Tabs - a fad?

Laptops, smartphones, tablets, better of all three….what is next? Who is the audience for tabs, and what is the need that this device serves?

To answer this, I believe moving a step back, and assessing “how in today's fast moving world the lifestyle has also been changing (even) at faster pace / interval, as compare to may be what it had been a decade back. Not long back, we had portable cassette players, CD players, mps3 players, iPod, smartphones with superlative audio quality...what it essentially means the innovation is driven through need, or influences the need to cannibalize the existing product”, would really help.

It is not a new phenomenon; however, may be we never paid / attached so much thought to it either. What it also means is that a company’s success or float can’t be dependent on existing product / service, rather it has to keep evolving, else be ready to face the extinction (the marketing is full of these idioms and illustrations). The things change, if you have the monopoly, or have created a monopoly kind of situation; otherwise, the strong forces of market are so ruthless that they show no mercy to the laggards.

Another known fact, conceding a ground to opponent, rest assured that it be fought tooth and nail, when it comes to regaining the lost ground.

With this backdrop, I personally feel tabs are for the people who like to surf, read, and need reasonable computing power to accomplish these and other computing needs. These are not technology savvy people (Ok; may be most of them), rather they are consumers, and demand experience. That is experience of elegance, branding, and usage at the same time. For them these are not three attributes or needs, rather it is only one need, “experience”. Well, may be that is why iPad was a runaway success, and leaving all others to catch-up with it.

So, what is in store post tab? Will it be a death of PC / laptop?

I personally believe that eventually, more or less, market would consolidate into smartphones and laptops (lighter, smarter and more powerful). The reason behind this understanding is the “smartness” of smartphones and the tasks that these devices have been carrying out. With powerful cameras, video conferences, mail, quality audio system, connectivity options, printing, gaming, ever increasing computing and storage power and of course, the basic functionality of calling, it is having all the “services” that you need from a device you want to keep “handy”, is portable and help you keep “connected”. With its pinch and gesture driven movement, it is easier to read (relatively) too, albeit maybe not for a longer period of time.

On the other hand when it comes to actual development, testing and release of applications / software, people need mobility and high computing devices with lot of connectivity options, which enables them to work for relatively longer hours with less strain. That is where you need laptops, as it provides exactly the same. Of course, the needs around long battery hours, and light weight are yet to be tackled effectively; nonetheless, the progressive products are inching closer to desired levels. Again, you will have categories within laptops; however, the basic traits will not change, i.e. need for power computing, extended working hours, bigger screen etc.

So, what is tab’s work? It is a product, which has traits of smartphone and “basic” laptop, to provide users a mobile experience. However, can those be used for serious software development, or can those be used as a replacement for your phone? Those had been and will always be “add-on”; if those survive the revolution in smartphones.

It always beats me as why do you need an 800$ device to read books? The reason being, all other needs can easily be (at some place even better) be served by your smartphone. This is not a device, which can replace your laptop either. Then why do you need it?

May be it is a device, which was a stop gap arrangement until your smartphones could serve those needs. I believe the time has come, where the “premium” tag to this category is no longer justifiable. At best it could serve as replacement for netbooks. That is, convenience / volume category, and not as “niche” market.

The reason behind my understanding is very simple, smartphone with an option of “physically expandable” screen is tablet. This trait is well known, and I’m sure many companies would have been researching to provide this flexibility with no compromise in “experience”. It is a matter of time, when we have that feature in smartphones, and at that time it would be the end of tablets, or at least those would recede into “netbooks”.

Of course, all of this with affordability, as you do not want to create another “satellite phone” kind of case study.

Digital Socializing

Digital Socializing?

 

This is one term I have not been able to understand, despite having read about it, having discussed with colleagues and being enlightened by the Gurus (read it as, “who practice it day-in day out”) of this philosophy. No, it is not because I do not want to understand, or I can’t appreciate the understanding given by these individuals (or shall I say “proponents of this belief”). Rather, I’m unable to understand the excessive need of this, and the value creation of organizations providing these services.

 

Of course, if you look at the dictionary meaning of “Socialize”, one may argue, it is another form of socializing. As ultimately, it means and fulfill the need of “to associate” / “fraternize” / “go out” / “hobnob” / “mingle” / “mix”. Everything is fine; however, doing that over internet is something that I find a little hard to understand. I keep asking one question, “What is the need that this medium satisfies”?

 

Is it medium to communicate? Is it for people to share their happiness / sorrow? Is it a medium to express oneself? Is it a forum to make new friends? Well, established users of this forum will answer in affirmative to all. May be, they are right; however, it is from their perspective, i.e. end users perspective. But, is it same for the people who own these “mediums”?

 

Isn’t this ironic, when we see some new face through eyepiece of our home door, we start having doubts in our mind. We will be very cautious over providing information, or providing access to our home, unless we scrutinize the information on that person to our satisfaction. However, we share our personal information, photographs, our fights, social calls, achievements…virtually everything without giving a second thought. Since, when either us or governments across the globe had been so confident about security of data shared over these sites that we do not feel any hesitance in sharing all of this information?

 

Every single day, we have news on misuse of this data, or medium, by anti-social elements to make victim of unsuspecting member(s). Still we share our personal data, our day’s happenings…why?

 

Is it truly socializing? We are sharing information, right? Is sharing information is equivalent to socializing? If not, then why do we term these mediums / internet sites as “Social Media” sites?

 

This list of arguments and questions keeps coming, and that is why I have doubts on the efficacy of this medium as means to socialize.

 

I am a little perplexed because I want to understand the true need for this from end user as well supplier perspective. Being, in business, I believe even the providers of these services want to make money. Nothing wrong with it, as you need finances to host huge data center, keep staff to maintain the site…so, they have to have a commercially sound business model to support their “service”; in essence, to be in business. Well, they are not providing a utility service, where they charge their customers, either through “pay per use” or by any other model. Then, how do they keep their finances up?

 

Well, of course, advertising is one. But do you get so much of funds through advertising alone? When TBs of data get added every passed hour, worldwide, what is the scale of data centers they require world over, as it does not stop with persisting data alone; rather, involves, scale, performance, redundancy etc. The “Premium” accounts are more towards being “less restrictive” on usage of site (of course, may be with higher storage space); however, again, there does not seem to be any other utility driven service. What is the catch?

 

Let’s develop it further, if the sources of income are “advertising” and “premium” account subscriptions only, then what do they do with the stored data? It is just being kept there, so that when you want to access it, it can be pulled on your request? Well, the answer lies in promotions that you get as per your habits, pings that you get from vendors as per your shared “tastes”, search results that you get as per your “liking”…the list goes on. What it essentially means that your data is getting analyzed and patterns / categories are being formed to classify your information. What it also means, the more you share the more refined results you get. WoW! Interesting, isn’t it?

