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Common Client Challenges

Common across many of our client experiences, irrespective of the industry and the details and scale of the engagement, are the facts that clients face the following challenges when embarking on any programme of change (large or small), some of which are quite obvious:

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• Skills - change vs BAU

  The client's day-to-day business (or BAU-Business As Usual) operations utilise a different set of skills in their workforce to those required for the programme of change, except as business SME's (Subject Matter Experts). Change and BAU are complementary by their very definition and so different skill sets are required to help our clients bring about that change. Another way to think about it: many people find it hard to self-analyse and hence why they seek out Life Coaches etc; well, so do businesses.
• Business Cases - alignment & KPI tracking vs tug-o-war & running wild

  These need to be specified, evaluated, aligned, prioritised and tracked. Alignment and tracking are often those that are often treated lightly. Alignment of strategic roadmaps (e.g. business and IT) - aka Enterprise Architecture - is crucial so that everyone is pulling in the same direction and at the same time. Tracking of business cases (using KPIs) is equally crucial to measure the value that is being delivered and to keep the business case goals at the forefront.
• Scope and Change Management - controlled scope vs scope creep

  In this fast-paced world, it is common for initial scope to not be properly defined or communicated, let alone changes that need to be introduced mid-delivery to be evaluated and controlled. How many times have you seen a current Word doc or Wiki or Sharepoint site with the full, current scope defined? Or been surprised about a change in requirements that you hadn't been told about? Even then, how often are you sure that your stakeholders have actually agreed to it? Before you know it, you have systems delivered that do not meet the original objectives, that doesn't work end to end and with frayed edges (i.e. functionality that doesn't quite work or is totally surplus to requirements).
• Quality and Delivery Assurance - ensuring consistency vs siloed divergence

  With the take-up of more frequent and iterative, incremental development methodologies like Agile, Scrum etc away from the traditional, lengthy (and costly) Waterfall methodology, quality and delivery assurance, certainly at a release scale, becomes more important than before. Traditionally (with Waterfall), there is a defined transition between delivery lifecycle phases (Design, Build, Test etc) where deliverables are signed off before the next phase begins. With the more agile methodologies, this all gets blended together on the micro-scale (fair enough if actually being performed) but still needs the right tools and processes to manage this at the macro scale to make it effective and reduce the churn and defects in latter-stage testing (or even in production!).
• Terminology - common understanding vs cross-purpose confusion

  There is a plethora of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms), methodologies, tools, processes and activities that are being used or executed throughout the delivery lifecycle. But how many deliveries utilise a glossary of terms with full descriptions (what it is and what it isn't) and, even then, have it communicated and referenced frequently? How many times have you found that you have been talking cross-purposes with someone because you both assumed you were talking about the same term but weren't because you each had different definitions?
• Management Information/Reporting - status now vs status weeks/months ago

  Even with our automated society and systems nowadays, client directors and managers still tell us that they are not receiving their updates or reports as often and as timely as is required. How can anyone assess and introduce the required changes when the information they found them on is 2 weeks or a month old?

Please read on for:

• Our Values - that we bring to bear on any and every engagement.
• What is Interim Consulting? - the difference between Interim Consultants and Contractors.