought going forward.
Photo “Male Lead Singer with Retro Mic” courtesy of photostock on
freedigitalphotos.net
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Success can be snatched from the jaws
of defeat.
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