 

Hell, No! What it means that your information is in public domain, and have the potential of being used somewhere else, where you least expected. Please note, “potentially”, as now the information is no longer privy to you. Is that what you signed up for?

 

On the flip side, if suppliers do not do these analytics, the relevance of their search, promotions, and sell would be least effective, resulting in poor customer experience, and potential retrenchment. What an irony.

 

Now, let’s focus on end user. They just want to share information, right? Well, for what? Why am I so interested in showcasing my new card, wardrobe addition, hobby, pains, joys, sorrows, achievements, frustrations, promotion…all of my emotions and information that in normal circumstances would like to share with my near and dear ones; is getting spilled on public domain. Of course, supplier ensure that information is accessible as per “security” model enforced on that site; however, the fact is it is getting stored on some server somewhere on this planet.

 

We term it socializing! In reality, it is Me, My and Myself. Others, have a limited choice to “react” to your display for emotions, that too, as an “information post” and not in a continuing dialogue form. It is non obtrusive, agree; however, would you go to this extent, to remove that obtrusiveness? In my view, it is void of emotions, rather it is a selective display of self that you want to portray to other at any given point in time. However, either because of paucity of time, or lack of interest (or simply because of lethargy) you want to let it display over an “electronic board” for people to read and react to it. It is a simple game of seeking attention, by letting world know what you think.

 

But is it truly socializing? Just by “like” or responding to comments / pictures of someone else, are you serving any cause? It may help you in sharing the information with like mindset people; however, making it a movement, is something that cannot be achieved through this. Spending hours together on socializing through picture sharing, posting messages, or PDA; however, without seeing them for days / months / years together! Have all kind of ailments in the process; neck pain, lower back pain, stiff neck muscles, wrist pain etc. At least I’m unable to understand this kind of socialization where people feel near to each other and yet they find themselves miles apart from reality, OR “in touch with convenience and as per their liking but from comforts of their couch”.

 

How long will it last? More than that what do we achieve out of this and at what cost? To me, we still do not meet people and either get or provide the warmth of touch and joy of being there when someone need you the most. We want to share the information on materialistic gains, provide our thoughts to people (with a hope that they would read), vote our liking for a cause but without participating in it or toiling for it, and may be the biggest dichotomy, socializing without actually socializing.

 

May be I’m getting old, or belong to dinosaur’s era. So, let me leave you with some thoughts:

1)    Why is that after spending hours on social sites, every day, you still feel the need to “connect”?

2)    Why is that you feel possessive about your belongings and information; however, are so eager to share over the net, knowing that it is getting stored in public domain?

3)    Why are we have more and more instances of identity theft?

4)    Why do we need this forum?

 

Relevance - Old marketing principles in today's markets

Scores of products and services are being launched every day, and as expected, not all are successful. Invariably we blame it on time of launch, marketing budget, lack of support from internal departments, competition…seems like endless list (of excuses).

I believe all failures, or not so successful ventures are opportunities for self-introspection. An honest try would likely to reveal more likely reasons than self-pity excuses.

The immediate topic that comes to my mind is “Enterprise vs. Consumer”. The market (or the people who are considered as “Pandits”) is quick to tag any product as “Enterprise” or “Consumer”. Sometimes, I do agree, the product is tagged as per need, like high end servers, industrialized / heavy duty cleaning systems, heavy machineries…all targeted towards commercial enterprises. Any exception will be a “true” exception and will be an outlier, with no concerted effort to woo that customer. Similarly, you have many products (in fact, most of the products) which are produced for masses and within masses categories of masses.

What essentially it reveals is that companies’ first need to define the market segment that they want to serve, then narrow down to specifics within that category, and finally making an all-out effort to educate targeted group to influence their decision to buy the given product / service. Nothing new, it’s an old age practice of marketing; Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning.

What is surprising is that every organization, their people, know about it, have access to this information, hire professionals, who live these practices, and yet when it comes to failure, we try to put the blame on external factors. Sometime reason could be other than STP; however, those rarely would be in above sighted reasons; rather I’m sure those could be traced back to some other fundamental principles.

Coming back to STP, and Enterprise vs. Consumer topic, it is evident success has been achieved wherever the “needs” have been addressed in a focused manner. A generic product / service may address multiple segments at the same time; however, will not be able to command either the premium or emotional attachment because it would fail to address all needs, especially the critical ones; which, otherwise will be required to further the interests.

For example, Carrier invented a/c but are they the leader in a/c market; rather I should ask in which segment of a/c market? Similarly Xerox, the pioneer in photocopying, and at one point in time photocopy and Xerox were used as synonym. One can’t ask for a better branding than that as need is mapped to a brand, and that speaks volumes about the brand equity and image of that company. What is the state of affairs now?

Apple’s iPod, iPad and iPhone had been successful products. Some say, it is a hardware marvel, some say it is the software, some others would say it is the friendly user interface, rather it is the User Experience, what has made it successful. However, is it a success in every segment of “Consumer” market? Why is it not an “Enterprise” product? As per my understanding, it is successful, because it addresses the needs of its targeted segment. It provides all those services that are wanted or desired by that segment.

Once a leadership, or a monopoly position does not guarantee success or unlimited access to “created” profit sanctuaries forever, as otherwise others would not have got a chance over Carrier, Xerox, Nintendo, Walkman etc. Others got to follow and will follow. So what’s next?

Sell the same product in other markets; market expansion, age old formulae, and easier said than done. You apply other marketing strategies to retain the position. Well, haven’t they heard of “Blue Ocean”, “White Spaces”, why others are interested in “Red Ocean” only?

Ah! They have heard but they are not interested in pursuing those because it seems unlimited; however, the fact is those are finite, and there will be overlap, and we would be left with no choice but to compete for the same pie. May be the intensity would vary.

A new entrant will find it difficult to penetrate the market, if the existing product is a specific target product. It is not generalized and as I mentioned above, because of “experience” has created an emotional appeal. But this “appeal” is not forever, the company has to keep preserving that with even better experience through refinements to align more towards needs of that segment. Once nearing saturation, refine or create the product / service for other segments.

Remember, stripping of features, and selling that at lower price, to address other segment may give you short term gains; however, there is no guarantee that it will not hurt your interests in other segments. Because, if that had not been the case, then Honda wouldn’t have Acura, Toyota would not have Lexus, Nissan would not have Infiniti…

If you fail with Consumer market itself when you define your segment a little too broadly, why do you feel it would be a success when it is targeted across Enterprise and Consumer markets?

With monopoly you may be able to delay the onset of competition; however, you can’t eradicate that threat, unless you are reinventing ways to keep your customers attached to your products / services. That I believe can happen only if you are focused, you are not thinning out your resources, rather channeling those to serve vital few.

