Delivery Management is natural extension of project and engagement management. If Project Management, besides having prime objective of Risk mitigation, focuses on delivering as per the specifications what should Delivery focus on?
“Delivering value” should fit the bill perhaps?
All of us are naturally, or by imposed processes, oriented towards achieving the glory of on-time, within-cost and quality deliveries for our customers (internal or external). Numerous improvements (technical, tools, processes and most importantly human intelligence) over the past decade have been intended not only towards making better software solutions but also to achieve the feat of absolute deliveries.
Our endeavors to achieve absolute deliveries are impacted, besides our abilities, by numerous stated (and obvious) and unstated (not so obvious) requirements. Fulfillment of the unstated ones usually creates a sticky and fan customer base. Most of these unstated requirements usually translate to the value which customer expects from the solution which we deliver. It is the perceived value which customers expect from the solution. However it’s, probably, very difficult to understand the value of something we cannot hold, feel or touch (at least for most of us) and considering its "virtual" nature, Software fits the bill perfectly.
Just like beauty, "value" also lies with the beholder and the beholders of the "value" of the software solution are stakeholders. Aren't they? To begin with the end users (I mean the real end users) who would use the software solutions are the true evaluators of the value of the system (aka tool, product, solution etc). Then come the team members who are responsible for the upkeep of the system (system maintenance) followed by the Big Brother who pays for the system. There could be some additional parties like statutory and environmental bodies who could become stakeholders for specific type of systems.
On the other side of we have US, the IT solution & services organizations, bestowed with the magical skills to build software for the people at the other side. We have been at it long enough to realize the importance of delivering as per the customer specified requirements. With the rich experience we have evolved and identified the specialized groups like Business Analysts, Usability Engineers, Designers, Architects and Quality Specialists besides the strong developer community entrusted with tasks of creating the solutions. Not to mention numerous other processes and specialized tools to meet the end.
However, when all is said and delivered, it is the delivery team and the ultimate owner (The Delivery Head/Director?) who should stand tall and ask either “Is this what end-users wanted?” or “Does it add any substantial value to what end-user wanted?” What do you ask often?
The difference in both the questions is nominal but value is phenomenal! The difference could be a satisfied customer or a fan customer. Which one would you like to have?
Having noted that, managing deliveries is no easy task!
Who can find time from managing bottom-lines, optimizing costs, utilization, billing, processes improvements, PMO initiatives etc to look at something which is only perceived by customers? We do tend to deliver as per the customer specifications most of the time, don’t we? Why should customer expect something beyond what he has paid for? Don’t we have enough issues of our own like attrition, defects, new technologies etc to worry about something which is only in customers head?
While all of the above is also true, it would pay huge dividends if look at some other businesses which have evolved (and also improved) with strong customer-perception-focus. In more than one aspect our services are not very different from boutique establishments (restaurants, saloons etc) where the focus is on “customization for individuals need”. Most of such “boutique” businesses have been extremely successful in more than satisfying their customers (Just recollect the time when you have walked out of your favorite saloon or shop with utmost satisfaction of having realized more than full value for your money!). Though our challenges are higher with numerous end-users to satisfy for each account we also have many specialized roles to address the issue.
We also have an ally in Innovation!
Innovation, in its varied forms, is an extremely useful (valuable?) initiative which has huge potential in delivering the value, however most of such initiatives are oriented towards managing and optimizing productivity and internal costs. Besides helping IT services organizations become more proficient internally innovations in the end-solutions have been limited to the technical achievements like frameworks (including J2EE, .NET, Struts etc), WEB 2.0, processes etc. Agile methodologies have been more successful in delivering a value to the end users reason for it being the avid involvement of end-user in the development of the solutions.
However, innovation, just like value, has its own challenges. Paramount of these challenges being ever increasing expectations of users. We quickly got used to Windows interface and mobile phones. It took an iPhone to satiate our desires for a considerable longer period of time. But this also will not last long as user community looks forward to next set of innovative solutions. Call it market dynamics or whatever, we are part of it. The problem and the solution as well.
Difficult as it may be in the end “value” is only perceived thus it’s befitting that skills of listening and empathy are judicially used in account and delivery management.
Only with empathy and understanding of the true desires of the end user (in many cases WE ourselves are THE end users) we will be able to answer some the key questions. Once we have answered these questions we will have large fan-customer-base who would, as they say, eat out of our hands.
