This is a true story. The company name
has been changed.
Background
In order to implement their new ERP
system, Acme Corporation hired a well-known consulting firm, Standard Inc., to
assist with the implementation.
Standard Inc.’s management determined
that there was a gap in their expertise for one of the modules, and engaged a
sub-contractor with expertise to work as part of their team.
The project manager observed that the
sub-contractor was a domineering personality and realized it could cause
difficulties for the project, but decided to hire him anyway in order to have
the expertise on the team.
The situation
On the Acme project, the Standard Inc.
expert sub-contractor was at the centre of nearly every problem that occurred.
The Standard team and the sub-contractor had different standards for
determining completion of each type of work, including even documentation. The
sub-contractor also pushed aggressively for things to be done his way, due to
his prior product knowledge.
The client team was very small and had
to be scheduled carefully in order to ensure their ability to contribute to all
parts of the implementation. However, the sub-contractor would announce
schedule changes to the client that had the team spend more time on the expert’s
module and less time on other work. These changes had not been approved by the
project manager.
The Standard Inc. team found out that
the sub-contractor was telling the client that any problems were the fault of
the Standard Inc. consultants. The consultants felt the sub-contractor was
trying to make himself look good to the client at their expense, in order to
obtain more work for himself in the future.
In addition, Standard Inc. was doing
the implementation work for a fixed fee, while the sub-contractor was being
paid for his work by the hour. So, the sub-contractor was agreeing directly with the client to do extras, since
he was getting paid for them. He was not discussing them with the project
manager, prior to doing this extra work and billing for it. These extras were
causing problems in managing the schedule and budget.
Action and outcome
The project manager discussed the
problems with the sub-contractor, who agreed to stop attacking the Standard
Inc. consultants and to stop changing the project schedule and adding extras
without approval.
The project manager also worked hard at
encouraging the client to stick with the project as scheduled, and not follow
the sub-contractor’s last minute schedule changes unless approved by the
project manager.
The sub-contractor ignored the project
manager, continued to re-schedule as he wished, and also continued to attack
the other consultants. The conflicts on the project worsened.
The implementation project did go live
as planned. By this time, the sub-contractor and the Standard Inc. consultants
were barely on speaking terms. Everyone was relieved to see the project end.
Some observations
It’s difficult to know whether it was a
mistake to hire an expert who was such a poor team member. There are many who
say that collaboration is just as important as expertise, and just as many who believe
that the product expertise trumps all other considerations.
However, once the decision was made to
hire the expert sub-contractor, there are a few things that could have been
done differently in this situation:
·
Specify limits to authority in the expert’s
contract, to make it clear to him the necessity of obtaining the project
manager’s approval for changes.
·
Fix the scope and price of the expert’s
work.
·
Clearly define the change process and
expected behavior with the expert sub-contractor before the work starts, in an
effort to reduce or eliminate problems before they start.
Copyright 2015 Debbie Gallagher