It is simple, as competitors would be strategizing in attacking your profit sanctuaries, driving up your costs, starting a multipronged attack to divert your resources at multiple places; you should also be busy in serving your targeted segments even better, thereby deepening the emotional attachment, making a counter offensive against your competitors, and safeguarding your profit sanctuaries, if you can’t create new profit sanctuaries.

With this, I want to leave you with two thoughts;

1)      As you must have noticed all arguments point towards validity of STP; it was valid then and it is valid today. If it were true, what is probability of success of a product which is too widely targeted, e.g. across Enterprise and Consumer markets?

2)      Windows, though had variants, was a single product serving Enterprise as well as Consumer market, still it had been a success. Why?

Leadership

Leadership

This is one of those topics, which has been discussed at length, spoken about in past and now, written extensively on, and being the favorite of all senior level trainings.

Even after so much of discussions, I believe everyone has his / her own interpretation of Leadership. May be rightly so. In my opinion like any other specialized skill, this is spoken, discussed, and practiced in a given context.

Integrity, Walk the Talk, Vision, Humility, Boardroom leadership, Networking, Trust, Motivate, Listener…

If you ask anyone about the qualities / attributes of a leader (leaving aside the “Vision”, and “Direction” for the time being), more often than not, you will hear the attributes listed above. Nothing wrong with those, in fact, I also believe those are part of a true leader; however, with minor change.

All these attributes define the human behavioral aspect. Whether a person can be trusted or not, has integrity or not, is he / she arrogant or is humble in his / her approach…these define the fundamental character of a person. Leader or not, these attributes are searched for and liked by all, as these are considered to be “expected attributes” for a good human being. So, essentially, people expect their leaders first to be good human beings and then only they look beyond.

Again, quite obvious, if a person is not a good human being; how can that person be an effective leader? After all he / she has to work with human being only.

That brings me to my other point, i.e. if these are fundamentals for any good human being, how could those not be so for a good / effective leader. If that is so, why “Values” can be any different from these attributes (of course, the above list is not a complete / comprehensive list)? The point that I’m trying to make is, “Values” are fundamental and hence given for a good leader. Those cannot define the leadership style of a person. A person carries the values within him / her, and those ultimately get promoted, and propagated within his / her reach.

It is arguable if those can be changed. I’m of the opinion that these traits are so ingrained in our system that those are difficult to change, let alone the thought of overhauling the same. Therefore, “Value” system is given, unless it is influenced by life changing incidence, which results in a complete overhaul of the system. It is being said that it happened with Valmiki; it happened with Kautilya; however, those incidences are rare.

That is why I segregated these from “Vision” and “Direction”. To me, a person is born with, and live with his / her value system throughout his / her life; with a brief period of childhood, where it could either be molded or influenced by environment.

Vision, Direction and Values

As I mentioned above “Values” we are either born with or are mostly cemented by the time a normal human being reaches the stage of influencing / leading others.

Now, this again is arguable. Some of the people (if not most) may argue that people start showing their leadership qualities when they are young. Children also exhibit these qualities, may be limited by environment, age or audience. True; what I’m considering is leadership what we acknowledge in today’s society, at corporate, social, political. . . country level.

I personally believe that leadership at any level provides “Vision” and “Direction”. The first of these two is something that you can rarely influence or teach. The second one cannot be taught completely; however, it can be influenced and polished over a period of time.

The reason I say so, lies under my understanding that direction is more associated with data, monitoring, interpretation, governance and change. Let me explain this a bit.

A CEO of a company, unit head of a function… what do they all do, or have something in common; if we leave aside the “Vision” for the time being? They all provide “Direction” to their respective areas of influence. Well that was simple; but, how do they provide “Direction”?

Could this be associated with set targets, achieved results, available data, changing course of earlier decisions, mapping back achieved success to targets and changing environment and thereby steering the “influence area” towards envisioned goal and “vision”. I think so.

One cannot segregate the monitoring part from “Direction”. The way I interpret monitoring, is set of measures or practices that anyone employs in order to check the compliance / deviation to set target. It is more than mere binary recognition, i.e. whether an event has happened or not. In contrast, it is continuous in nature and it keeps checking the achievement / deviation, and includes deploying of corrective actions either to reduce the negative impact, and / or correct the course.

So, if one cannot monitor, one cannot provide direction. I’m not saying a person has to devise his / her own methods of monitoring, neither am I saying that a person has to do that all by himself / herself; rather, it is the intent, ability and capability to do so.

Now, in this dynamic world, can goals / targets / direction ever be static? Well, if those are changing so it is natural that “Direction” may also change, if not “will”. That is precisely why I linked direction, with “Data”, “Monitoring”, “Governance”, and “Change”. But, monitoring is more of “Managerial” trait / quality than that of a Leader. May be it is, but, if you agree that a Leader has to provide direction, then how can you leave out “monitoring” out of it?

For example, a spiritual leader mentoring / coaching his / her disciples / pupils, a corporate honcho steering unit / company towards a “Vision” and “Goal”, a political leader steering his / her nation towards set direction…you take any example. You will realize that everyone has to translate “Vision” into achievable goals and tollgates. The checkpoints are for them to realize the progress made and devise the “change” as per deviation or achieved result.

May be at least for this trait the line of demarcation between Managerial and Leadership is not that well defined, or maybe there is none.

Now, coming back to our first part of twin traits; the “Vision”. Can this be taught? Bill Gates envisioning desktop in every home, Steve Jobs envisioning “User Experience”, Jack Welch envisioning being number one or two in every space they operate, i.e. Excellence beyond comparison…so on and so forth. No one taught them, and no one could. The “Vision” is something that a person realizes on his / her own, and is based on ones thinking. People may also link it to creative side, may be. I’m not the right person to say anything with regard to that; however, for sure it can’t be taught.

If it can be, how many times have you come across either seminars, classroom sessions, workshops or teaching modules, imparting knowledge on “How to develop Vision” or may be beyond?

The “Vision” is something a person creates out of his / her passion, or by thinking and / or understanding the obvious needs of the organization / society / economy / nation. Otherwise, how would you explain the above given examples. Moreover, it is the “Vision” that separates Leaders from “Me too”; because strategies are defined around vision, and those in turn lead to practices and activities.

Strategic, Operational, Situational, Boardroom Leadership…

Over a period of time, you would have come across various terms, when it comes to Leadership, such as above.

Scrutinize these a little more closely and you would realize those are nothing but classification / specialization within Leadership. That takes me to my next understanding on this topic, i.e. “Like others fields / roles, even Leadership in today’s context has also become specialized”.

What it means is that a “Successful Leader” necessarily does need mean him / her being successful in all other fields / areas. A Leader is successful in defined boundaries, and may lead to average performance, once moved out of that “specialized” field / area.

Therefore, you give any name to it i.e., Strategic, Operational, Situational, Boardroom Leadership, the fact is it has moved towards “division of labor”. A Leader can be either of those; however, it is difficult to find one effective in all of those. Which I believe is pragmatic, as it is humanly impossible to have all those skills in one person and be cognizant of it.

