Deliver by habit… Not by chance

A few years back I came across this phrase “Sell by habit, not by chance!!!” and it has stuck to me since then. However, it is only in the last few years that I have come to realize how powerful or important this message is and how it is applicable to irrespective of what role you play in the organization

I have, in the past, had an opportunity to wear both the sales hat as well as the delivery hat and have tried to draw parallels from the sales world which can be useful when it comes to delivering a project successfully consistently. 

Before going any further, I want to add that the blog is not intended to compare the two fields as both have their unique traits and skills. It is also not intended to be a definitive guide to project delivery. It is just a few lessons I picked up from the sales world, which I thought were quite relevant to project delivery as well

Layout the map

Before you can start a project understanding the customer is very important. Enough research needs to be done to understand their business, org structure, challenges, vision goal, their performance etc.

It is then important to translate this into a picture of what you are going to implement, sort of the end state – what would be the final solution, who will be benefited, why would this be important to them, what might be the kind of timelines, what will be the resources needed, cost, the net benefit and how does it justify the investment.

This is crucial because without knowing this the efforts would not be focused and channelized particularly in situations where there are multiple constraints around budget or timelines or resources, it is important to know what is the priority and what would yield the best results.

Bring value to the table

Always, always, always, there needs to be a value you bring to the table, and you should not be someone to take the notes and execute. It is crucial that the customer sees the value in hearing you out. Something that would make your customer want to listen to you. You need to be able to provide that extra insight which they are missing. You need to be able to tailor the message, help train the customer on what they are not aware and take control of the conversation. This is called “Tailor, Train, Take control”. If you want to know more about it, read the book The The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation. As an implementation consultant, you need to be able to give the outside perspective that the customer needs. Need to be able to challenge their requirements, processes, tell them the right way / best way of doing things and be able to justify it to good measure. This is where the planning ahead helps you. if you have planned ahead then this would be straight forward.

Know your people

As with any sale with every project there will be those who will be your mentors to guide you, your champions to fight for your cause, the non believers and those on the wall. Going into key milestones, workshops or regular meetings or status updates, you will face these different personas and the sooner you identify them easier it will be manage them.

Objection Handling

As in a sales cycle, even during implementations there will be a lot of objections. This could be towards the solution you are implementing the timelines the milestones and they will need to be handled. This is where it helps to know the people and understand their questions and anticipate the objections. Objection handling in itself is a skill everyone needs to develop. It requires conscious effort

Ask for the deal

Be it a sales cycle or a project it is very easy for things to stagnate and start taking their own course. Think about it, how often we get into this trap in a project we get stuck in a milestone and keep going through more workshops, meetings, sessions, issue logs and action items without moving forward. Yes at times it is important and there is a bigger purpose and objective to it all, but it is equally important to make sure that it is not just an excuse to avoid the difficult conversations and we need to be able to speak up and “Ask for the Deal”. It could be an agreement on a solution or a sign off to go to the next milestone it is important that at a point in time we call this out and say “so now that we have done what you asked, can we close this” or it could also be something like “ok so we will do this one last thing, but once this is done we all agree that this is now closed”. You could think of it like a Quid Pro Quo. If the options have been thought out clearly you and if there is an intent to move forward from the customer, then more often than not customers will be happy to take this up. Even if they don’t this will give you a good handle on the situation and look at what alternative measures need to be taken and if need be, even walk away.

Have a close plan

Like in every sales cycle a project also need to close at some point and it is important to have a close plan. Why is this so important? How often it happens that just as the project is about to go live, there are objections, conflicts, additional asks or readiness issues and sometimes these things can put the plan off by weeks or even months. While all projects have a meticulous cut-over checklists which define the numerous things to be done there needs to be a close plan something at a one level higher, something which will look at the project strategically and identify the key entry & exit criterion for the milestones which assess the project objectives validate which are the must have for a go live, what is the success criteria to validate if this is achieved and agree on the key action items which when closed can be considered as a green light for going live

Analyze your wins and loses

While a project completion in itself is a win (and why not!!) it is important to retrospect. As they say hindsight is 20-20 but it is good to define certain parameters to measure the success. The most fundamental would be that we finished on time in full within budget. But there are aspects beyond that. How was the spread of the burn rate. While the overall project did finish on time, how many milestones shifted, why and what was the impact it had on the interim project health? Is there an opportunity to better plan these for future? What were the key takeaways for the team. Were they able to learn and grow in the project. Did we identify the outliers who can be groomed for future leadership. The project should be a very important source to identify training needs for the team members. How was the attrition rate on the project and what could it be attributed to. Where all milestone deliverables achieved. Is the documentation as per expectations. Is there an opportunity to improve them. Maybe reduce paperwork or improve and / or standardize the quality of the deliverable. Relook at the project to see if there are reusable components. These need not necessarily be just technical components. It could be a process or methodology related. Maybe certain tools and templates used can be repurposed to improve the project management or tracking in future or the practices, checklists followed for different milestones can be standardized across the different projects. Things which will help deliver same results consistently

Always stay ahead

“We’ll announce our Amazon quarterly results, and [people will say], ‘Great quarter, congratulations!’ And then I say, ‘Thank you!’ 

But what I really think about is [how] that quarter was kind of baked and done 2 or 3 years ago, and right now the senior executives at Amazon are working on a quarter that’s going to happen in 2021, 2022.”

Jeff Bezos

Lastly something that is true throughout the project. You need to stay two steps ahead of the curve. This is the biggest differentiator. Jeff Bezos once said in an interview that he is never thinking of the current quarter as that is already done. Not even the next one. Instead he is thinking of the quarter three years from now. This holds good for the project. The current milestone or activity or tasks are something that were planned and prepared much earlier and while the team is working on executing that as a project manager or a project leader you need to be thinking ahead of what is going to come and what do you need to do it to shape it right. Similarly, during a project you get a lot ad hoc requests from the customer. It could be in terms of more feature functionality, more reporting or other operational request and instead of just delivering that you are thinking two steps ahead to understand where is this coming from, what is this going to be used for and what are the different scenarios and what else would be needed then to address them. This can then be translated back to the task at hand to not just make it better but to also identify any potential risks in it and also reduce the back and forth.

I would like to conclude by saying that a successful delivery has numerous factors and sometimes, there will be some even beyond our control. However being conscious of the small things and trying to get them right will mean that the foundation is strong and helps tilt the balance on your side to help you handle all those other factors.

I would love to hear from folks on crucial practices that can help deliver better projects