The Trusted Advisor

What is the likely hood of ending your long term project somewhere in the middle to a competitor because the customer was unhappy which was not quantifiable. Agreed that we all look at metrics to track the health of a project. The most typical ones are Defects in Production/UAT, Usability, Code Quality, Defects per LOC, Variances of Schedule & Effort etc.. the list goes on and yes these are unarguably the most tracked and loved ones for a metric driven Manager. Most of the times, we also consider a more formal approach of requesting a Customer Satisfaction Index OR in simple terms, asking a customer on how are we Delivering? An informal communication would always be Excellent and a more formal communication is typically avoided for legal reasons in that a Customer may have to back it up should there be changes on the Business Front related to mergers, acquisitions, change of C level folks etc… In current day context it would be prudent to proactively assess your organizations value add to a customer’s business problem. Metaphorically this is “doing” Vs “seeking” . Meaning proactively improvising versus actively seeking for feedback from a customer. An abridged list as a starting point for all Managers and Leads handling projects whether they are local or overseas clients could be:

• Consider yourself as inexpensive & skilled workforce as against cheap IT labor. This no longer holds good given the inflation in countries like China and India. Make the customer aware of this for a win/win
•  Always look for opportunities around improvement. This may be related to business analysis or working directly with a customer’s Product Managers. Studying the competitive landscape & propose features that add value to a product or service sold by the customer
•  Look for opportunities that save the costs around defect leakage from an envision state to the field/production
•  Maintain transparent communication and avoid misleading effort involved that directly translates into costs
•  Consider the customer a part of your team and have their presence on your team site which is not mere access to artifacts but may be a picture of theirs would help
•  Follow them on social media that is a testimony that you are serious about them and their business
• Have multiple point of contacts such that dependency does not exist and customer has a diverse group of individuals that he could interact when needed
•  Most importantly build the trust to be a trusted advisor

To conclude, there are some things which cannot be quantified but will take the relationship a long way if done without any bias.

The title for this blog and some of his own experiences were based after reading the following book & strongly advices this to all that are involved in consulting & services " The Trusted Advisor Paperback David H Maister, Charles Green and Robert M Galford "