You develop it a little further and you would realize that “Inspirational Leaders”, “Situational Leaders”, “Spiritual Leaders”…the fact is being successful in one area does not automatically guarantee success in other.

Summary

There are two sides, one which can be acquired or polished, one with whom the people are born with and are part of DNA. You can try altering the same; however, it is as difficult (or being successful) a task as changing a person’s DNA.

Mentoring and Coaching at right stage can definitely bring change in a person, and can make him / her ready for a Leadership role; however, can that be done to a person, who has not “exhibited” those skills.

May be my last point of understanding, the mentoring and coaching is provided to people who have already exhibited those skills, i.e. those already possess some of those qualities, if not all. Whether that person has acquired those skills / attributes over a period of time, or had born with it, the fact is when he / she being considered for a Leadership position, he / she already had those.

Lastly, I want to leave you with two thoughts:

1)      How many times we knowingly develop skills to be Leader, and

2)      If Leadership can be taught from grounds up, can anyone pick a child in his / her days, and ensure him / her being a successful Leader?

Is World Really Flat?

Theoretically, YES; Pragmatically, NO. Surprised!

It may be a metaphor for “level playing field”; however, that itself is questionable. I do not know, as how do people consider world as flat, because I have not come across a “level playing field”, or “playing field is being leveled”.

Once Chankya said, a question cannot be an answer to a question; however, in current scenario, it would result in more insight as compare to listing of my thoughts alone. So, let’s start with some questions, which have been haunting me on this subject;

1. It is understandable that technology has bridged the distances and gaps in communication; however, has it also been able to “level” the disparities across world?
2. Do we have same social, economic and technological progress across the world?
3. It is understandable that there is lot of outsourcing, cross border collaboration … etc., has those been without any constraints? Are governments not protecting their local businesses / citizens? Are they not coming up with new constraints?
4. Will governments across world be working for the world, or their focus will be limited to their country / region first? If yes, why do we have divide across continents, and their economic growth?
5. Play field is being leveled – by adding more constraints, by making new laws to protect local interests, by working against the economic principles….. list just goes one?
6. Why do we have G8, G15…. OPEC, ASEAN etc.? The world is flat, why do we need those?
7. Can everything be done remotely; assuming you have the access?
8. Does internet make a world flat? Do “Collaboration”, “Social Computing”, “E-Commerce” …… make world flat?
9. Can we do away with “Keep up with the Joneses”?
10. Does world operate on needs, or it is “wants”, which drive the world?
11. Can it ever be flat?
    

You can have many more questions to this list, and in no way it is either complete, or lists the top ten (10) questions / arguments. It just represents my thoughts.

The point that I want to highlight is that it had never been flat, and can never be flat. It can be flat in ideal situation, just the way we have “Perfect Competition” in Economics.

The environment that we live in is full of constraints, irregularities, and preferences, resulting in decisions through emotions and / or imperfect conditions than through logical thinking, or perfect conditions. It could be as simple as we work towards fulfillment of “wants” and not through “needs”. Two or more, human beings can have same basic needs; however, their wants differ, and get influenced by the environment they live in.

I can explain each point that I have listed above in detail; however, the essence of each is, we can’ ignore the irregularities that we have in environment. Till the time we have those, which I believe can never be overcome, world can never be flat. Can it be?

Critical Chain - Is this the answer for project monitoring?

Critical Chain Management

Critical Path: The longest chain of dependent steps, the longest in time (determines the time it would take to finish the project).

Critical Chain: It will be composed of sections that are path dependent and sections that resource dependent.

Critical Chain has been suggested an alternate to PERT and EV as both fail to take into consideration the “Critical Path” and / or “Critical Chain”. The critical path may change as you execute the project, and EV analysis won’t give you any information on this.

Before, we get into details “What each approach can, or cannot provide”, let’s see how “Critical Chain” principle works.

1. Assumption – 1: Persuading the various resources to cut their lead time estimates.
a. What it means is that all projects and their tasks have in-built buffers / safety built-in, in given estimates.

2. Assumption – 2: Eliminating milestones / tollgates; Eliminating completion due dates for individual steps / tasks.
a. It is the end goal, the project completion which should be the driving factor. Individual milestones / tollgates should not drive the project.

3. Assumption – 3: Frequent reporting of expected completion date.
a. The project progress should be monitored and reported frequently to check the deviation(s) in time.

4. There are four kind of buffers in a “Critical Chain”, namely, “Project Buffer”, “Feeder Buffer”, “Resource Buffer”, and “Constraint Buffer”. The idea is to have buffers at critical stages, rather than having those spread across tasks in a project.

5. Measurements should induce the parts to do what is good for the system as a whole.

6. Measurements should direct managers to the point that needs attention.

7. Progress is measured according to the amount of work or investment already done, relative to the amount still to be done.

8. Measurement did not differentiate between work done on the critical path and work done on other paths.

9. It is important to have tasks to be monitored on Critical Path; however, you can’t ignore the tasks on non-critical path. Non-critical path does not mean non-critical tasks. It all means is that those tasks do not fall on the path created by “longest” time period.

10. Dependencies cause delays to accumulate and advances to be wasted.

These truly are some good points, and may be because of this quality the “Critical Chain” has been considered an alternate approach for project monitoring. However, is it truly a unique one? Does it answer all points missed out by EV? Does it address tasks differently than PERT? Is it really a complete approach?

May be, may be not. Let’s find out.

The Critical Chain suggests that resources have their “safety” built-in in their tasks against the uncertainties; probably to a large extent this is true. If that were the case, what it essentially means people knowingly or unknowingly are making use of PERT in order to arrive at estimates. They give the pessimistic (loaded with buffers) effort to stakeholders, and work with optimistic or estimated one (the most probable one). May be this is what leads to “Student’s Effect”, which “Critical Chain” mentions in its literature.

However, safety / buffer in itself is not bad, it’s the wastage of it, or complacency that it brings in, which is bad. Even the “Critical Chain” does not forbid you from taking into consideration buffers (Project / Feeder / Resource / constraint), and quite rightly so. As even “Critical Chain” can’t predict the unpredictable and can’t remove the uncertainties.

The question is, if buffer / safety in itself is not bad, why is it that PERT can’t be an effective methodology / approach? The way I see / interpret it,
• Optimistic – Tasks with no or little buffer, or stretch goals
• Pessimistic – Tasks with built-in safety
• Estimated – Most likely cases

What it means is that “Optimistic” is the one by which project needs to be executed, “Pessimistic” is the reference point, and “Estimated” is the one for you to monitor the progress against, and to be warned against deviations.

What it also means is that you keep the buffer at places, which are critical from “switch over”, “dependency”, “constraints” and “lead time” perspective. As per my information, PERT did not suggest spreading of buffers across tasks; instead those were there for you to assess the “need” for buffer. Where you want to “host” those buffers is your call.

