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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 1 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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 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 5 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? 6 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. 7 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. 8 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. 9 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 10 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? 11 Ever heard of the Customer Success Office? If so, what is it, and won’t they just send me another bill? 12 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. 13 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. 14 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. 15 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… 16 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 17 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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 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. 21 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 22 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. 23 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? 24 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. 25 So why does this matter? 26 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. 27 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 28 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 29 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 30 Success can be snatched from the jaws of defeat. 31