Happy delivering!
“Delivering value” should fit the bill perhaps?
All of us are naturally, or by imposed processes, oriented towards achieving the glory of on-time, within-cost and quality deliveries for our customers (internal or external). Numerous improvements (technical, tools, processes and most importantly human intelligence) over the past decade have been intended not only towards making better software solutions but also to achieve the feat of absolute deliveries.
Our endeavors to achieve absolute deliveries are impacted, besides our abilities, by numerous stated (and obvious) and unstated (not so obvious) requirements. Fulfillment of the unstated ones usually creates a sticky and fan customer base. Most of these unstated requirements usually translate to the value which customer expects from the solution which we deliver. It is the perceived value which customers expect from the solution. However it’s, probably, very difficult to understand the value of something we cannot hold, feel or touch (at least for most of us) and considering its "virtual" nature, Software fits the bill perfectly.
Just like beauty, "value" also lies with the beholder and the beholders of the "value" of the software solution are stakeholders. Aren't they? To begin with the end users (I mean the real end users) who would use the software solutions are the true evaluators of the value of the system (aka tool, product, solution etc). Then come the team members who are responsible for the upkeep of the system (system maintenance) followed by the Big Brother who pays for the system. There could be some additional parties like statutory and environmental bodies who could become stakeholders for specific type of systems.
On the other side of we have US, the IT solution & services organizations, bestowed with the magical skills to build software for the people at the other side. We have been at it long enough to realize the importance of delivering as per the customer specified requirements. With the rich experience we have evolved and identified the specialized groups like Business Analysts, Usability Engineers, Designers, Architects and Quality Specialists besides the strong developer community entrusted with tasks of creating the solutions. Not to mention numerous other processes and specialized tools to meet the end.
However, when all is said and delivered, it is the delivery team and the ultimate owner (The Delivery Head/Director?) who should stand tall and ask either “Is this what end-users wanted?” or “Does it add any substantial value to what end-user wanted?” What do you ask often?
The difference in both the questions is nominal but value is phenomenal! The difference could be a satisfied customer or a fan customer. Which one would you like to have?
Having noted that, managing deliveries is no easy task!
Who can find time from managing bottom-lines, optimizing costs, utilization, billing, processes improvements, PMO initiatives etc to look at something which is only perceived by customers? We do tend to deliver as per the customer specifications most of the time, don’t we? Why should customer expect something beyond what he has paid for? Don’t we have enough issues of our own like attrition, defects, new technologies etc to worry about something which is only in customers head?
While all of the above is also true, it would pay huge dividends if look at some other businesses which have evolved (and also improved) with strong customer-perception-focus. In more than one aspect our services are not very different from boutique establishments (restaurants, saloons etc) where the focus is on “customization for individuals need”. Most of such “boutique” businesses have been extremely successful in more than satisfying their customers (Just recollect the time when you have walked out of your favorite saloon or shop with utmost satisfaction of having realized more than full value for your money!). Though our challenges are higher with numerous end-users to satisfy for each account we also have many specialized roles to address the issue.
We also have an ally in Innovation!
Innovation, in its varied forms, is an extremely useful (valuable?) initiative which has huge potential in delivering the value, however most of such initiatives are oriented towards managing and optimizing productivity and internal costs. Besides helping IT services organizations become more proficient internally innovations in the end-solutions have been limited to the technical achievements like frameworks (including J2EE, .NET, Struts etc), WEB 2.0, processes etc. Agile methodologies have been more successful in delivering a value to the end users reason for it being the avid involvement of end-user in the development of the solutions.
However, innovation, just like value, has its own challenges. Paramount of these challenges being ever increasing expectations of users. We quickly got used to Windows interface and mobile phones. It took an iPhone to satiate our desires for a considerable longer period of time. But this also will not last long as user community looks forward to next set of innovative solutions. Call it market dynamics or whatever, we are part of it. The problem and the solution as well.
Difficult as it may be in the end “value” is only perceived thus it’s befitting that skills of listening and empathy are judicially used in account and delivery management.
Only with empathy and understanding of the true desires of the end user (in many cases WE ourselves are THE end users) we will be able to answer some the key questions. Once we have answered these questions we will have large fan-customer-base who would, as they say, eat out of our hands.
Happy delivering!
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