Interestingly, what it also means is that “tollgates” are important from above given attributes perspective; however, tasks / activities within those are flexible, as long as those do not violate the “time / buffer constraint”.

It is also interesting to note that, these buffers actually map to “Feeder”, “Project”, “Constraints”, and “Resource” buffer in “Critical Chain”. And, it is to be noted that these are the first two assumptions / points covered under “Critical Chain”.

The third assumption, or point of “Critical Chain” suggest, frequent monitoring and reporting of project. This understanding has been there for ages, may be since initiation of Project Management practice. However, the key is “frequent”.

What is frequent? Is it monthly, fortnightly, weekly, daily, or hourly? I would say, the project need defines it. If you are at a critical stage of your project / tasks, say UAT, SIT completion, Production Fix, even an hourly update would be justifiable. However, when you are executing a project where there is minimal interference from external factors / environment, even a daily, or weekly reporting can be justified.

So, even in that case there had not been any disagreement between “Critical Chain” and “conventional” project management approach / practice.

Another interesting point that comes out of above points is the emphasis on schedule. In fact, it had been the only point. However, is a measurement revolving around “schedule” enough to monitor the health of a project? What about effort, cost, quality, on one hand, and customer and employee satisfaction, on another? In fact, even if I leave out the soft aspects, still monitoring from effort, cost and quality perspective can’t be ignored.

Therefore, “Measurements are indeed important and should induce the parts to do what is good for the system as a whole. Hence, measurements should direct managers to the point that needs attention”.

If EV was guilty of not providing importance to “Critical Path”, then “Critical Chain” lacks providing due impetus to “Effort”, “Cost” and “Quality”. It assumes that there would not be any variations in planned / actual effort. Everything is limited to schedule. However, there could be cases where in order to meet the schedule more resources are deployed, thereby increasing the effort and cost.

What it also suggests is that EV in itself was not limiting, it is the “usage” of it, which made it limiting. EV had a purpose of providing the information on health of a project from Effort, Schedule, Cost, and Efficiency perspective. Of course, it does not provide information on “Critical Path” and “Buffer”, because it was not designed to monitor those. Just the way “Critical Chain” is not designed to provide progress made in terms of Effort, Work, and Cost.

EV can be interpreted as the progress measured according to the amount of work or investment already done, relative to the amount still to be done. However, that is where it leaves us. The other aspects of “Critical Path”, “Dependency”, “Constraints”, “Lead Time” (taking quality as given) would still need to be considered in conjunction with results of EV analysis, to come up with holistic monitoring of a project.

Even “Critical Chain” suggests monitoring of tasks on both the paths. Therefore, keeping a focus on “Critical Path” may lead you to a potential trap. Hence, whether you make use of Critical Chain, EV or any other approach, one has to take into consideration the tasks along critical and non critical path. May be the intensity and frequency would differ.

In nutshell, “Critical Chain” makes you aware of dependency on resources, or as matter of fact dependency on everything including the tasks dependency. Though, it had been there for ages, may be not so explicitly. The reason being, as I discussed earlier, evaluation of project progress from “switch over”, “dependency”, “constraints” and “lead time” perspective is also critical (assuming quality is given).

Where Critical Chain score over other conventional approaches is through its use of those individual approaches and combine those into one. For example, Critical Chain monitors from "What would it take finish the task?", than on "How much have we accomplished".

It combines the practices of EV, Critical Path and Influence of Dependencies in order to have an approach, which, is sensitive to inefficiencies and “efficiency” required to complete the task / tollgates / project.

The fact that Critical Chain monitors the health of a task / goal from “buffer management” perspective is different from traditional approach, where the focus is on managing the task date. The intent of Critical Chain is to manage the “withdraw from” and “contribution to” buffers. How do you manage it? It is obvious that you have to define date in order to “manage” these buffers; however, it does so with the help of EV, Critical Path and Dependencies.

There is no silver bullet for project monitoring; instead it’s a careful examination of various attributes, from effort, schedule, cost, work, and quality perspective (keeping the soft aspects aside). The buffers had always been there. It had also been maintained that we should not thin out / spread our buffers, instead accumulate and place those before “critical” (four attributes given above) points.

Can we reduce the tendency for having a buffer, yes, if you remove (or reduce) the uncertainty, and / or, there is an incentive for having an “advance” delivery. Incentive would drive what otherwise is difficult to achieve, i.e. “Reduce the wastage of advance delivery”.

Suggested Steps

Create a plan / schedule the way you have been doing till now, i.e. WBS, resource allocation, calendar attachment, sequencing, dependencies, fitment to end date, and balancing of resources.

Perform a PERT analysis, i.e. get the Pessimistic, Optimistic, and Estimated schedules.

Find out the difference between optimistic and pessimistic; this is your project buffer.

Take "Optimistic" schedule and make that as you actual schedule, and add the difference in step #3 as the "Project Buffer".

Find out the critical "feeds", or feeds which have the potential to cause delay.

Take some portion out of Project Buffer, and assign to these feeds, just before it leads to critical path.

Perform the step #5 and #6 for any other dependency, i.e. resource (human, s/w, h/w), approvals etc.

Set the notification mechanism for "all", wherever there is potential of tapping into buffer (switch over, dependency, constraint, or project / lead time).

Set the notification mechanism whenever the task is completed, or is about to get completed, so that subsequent task can be started immediately, or can be scheduled to start on potential start date.

If you want a little more breather, or want to ensure extra safety, do the same exercise with "Estimated" schedule (in that project buffer would be the difference between pessimistic and estimated one), and keep that schedule as a reference. Any RED on this would definitely impact your project.

Do all of this by keeping in mind that at every stage you are aware of "What has been accomplished", "What is remaining", and "What would it take to accomplish the remaining, with given constraints".

Managing and Measuring Project Profitability

As a cost means a different thing to different people (in a given context), therefore, it is obvious that profitability would also be sensitive to these variations. For example, we have “Gross Margin”, “Operating Margin”, and “Contribution Margin” to assess the profitability from different perspective; one cannot be a substitute for another, as the constitution of each is different, and each has been devised to assess a performance from a specific perspective.

Is that all about a project when it comes to profitability assessment; may be not.

One may usually start from ROI (IRR, NPV, and Payback Period (including McFarlan’s analysis,)) to assess from returns perspective; however, it may not be true for s/w projects that we carryout for customers because this step would have already been done by customer. Nonetheless, it is the starting point for a project, though this accountability may not lie at our end, or we may not carry out the analysis exactly under those heads.

Having said that, a project (unless it runs to some millions of dollars, or is of strategic importance) may not require these overall measures, instead we would be interested in data in terms of “Earn Vs. Burn” (Earned Value). This is profitability from “delivery” aspect. It has been in practice for more than a decade, and has matured over a period of time. Though, there are many variations and measures for this, a quick look upon CPI, SPI, and TCPI should provide enough pointers; getting into details, where these measures point trouble (may be potential one) is the subsequent step.

