Idealness in IT: Perfection, the need of the hour

As everyone else, the Information Technology (IT) world too thinks of idealness, something that is perfect or closest to perfection, as something that exists only as a concept. Idealness in IT is highly desirable but isn't it possible for us to achieve? World, life, power, knowledge and everything in life are essential and are capable of perfection.

It does not matter what we do and how many things we are involved in, what matters is how PERFECT we are in even one of them. Perfection in any one of the skills or capacities we possess will help us cross the border. We can see ourselves in the next zone if we take one thing at a time and perfect it. It enables one to see the result, gives self-confidence, gives birth to optimism and eventually to a different individual.

Every time I performed an activity, I conceived that it requires energy, interest, skill, attention, concentration, experience and perfection. When all of these aggregate, the result is always good. Even small perfection can bring great results. Flawlessness in any work is a common expectation across any duty performed in this world. I believe that perfecting a work down to the minutest details attracts positive life response. When the goal is high accomplishment, the very best method is to make every small act as perfect as possible. It is a method that brings a much greater result, much sooner.

Perfection comes with practice. For example, punctuality is perfection in time, which is practiced and measured over a period. The majority of perfection is attained in the first 70-80% of completing the task. The remaining 20-30% percent is achieved through what one thinks as improvement. But certainly it is the latter that makes a great difference.

Perfection can be achieved in three steps. The first step is to start with the right plans. Just as we build a building or make a car, we need to have a good set of plans. They must be accurate, easy for the workforce to understand and easy to repeat. Repeatability and reproducibility is another aspect of perfection in IT. The third step in perfection is to correct the previous mistakes and prevent defects from occurring again. Mistakes are common but repeated mistakes are a sin. No present work will move even an inch if past lapses are left uncorrected. This is similar to Deming / Shewhart Cycle or PDCA (Plan, Do it, Check and Act) cycle.

It may sound fancy, but it is very true that Six Sigma is nothing more than a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. It is a disciplined, data-driven approach to eliminate defects and rework in any process. The aim is to reduce defects, or errors, to no more than six standard deviations from the mean. To put numbers to it, in order to achieve Six Sigma-level quality, a process will have no more than 3.4 defects per million. Like wise, other quality processes such as Quality Circles, TQM and Kaizen work towards perfection by concentrating on Team based process improvements. Process Capability and Design of Experiments (DOE) have come to the fore in Six Sigma. Combining Control charts, Value Analysis and ISO/QS9000 techniques with Six Sigma can be a more powerful process perfection methodology.

Idealness can be attained with well defined quality processes. To me, Quality, especially in reference to IT, is to express the real ideas of the business in the act or work. It is only when something is rubbish, of poor quality and not worth its value, stakeholders take notice, start to complain, and all attention is drawn towards the mediocrity of the service or product. Often my requirements for quality fall on deaf ears; projects get revised and rewritten many times before they meet my exacting standards. People have even blamed me for having high expectations and termed as not a team man. Such people never had the visibility of the burned hours of top management time in the review and revision process – time that could have been used to lead the company.

The biggest key to succeed upon idealness is having the support of upper management. If they don't think it is necessary to perfect processes to achieve idealness, the initiative will fail. Next is to engage the right people in the process. If we don't have buy-in from the people who actually touch the process, it will be harder to get them to accept the changes proposed. It is also important to practice with smaller achievable projects to build the momentum. It's much easier to perfect a small job and get some quick success than to try to fix a huge process all at once. Together, we got to keep up the enthusiasm and optimism for idealness to be successful in the long run.

Facing the client: Should we bend till we break

Often on projects, I find myself focusing on a very common subject - facing the client. Client interactions can be nerve-wrecking as had been the case for some of my colleagues, including a couple of seniors. But it doesn't have to be like this always. I experience enlightment with each and every customer, internal or external, that I communicate with. I always feel it is a chance to strengthen the relationship. Relationships are still the cornerstone of any service-based business. It’s much nicer to work with jovial clients as opposed to clients who feel they are unable to communicate their thoughts properly.

Clients are primary to the process in the service industries. As an IT service provider, I feel that, we just implement the vision and ideas of the client. When the client asks for opinions and direction we may give some input, but it is ultimately for the client to make decisions. We should not underestimate and tell the clients what they should do. This happens with most organizations dealing with the FTO (First Time Outsourcing) clients, thinking that the clients are not knowledgeable in the project management aspects. Some of the large clients allow us to educate them about the value we can provide. But it is not the case always. Most times, we end up dumping our processes on the clients, only to find later that the clients had better processes than ours. We also fall into an easy trap trying to impress clients with our promises of a super-fast turn around instead of our capability. Don't give the client the absolute best-case scenario when discussing a project. Most of the Clients would be fine if they were just told that it would take the necessary time. But by promising the project in lesser time and failing to deliver, the future trust is lost with the client. Words are cheap and clients who have been in business for any length of time know that.

We need to be humble with the clients and understand that humility will only set us apart from the rest. Being Indians, humility comes quite naturally to us. But how far we need to be humble is a question to be answered. Client interaction is important as it could make or break a business and the best way to ensure that is by communicating effectively. Clients appreciate honesty which is often forgotten when being humble. The hardest lesson to learn in client interaction is learning when to state our opinion. If the client is wrong about something, do not hesitate to say so, along with a solution to go with it spontaneously. There’s no sense in pointing out an error only to not have an effective plan of action. Develop plans that are best suited for the clients. When identifying an issue, we should keep its criticality in context. Managers and business leaders do not appreciate drama, and overreacting can hurt our credibility and rapport with critical business contacts. Sticking to the facts can help keep situations from spinning out of control. Do a thorough client diagnostic evaluation and understand what we are doing well and how we might be falling short for them. This will increase the client experience with us. Do not shoot down any idea from the client, only to have nothing to patch it up with. Be ready to admit too when we are wrong should the client call us on something. Put your self in the client’s shoes to be able to identify and understand their problems.

