The Consulting Bible by Weiss Alan

Author:Weiss, Alan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

The Key Stakeholders and Influence Points

I know that “scope creep” sounds like a geek with binoculars, but it’s a ubiquitous term for a project that, like the great old science fiction movie, The Blob, just keeps slobbering al over everything in sight.

This happens to al kinds of professional services firms, not merely solo consultants. When I worked with the consulting arm of Hewlett-Packard (HP) years ago, they referred to a condition known as “undocumented promises.” Since my job was to help them move from hourly bil ing to value-based fees, I thought I had better understand what I thought was a technical software term.

It turned out that undocumented promises were those informal agreements reached between HP implementation people and lower-level client people, who would say things such as, “As long as you’re here anyway, could you take a look at . . . ?” and “You’re going to have to take care of this issue before you can get to your own project, because it’s in the way.” The last thing the implementation people wanted to do was to have to say

“no” and have the client personnel report to their superiors that HP people had refused requests, and those client superiors would talk to HP

superiors—wel , you get the political picture.

The trouble was that once you added up al these undocumented promises and the labor and work that they consumed, the project’s margins were being squeezed out of existence. It took the company quite a while to determine that being polite (or being afraid to rile superiors) paled in comparison to losing profits. If there are enough of these seemingly minor requests, your profits evaporate. Termites can bring down a house. The typical termite is one-quarter inch long.

Do you ever wonder what’s gnawing at you?

For solo practitioners, scope creep is deadly. Many of these gnawing requests can originate with the buyer, since you should be regularly interacting with the buyer, and may seem like part of your job.

They are not. That’s why the proposal has established objectives, metrics, and value, along with optional methodologies from which the client has chosen the preferred alternative. The proposal is an organic document, driving and regulating the engagement. Hence, never be loath to point out that what you’re being asked to do is not consistent with what you agreed to do and produce.

How do you say “no” to your buyer? (You say “no” to nonbuyers by simply explaining that the request is not consistent with what you and the buyer agreed upon, so it should be taken up with the buyer to see if it makes sense to amend the project to include it.) You give the buyer a choice of

“yeses.”

Sample dialogue:

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