You can further develop it by introducing savings and environmental dimension to it. That is, by looking at it from COQ, IP reuse, and Quality Projections perspective on one hand, and from FOREX hedging, span (spread across financial years), resource pyramid change, promotions / increments, and business continuity perspective, for long duration (multi-year) perspective. What is means, is not only you should be vigilant on profitability measures, but on factors which can impact (positively / negatively) the profitability of a project.

Can this approach be further developed, the answer is yes. We can further consider the “opportunity” cost, and measure the profitability through Economic Value Added (EVA). It may sound extreme, and may be, it is for small projects; however, would be beneficial for large long running projects. What it means is that you are going beyond financial profitability and looking at true (economic) profitability. The reason being, a company can have a positive MVA; however, could still be operating at negative EVA. But it should definitely be at next level (maturity level), and would make more sense at an “aggregate” level.

Last but not the least, you may also see profitability in terms of “incentives”, i.e. all incentive based projects have the potential to contribute towards revenue, and take away from that pie. Whether it is applicable in a given case depends on the model adopted; however, incentive based projects are a reality, especially in a service organization.

In essence, you need to figure this out (project profitability) from “Fitment / Contribution”, “Financial”, “Delivery”, “Quality / Engineering / Productivity”, “Environmental”, and “Economic” factors. That is, each role and level has an opportunity to contribute to project’s profitability, and we should consider ALL, when it comes to project’s profitability.

As I mentioned in the beginning, you need not do all, or conduct this all the time, for all factors, and / or by all the people; instead, it is the context, which should drive your choice of tool / measurement.

SaaS, S/W+Service - Is this the end of licensed s/w?

It is a fundamental understanding and fact that no solution fits all requirements and hence markets. A market is defined on the basis of segment it serves, and no two segments are same; as otherwise, there had not been any segmentation in first place.

Having said that, let me develop it a little further.

SaaS (Software as a Service) was started with much fanfare, and still is the buzz word at some (if not, many) places. It might have been started as an alternative to "Licensed" software; however, it is also a fact that it has to have revenue generating mechanism to survive. Therefore, the revenue mechanism could be "pay-per-use", "bulk-slot" or something else. What it essentially means is that instead of paying for the usage of s/w upfront, you pay as you use; essentially, staggering the cost over a period of time, instead of incurring at a point in time.

Has this been able to make a significant dent in "License" software world? Is it really a cost effective an answer to "Licensed" software? Or, is it really an alternative to "Licensed" software?

Before, answering any of these questions, let's have a brief look at "Software + Service". What it means is that you are combining the goodness of both and getting that delivered over locally, and over the cloud. However, the questions applicable in case of "SaaS" are also applicable in this case. However, is it really the silver bullet?

The answer to all of these questions, actually lie in backdrop, which I have used in the beginning of this blog. That is, it depends on the market (segment) that you are servicing.

The reason being, whether it is standalone s/w, SaaS, or S/W + Service, one needs to understand the needs (read requirements) from following perspective,

1. Customizations Vs. Standardization - Business specific implementation
2. Security - Data security, and security to business secrets / competitive advantages
3. Business Continuity - Backup, and Disaster Recovery
4. Scalability - On demand usage
5. CAPEX and OPEX Vs. Budgets
6. Statutory regulations (Data Centres, Data Sharing etc.)
7. Network connectivity and latency

What it essentially means is that depending on constraints a customer would need to trade-off in order to fulfil his / her requirements. These constraints, along with choice of trade-off would decide the segment a customer belongs to.

Now, after assessing all this, can we say that one is better over the other? Not really, as each has its limitations; however, is a right fit for given market segment. For example, a SaaS may not provide me a flexibility of “customization”; however, if my requirement is standard and is also provided by the vendor, why would I not be interested in that? For example, a simple mail service provided by Google to enterprise may not have the flexibility of customizations; however, it does meet the needs of small enterprises, who need basic mail facilities. Therefore, it is the right solution for this market; the contrary may holds true for large enterprises, and hence, the custom implementation.

A software plus service may be providing a platform to have the customizations along with goodness of SaaS; however, can everyone afford it? Even if for argument’s sake, if we accept the affordability, can it also negate / neutralizes other factors, as listed above, i.e. Security, Network Connectivity, Statutory and Regulatory requirements?

Obviously, it cannot. Therefore, the impact of these available options on product companies would be a function of presence in a given market segment. They would need to optimize the offering as per given market segment.

It means that if for a product company the segment now lies in “Software + Service”, it would need to make an investment in that, and realign its resources, and operations in line with this segment. The same holds true for SaaS, and standalone S/W.

At best the emergence of alternatives (as discussed above) would need realignment of focus, resources and operations, depending upon the exposure of that organization to given segment. However, it is also true that, companies relying on bloated "(Product) Gross Margins" would need to align their business direction from "S/W Product", to "S/W Service"; hence, requiring a change in pricing model, charging model, service model, and may be a change in workforce mix and skills.

In nutshell, whether you like it or not, the erstwhile, s/w product companies need to mend their ways the way they had been doing the business. They solely can't rely on fat "product margins"; instead, they need to adept, adopt, and excel in new game via realignment of business to suit the environment. The reason being, today's behemoth is no guarantee for future existence.

My Two Cents on Post Lehman Episode

A lot of postmortem analysis has already happened on the fall of Lehman, and financial crunch that has happened after that, world over.

It is interesting that it took us fall of Lehman to realize the problem in investment instruments, and prior to that we assumed everything to be hunky dory. I see this as a failure of,
1) Credit / Rating / Risks assessing agencies / departments / resources,
2) SOX and other internal audits, and
3) Governance model adopted in a capitalist economy.

Whatever the technical reason for failure of this magnitude; I as laymen see it as an absence of market for “investments instruments” held by various financial institutions. This is one part of the problem, and may be a trigger point. Now, the nations after nations are realizing that they are in similar situation as US, because all of them either had had capitalist economy, or were having heavy influence of US economy, and had very little or none controlling regulations; especially, when it comes to financial institutions, and investments.

There is no harm in having this kind of model (read governance model); however, it has very “simplistic” underlying assumption, “Everyone works under the normative principles of rationality, responsiveness, and responsibility”.

Put is simply, it means, we have assumed that an economy can work under highest order of governance; that is, where people themselves can govern the actions of theirs with highest order of moral and social responsibility. The simple it may sound (that is why I termed it as “simplistic”); however, it is very idealistic in nature.

We live in a world where everyone is loyal to themselves first, and then for others. I would say nothing wrong with it, as it is a human nature. However, if it were true, then one cannot have this kind of governance even a small group, let alone an organization or an economy. Therefore, the fault lies with the choice of wrong governance model.

