Virtual Corners

Signs of recovery within the business community cannot come too soon for most people in the UK. We have seen lots of these signs in the marketplace but I wonder whether these are phantom signs rather than real ones. Some consultants are deciding to leave assignments as higher rates are available elsewhere and some are prepared to hold out for assignments closer to their base location. Some consultants are trying to re-negotiate terms at the end of projects and they are doing this with more conviction than hope. These are the signs of a booming economy rather than one that is still wheezing.

However, in reality, are there more assignments out there? Are there more projects getting the green light? Are there more new business initiatives being launched? I don’t think that this is the case. I was meeting with one of the CTOs of a major UK Bank and the story there was about reductions, cost cutting and removing consultants rather than expansion. I have also seen a client who is going to release all of their consultants at the end of the month to see if they could manage without them and then only invite the most essential back in later. Clients beware! Less scrupulous consultants may see this as an opportunity for profiteering or may feel that their market worth has increased with all the talk of growth.

The reality is that this is still a very difficult marketplace to trade in and whilst positive thinking is helpful, I want to see a genuine increase in opportunity before I claim that we have turned any corners, virtual or not.

Fiddling Whilst Rome Burns!

At any one time within an organisation there are a large number of things to fix or improve. When things are going well it is difficult to justify significant change in case the successes are diminished. Conversely, when things are going badly, or the business is under pressure due to economic conditions, change is the word on everyone’s lips. 

Addressing the fundamentals of the business, whether this be product quality, service levels, pricing or marketing should be at the forefront of decision makers minds. Why should it be the case then that shallow, ill-conceived re-organisations are so popular when more important issues need to be dealt with.

I think the answer is that humans are not logical creatures and often have trouble facing up to difficult challenges when there are easier but less important problems to solve.

Why look hard at the viability of your oldest product or service? Why question the new market sector initiative that you took last year? Why make difficult long term decisions on pricing? Why do any of these things when an easy option is to move some people around, rename departments and re-write job profiles. 

Re-organisations create a lot of noise, make people believe that their managers are taking strong decisions and distract people from the more significant impact of falling sales. It is a tried and tested method of pepping up a business but I think that they lack genuine dynamism.

The new saying might read that you don’t get fired for ordering re-organisations but these days maybe someone should.

Cultural Inertia

IT Transformation programmes represent particularly large investments for most companies. The business cases for these programmes, some of which can last up to 3 years, are often compelling with significant financial returns based upon IT rationalisation, business process optimisation and reduced headcount. Technology requirements can be planned and costed and consultants with the required skills can be sourced from inside or outside the business, but this does not ultimately dictate the likelihood of success or failure. The effect of the organisational culture represents a significant risk to large IT programmes and will be ignored at your peril.

Firstly, it needs to be accepted as a risk during the chaos of initiation. During this time management need to obtain an objective view of how employees could potentially react to the change and potential effects on the programme identified (this may require an external view). In my opinion this should be a separate work-stream with dedicated resources, closely linked with training and communications but crucially independent. It is only in this way that a considered plan for cultural change can be assembled and followed. Changes to working culture are slow and the inertia that can exist within large organisations mean that progress initially can be difficult to measure. However, there will be successes and the pace of change should gather momentum as the programme continues.

This is not often the approach taken by organisations who initiate programmes with a flurry of ill-conceived communications about the glory of the long term corporate vision, along with lots of dramatic representations of a new technical dawn which leave many employees feeling intimidated. Much later as the programme itself begins to lose momentum, the head-scratching starts, and urgent soulless communications about the importance of change are issued fortnightly to a workforce who no longer have faith in the long term objective. This is all too late and ultimately the programme will fall short of its original objectives or take much longer to deliver. This does not include the long term effects on morale and culture that will impact significantly on the chances of success for future programmes and create yet more inertia.

Sometimes the only way out of the loop is outsourcing and we have all discussed the problems associated with that decision. Let us hope we can raise the profile of cultural change and improve future programmes of work so that the workforce can feel proud of their achievements and not resentful of an enforced transfer to an anonymous third party.

When is a Project Manager not a Project Manager?

I have been interviewing project managers for a specific assignment with one of our most important clients. The CVs that I shortlisted were very similar in terms of background and on paper any of them would have been more than suitable for the role. It soon becomes apparent on interview that these are significantly different candidates with varied levels of experience. The art of interviewing comes into its own together with the ability to establish the levels of detail that each person has worked to. Getting accurate information seems to become more difficult. The more senior the individuals become as they have already developed good communication skills and confidence in order to achieve their current status.

When it comes to interviewing there is no alternative to experience, natural judgement of character and a detailed understanding of the environment into which you intend the individual to work. A golden rule that I work to when meeting associates or interviewing for specific assignments is that the interviewer should not be doing all the talking. If this is the case then the questions asked are not open enough. Secondly, do not accept the first level of detail as satisfactory if you require more detail for your role, ask for more examples and more depth. This does not need to be an interrogation and all of the information that you need in order to make a decision can be gained in an informal and relaxed atmosphere.

Finally, the answer to the question posed in the title of this blog is when the candidate turns out to be an engineer, business analyst, support analyst etc etc……

A Professional Approach?

A number of organisations are turning to outsourcing to provide specialist skills for specialist services. Resourcing is a hugely important part of any business and therefore should be treated as an area where specialist skills should be used to find and select the best people in the marketplace for specific positions. I do not believe that resourcing is treated as a specialist skill and therefore outsourcing agreements tend to focus on volume and cost rather than quality.

Specialist resourcing organisations are providing services at many of our largest financial services companies. However, in this context, specialist means that the organisation “only” supplies resourcing services and does not refer to the quality or depth of knowledge of the people who provide the services. It is like going to a specialist plumbing company to get new central heating installed but then finding out that the people who work there have little more experience than changing a washer. Why do we have an attitude towards resourcing outsourcing that is so much more tolerant of poor performance than we would have to an IT provider or security firm?

People cannot be treated as insurance claims and processed by computer and semi-skilled resources. Resourcing should be treated as a skilled and professional skill and companies should take this into account when looking for outsource partners.