Get your vendor's A team
Getting a great vendor team is not always easy, even when the contract includes severe penalties for poor performance. Review the backgrounds of key team members as soon as the vendor identifies them, ideally before the contract is signed. Demand the right to approve any team members assigned to your project. LinkedIn profiles can be helpful, but the best information comes from professional colleagues who have previously worked with key vendor staff.
Undertake the following investigations as soon as feasible:
Be suspicious of any team in which the majority of the key people are hired specifically for your project. They will spend the first several months learning the informal norms of their new employer and building an internal network. While people who are thrown together can become a great team, it takes time for everyone to learn how everyone else operates. Adjust project schedules accordingly, or object to brand new employees.
Assess the team's flexibility when presented with new information. A teams adjust as the situation evolves. B teams insist on adhering to the methodology even when it's not working.
Poor teams believe executing the work is more important than planning the work. Recently, an outsourcer embarked on a six-month data center migration. Despite repeated requests from the client, the outsourcer did not create a comprehensive work plan for the first four months. Not surprisingly, key tasks slipped through the cracks, and six months became nine months.
B teams either try to hide bad news or shift the blame. These teams lose precious time pretending the problem will disappear when they should be working on solutions. Become very concerned if you learn that the team on the ground wants to share bad news but fears reprisals from their own senior staff.
A teams treat client staff respectfully and spend some of their on-site time getting to know the people over coffee or a meal. B teams frequently ignore client staff, believing their knowledge is irrelevant. This leads to misunderstandings or animosity that can be detrimental to the project.
The team your vendor assigns determines the quality and success of your project. Negotiate with your vendor for the best possible team before the project begins. Changing horses in midstream can disrupt team dynamics, cause delays and impact vendor relations adversely during critical points in the project. However, if you later discover the vendor's team is not performing adequately, don't wait for critical delivery failures to occur. Negotiate for necessary changes in project personnel until you get the team your project deserves.
Bart Perkins is managing partner at Louisville, Ky.-based Leverage Partners Inc., which helps organizations invest well in IT. Contact him at BartPerkins@LeveragePartners.com.