I would go to an extent of holding the rating / risk assessing agencies and auditing agencies equally responsible for this debacle. The reason being, their existence is to govern the actions of assessed organizations, and if they cannot do that task diligently, they cannot justify their value to the system, and hence their existence.

This failure depicts the failure of the system, and not that of single organization. The failure of a given organization has only exposed the inadequacy of the system (to put it very mildly).

How it has happened is not important; because, it is very obvious that everyone wanted to make a kill when the going was easy. Though, they had disguised it under the phrase of “creating shareholder value”; however, fact is it was pure personal greed. Therefore, the important thing is “WHY”; that is what I have tried to cover so far.

Now, let us turn the focus on aftermath. It is visible to everyone, there is a liquidity crunch, stocks are going down, people are apprehensive of new investments, production across industries are going down….. a perfect case for recession.

I can understand the liquidity crunch, as most of the “money” is buried under those bad financial instruments, which were created to make money. However, I personally believe the swings in stock / equity market are more emotional than rational. The reason being, the “decisions” of individual investors are more based on actions on the “news” at any given point in time, than any rational assessment.

The governments across has world have realized the gravity of the situation, and have also put in place the initial corrective measures. Initial, because, those are based on “initial” assessment of the situation, and during the course may require some moderation. The reason being, as economies progress more information would get revealed, which may initiate some more actions, or moderations to earlier implemented actions.

Though it is obvious to have a fear of unknown under these kinds of situations; however, one should also make an effort to look at things rationally. The things have gone wrong, a fact no one can deny; however, it is also a fact that nations have realized this fact, and are making an effort to correct it. Obviously, it cannot be put right overnight, but then it did not happen overnight either. Therefore, I believe if all think rationally, and if corrective measures are indeed to correct the ill effects (which I sincerely believe in), and are effective to address the root cause, then we can avoid to be the victims of our wrong actions (by encouraging recession due to negative thinking).

Of course, it is my personal assessment, and with my limited knowledge and access to information, could either be lopsided or wrong. However, one thing I’m sure about is that answer lies in “why”, and not in “how”. That is, address the “why” and put a brake on rumor mills.

Time Management - A Mystery?

Let me start with a question, "Do the URGENT tasks on your daily TO-DO list outnumber IMPORTANT tasks?". If your answer is in affirmative, or your TO-DO list has significant number of URGENT tasks, I personally feel that you may have a time management problem; petentially, if not in actual.

The reason for this understanding is very simple, URGENCY is linked with time. That is, either we have the paucity of time, or the time to complete the URGENT task is in immediate future. What it means that either you had not planned for it, or because of short sightedness / environmental factors, we have to expedite the urgent task. In either case, this can only be done by dedicating resources to address the urgent task.

We may decide to either re-allocate the resources from current allocations, or we may dedicate spare resources (if any). The fact of the matter is, in order to complete the urgent task we need to either disturb the current allolcation or allocate additional resources. This way either we adversely impact the tasks from where the resources has been taken, or we increase the cost of allocation.

This happens because all of us operate under given constraints, and performance is optimized (at least tried to) within given constraints. Therefore, any increased demand on resources would need either a shift in the constraint boundary, or re-allocation witihn pre-defined constraints.

Big deal; re-allocation solves the problem, so what is the hitch? Well, re-allocation solves your urgent problem; however, has the potential to make other task(s) (from where the resources have been drawn) urgent. Thereby trapping us in a vicious cycle of attending to urgent tasks.

So, is there any way out? Yes, and No. Well, what I meant was that Yes, we can address those as long as those are exceptions, and No, if those become norm.

Therefore, the key is,
1) Keep your urgent tasks to minimum, if could not be donw away with completely
2) The re-allocation of resources should be judicious, and should be as per your set priorities
3) Since not everything can be controlled, therefore, communicate the impact arising out of urgency; it will help in answering the re-prioritization and adverse impact
4) Understand that no one can do all the tasks on their own, therefore, direct, guide, support, and delegate. How effective that would be, would depend on your understanding of "readiness"
5) Optimize resource allocation - as per importance / significance
6) Monitor the progress, and control the variations
7) Refine your prediction and allocation of resources by keeping in mind your "effective capacity", and not through theoretical or available capacity, and feeding back the data back into system

Now, let me develop it a little further from s/w project perspective. Many of us have an understanding that identification, definition, allocation, sequencing, execution and control of activities, is time management. In a way, it is true because this is what exactly what we saw so far in this article. However, sometimes this understanding is limited to schedule of a project alone. Still fine, as long as we understand that limited scope from a project perspective, and we operate in a wider scope.

In nutshell, it would be a mystery, as along as we spend significant amount of our time on urgent tasks rather than on important tasks.

Time - Is it the deciding factor in marketing?

On the face of it, the answer is 'YES'; it is the deciding factor. To substantiate the claim we can sight numerous examples from various industries, e.g.

1) Instant noodles - Easy to cook and Ready to eat
2) Ready made curries - Heat it and Eat it
3) Pain killers - Relief from pain within Minutes (or whatever the duration is)
4) Car servicing - Reliable, Same Day service with free Pick-up and drop off
5) Customer Service - Guarenteed within 30 seconds attendance of call
6) S/W Implementation - Quality, with reduced Cost and Cycle-time
7) Courier Service - Guarenteed same day delivery
.... and the list goes on.

You must have noticed, the above points have some words in bold. That is done to highlight one thing, be it product or service, the time as a differentiator makes sense when combined with the main satisfying need / requirement.

In some cases it was convenience, in some it was quality, and yet in others it was the reliability, and so forth. The time was a differentiator, because it was able to satisfy the underlying main need / requirement.

On it's own it can't survive; however, mix it with a underlying need, and you have a potent weapon in your armour. Therefore, first address the underlying need and then stress upon time factor. Can segment have any influence on time, think about it?

(Un)Importance of Current Team Size Having as a Benchmark

We all must have come across this subject at one time or another in our life. Those who either have just started their career or are "on the way" to reach at that level, would definitely face this situation. The fun lies on which side of this see-saw you land up.

More often than not any senior management role would have the following phrase as one of the desired skills;

".....should have been handling a team size of .....".

Interesting, isn't it?

I find it interesting from two perspectives, first, they want a person who would have handled a team size of given number and not managed. Second, it is given / assumed that a person who so far not has managed given number is not capable of managing that number.

I personally believe, on both counts the organizations are wrong. The reason being, if an organization fails to differentiate between handle and manage, the probability of it having an effective and satisfactory management is unfavorable. What essentially one needs is a person who can manage the people, because, only if a person is managing only then he / she,

1) would have empathy towards people,

2) would make an effort to understand their aspirations,

3) would be able to understand their competency level and allocate work,

4) would be able to understand their preparedness and mould his working style as per their preparation level,

5) would be able to communicate the importance of task / work to people.....