Clients deserve respect for their expertise. Working collaboratively with clients typically achieves the best results. When interacting with a client, we should inject our personality into the conversation and project. If we are acting contrived, the client will come to know about it. Be genuine, by displaying the passion for work, the client will share their enthusiasm as well. In most cases, clients are proud of what they do, and they are excited to share the details of their work. Expressing interest can elicit valuable information and enhance client relationships. Having informal meetings outside of formal meetings with the client can really help our status as their trusted advisor. With informal meetings, be careful not to become too casual with the client; remember they are still the client. Client interaction should be characterized by quality and transparency, with defined and adhered accountability and responsibility.

The most important problem that clients face with the IT services is not talent or skill but communication, and that too written. Clear and concise writing is the foundation to effective communications. Be willing to email clients even when it seems a bit redundant or unnecessary. Always be reachable since if the Clients can’t get in touch with us, their helplessness increases exponentially. Answer emails to the client quickly. Assumptions can cause major problems, especially in a world where so many decisions are made by email. Make liberal use of lists, inline email responses, and reiterations of instructions. But all business can’t be conducted by email. This is where phone calls will help. Misunderstandings are always easier and faster to resolve via phone. Verbal communication creates a better "human relationship" than email does. And that is why I always prefer and suggest using both the channels – email followed by a phone call or phone call followed by an email.

Other basic things that can improve the client relationship include:
o Be honest and sincere to establish visibility and creditability so that there is enough trust for the purchase to happen.
o Be punctual, this signals that we value Client’s time the same way they do.
o Engage with the Client more often and make them feel that you really care.
o Dress formally. Dress to either the client’s standards, or your company's standards. With an increase in the number of businesses who operate in a casual work environment, standing out as well dressed can be a big bonus for you.
o Enhance listening skills to make sense of and understand what the client is saying.
o Always treat clients with courtesy.
o Reply speedily. Keep your clients abreast of important, complicated changes in strategy or timetables with regularly scheduled conference calls.
o Keep a watch on the body language

Also be aware of the Don’t’s
o Talking only about one self
o Revealing too much
o Not being one self

With so many factors to consider, how does one move forward without being overwhelmed with the complexity of client interaction? The starting point for such an approach is by giving careful consideration to the assumptions and beliefs that are embedded in our understandings and goals of our encounter with the client. Developing cultural knowledge, skills in understanding client communication methods, and an awareness and acceptance of the dynamic variety of people and populations we work with are all crucial components of facing the client. The right balance between humility and honesty, transparency and sincerity will give us the flexibility in any relationship without reaching the threshold of breaking.

Practice Management: Do we really practice?

More than often, I have wondered, how the IT Corporate management can ensure nurturing talents instead of emphasizing on individual initiative, individual performance metrics and individual performance-based rewards. And the answer to this is through a strong Practice Management. The concept of Practice Management is floundering in many IT Corporates and the challenges faced are it’s thoughtful, consistent, patient and practical application. Executive leadership use this concept to create distinct units called Practices that have their own unique processes, structures and cultures that are specifically intended to explore and develop breakthrough innovations.

We all understand the importance of having a strong practice group in the organization. An effective practice management allows the organization to develop a brand name identity that would resonate with prospective clients. It allows enhanced opportunity for intellectual exchange and a means for attracting and retaining good talent. It provides an easier way to train the juniors. Practice groups can help create the organizational assets such as common methodologies, check lists, templates, and documents that could do away with redundancy and iterated efforts.

Well! I agree that the benefits of practice management are longer than the above list. But the question is do we really practice to achieve these benefits? Seldom is it focused on risk management, ethics and strategic planning. Often, the aim of practice management - to help members evaluate themselves and their roles and responsibilities in the enhancement of both the quality and efficiency of services they provide - is forgotten. Why is it so? What do we need for this?

The first and foremost is to create a strategic plan by evaluating the current practice methods. Most of the time, practices exist just for the sake of it with no effective planning and just working as resource pools. Strategic Planning is the essence of success and it should be concentrated on building and growing a practice, a long-term imperative. The growth requirements needs to be assessed and a growth strategy should be developed along with technology, services and marketing strategies for the practice.

At the same time, People strategy also needs to be developed which will address the composition (staff mix), the practice culture, communication, hiring, inducting, retaining and developing the existing staff, risk management, quality control issues, self-regulating discipline, ethical issues, quality processes and professional standards for specific areas. People strategy should focus on developing a critical mass for better perceived quality and shared expertise through designer training programs for the group.

A set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) or Key Result Areas (KRA) should be defined and monitored. Most of the time, the practice managers are unclear what KPI / KRA needs to be set for the individuals and for the group. This only worsens the practice management.

Once the strategic plan is in place, a business plan needs to created, fitting the strategies and structuring the practice by building a risk management approach into it. Business plan should identify the target client, which will help build the brand image.

Do not forget to have a finance plan with respect to the strategic plan. The buy-in of the management is most important with respect to the financial feasibility after considering the financial issues, general considerations, benchmarks and the risks. Once done, put the plans into operation.

Communication too plays a pivotal role in the operational success of the practice groups. To and fro communication between the management and the members is very important. Practices should have regular follow-up meetings to review the progress. We, as individuals, a disciplined member of the Practice Group, have to devote our attention and time to make practice management work as well.

If we focus, commit, and practice properly, Practice Management is an effective means for high profitable growth.