I mentioned it interesting, because, organizations know the difference and still use those interchangeably. Can it be a reflection of their thought process; may be.

Let's take the second part, the organization assess people as per their current capability. Nothing wrong with it, especially in lateral hires. The fault is not in thinking; as the current capability would provide some information on person's compatibility against listed requirements. Instead, the fault lies in execution.

A role may require a person to manage a team size of 10, 100, 1000 or more people; however, at any given point in time a person cannot directly manage more than 5-7 people effectively. That is, a person would have an operational structure to carry out his / her responsibility, wherein, KRA/KPA of entire population are inter linked, and work towards a common goal. If that were true, whether a perosn has managed 10, 100, 1000 or more people in past is of little relevance, as long as he / she satisfy following constraints;

1) He / She has effectively managed people in past,

2) He / She understands the importance of operational structure,

3) He / she can break down the common goal as per each operational level's work,

4) He / she understands the meaning of governance,

5) He / she has the willingness to work with more and more people,

6) Has he / she been managing, or understand the requirement of managing teams across geographies, and domains,

7) Appreciate the requirement from different social and work cultures, time zones, and languages perspective,

8) Appreciate the difference in managing vendor vs in house teams, and

9) Appreciate the different management requirements for outsource vs in house work.

Though all nine points are important for successful team leading; however, the importance of point #2 and #3 is worth mentioning.

The point #2 suggests that one should understand that one cannot do all the tasks, and not everyone can fit in any given task. That is, importance of skill, capability, work break down, and delegation. If a person knows the importance of these attributes, I believe it would be hard for him / her to miss on goal, unless the person is determined to do so :--))

The point #3 suggests that if one has understood governance as a set of processes, tools, structure, and practices to obtain targeted goals, then he / she has the capability to manage any number of people. I will not provide details on "What is Governance?", as the same has already been covered by me under same topic separately. Instead, I would like to stress on the fact that managing people is part of governance; problem starts when we take governance as a separate process / exercise.

Now, let me end this topic by asking some counter questions on this practice;

1) What is the guarantee that person's handling of people had been effective at current work?

2) Given that a person is capable, had been effective in current work, and has managed more people than required number of people; what is the guarantee that he / she would succeed at new place too?

The reason being, it is very rare that work culture of two organizations being same. It could be somewhat similar; however, there is a lot of difference in being same and similar. So, instead of harping on current team size, try to understand the person's understanding from mentioned points perspective.

Is Customer Satisfaction a First Step in Customer Relationship Management?

What is customer satisfaction? Can it be termed as “first-step” in customer relationship management?

In order to define and work towards creating greater “satisfaction”, we need to first understand “Who is the customer”, and “What influences satisfaction”.

It should not be very hard, as all of us, at some point in time, do act as customers. So, what are things that are satisfying, annoying, or indifferent should provide you enough clues to answer the above question, i.e. what influences satisfaction.

I personally segregate these influencers in two categories, “Internal”, and “External”. The internal sets of influencers are the tasks / processes under our control, and can provide the performance on count of “customer satisfaction”. The external set, as the name suggests, is in control of customer, and we get to see level of satisfaction by analyzing their feedback.

Therefore, a satisfaction to me can be gauged through;

Internal Indicators

a) The quality and process / project metrics
b) The management / SQA review points
c) Internal audit findings
d) The review records
e) The internal cost / financial metrics
f) Internal employee satisfaction survey
g) Number of escalations and severity

External Indicators

Though one can have subjective as well as objective questionnaire to capture the response of the customer, however, a mix of both would be the right choice, as it would provide customer an opportunity to "rank" as well as means to convey his / her feelings / observation, which would require further analysis on vendor's part. I believe following aspects should provide a suitable base for capturing the satisfaction level;

a) Product / Service Quality – Overall / Phase wise
b) Schedule Adherence (variance / span)
c) Cost Vs. Value Proposition
d) Responsiveness / Empathy
e) Accuracy of provided solution / responses
f) Resources ability / capability


g) If you were to re-execute the project, then what were the things that you would like to do differently, and how? OR
h) What are the points / factors / actions that you think could have provided much more value add to this initiative?
i) What are our two most positive and negative points, and how we could have addressed those (negative points)?
j) If some referral calls you up, what be your spontaneous feedback on us?
k) Where and how do we need to improve upon?
l) Would you like to do a repeat business with us?


These are obvious influencers, and interestingly most of those are within control of ours (as vendors). However, still customer satisfaction had been proving bane for many. Why is it so?

I personally felt that it is because of our attitude towards customers. That is, though we want them to consider us as their business partners; however, fail to reciprocate the same understanding for them. At that time we give importance to “profit margins”, and “appraisals” over “relationship” that we want to create and manage.

This dichotomy is the bane of all customer dissatisfaction, and to some extent customer relationship related problems.

Now, again have a look at the list of external indicators, you would appreciate that except for point #c, i.e. perception on cost Vs value, all others can easily be monitored and corrected internally. Interestingly, that would again be in our interests to do so; not because, it is required to improve the customer relations (though ultimately it would), but more so for our internal performance. Let’s see, how?

It is evident that if I take care of internal factors, either I improve upon cycle time, reduce costs, or increase productivity. In either case it benefits me first and then the customer. The reason being, whether I reduce the COQ, improve the performance against “First Time Right”, improve the productivity, match the schedule and effort commitments, save on escalations and resources spent on addressing those; it is me (as a vendor), who gets the benefit, and the customer satisfaction is add-on benefit. The best part, I do not have to do anything extra or specifically for the customer to increase the customer satisfaction level.

Therefore, I would go to an extent stating that first look at the internal indicators and perform on those indicators, the chances are you would have already satisfied your customer. The external indicators are more so to build a relationship, wherein, you want to contribute to the success of the customer through wider business association, and through better understanding of their other needs.

I personally believe “Customer Satisfaction” is the first step for building a customer relationship. The reason being, it would be fool-hardy to think of building a relationship with annoyed customer. How many times you have done so (building a relationship with vendors providing unsatisfactory service)?

Yes, customer relationship management is more than just customer satisfaction. It may involve, customer feedback, profiling, empathy, marketing, issue / request management, personalized service development, promotions, communication, access to information, visibility to progress made etc.; however, all of that comes after customer satisfaction. These extra parameters help you in uncovering hidden needs / reasons, to either broaden your business association or better align your services with customer needs. But, at the end of the day, those are refinements for a satisfied customer.

For example, by gathering information on additional parameters and acting in accordance with the outcome may help you broadening your business association from a single service to multiple services; however, it cannot be a substitute for getting the basics right, i.e. perform on internal indicators.

A relationship is built through demonstrable actions, and trust; which one cannot build on a foundation of unsatisfied experience.

Note: I have written this article in context of s/w industry alone.