A long, long time ago…

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. Remember that?

Can you also remember when there weren’t computers or PCs or laptops or the internet or blackberries or CDs or DVDs or The Speed Channel?

I can.

When I got out of college and was working my first job at an accounting firm, there were no computers. You got out columnar paper, and a pencil, and an adding machine and went at it. In fact, one of the training exercises that you had to do was to get out a phone book and add up the phone numbers (without looking at your hands) as ‘practice’.

I audited an insurance company in Galveston, Texas…and there was the huge room with clerks lined up in a row…adding numbers and processing paper. That was their system.

And frankly it worked…in today’s terms it was particularly efficient, but it was ruthlessly effective. That system worked…money was collected, bills got paid, sales were made.

I have to give a talk the weekend after next…on surprise, software. Only that’s what they think they are getting…as I started working through it I found myself going in a different direction…more in a direction of how technology fixes some things, but causes other problems.

Back ‘in the day’ when I started…I spent zero time answering email and researching stuff on the internet. Why…because it didn’t exist. I just worked…8 hours per day. There were no diversions.

Today, you can communicate at the speed of sound…and it is convenient, but what has evolved is a sort of reciprocity that makes many of us at the beck and call of anybody who sends an email. You can literally spend all day answering electronic knocks on your productivity door.

And for that reason…I turn off email a good bit of the day. (My smart clients know that I do not turn off my fax machine…sneaky.)

My talk next weekend will be about systems, not software. They are two different things. Systems are things that allow you to replicate yourself for purposes of increasing profits. Software is a systems tactic.

Capice?

Okay, you asked…so here goes.

If you recall last week I was brought in to consult on an ongoing evaluation effort. They had a consultant already on the job – wanted to get my input before they sent their RFP out.

They had done a pretty good job…my only criticism was the sheer number of questions they were asking the vendor.

Here are some additional questions s I took out of the RFP.

What are the major industry associations that you belong to? The vendor will list all of these organizations anyway. But what does this really prove? Anybody can join an organization. Many vendors join the organizations because their core competitors are members. Is it relevant to you if vendors are members or not? I have always felt this was way over emphasized.

What is your mission statement? Ugh. Every mission statement will have some version of this: “We at (fill in organization name) feel that our employees are our most important asset “ Terrific. That has nothing to do with whether their product will help you meet your business objectives.

What is your employee turnover rate? I know what people are going for here—they want to know if you have a revolving door with regard to the employee base. A better way to ask this is to inquire into seniority levels. Something to the effect of asking for the number of employees in various levels of tenure: over twenty years, fifteen to twenty years, ten to fifteen years, etc.

What is your decision-making process when developing new software or making enhancements? Would one decision process skew your opinion over another? Is one visionary within the organization better than a whole team making the decision? Is it worse? What do we (the project team) know about developing software?

What is your ownership structure? This just flat isn’t relevant and it is intrusive. The business structure of the software vendor has no bearing on the purchasing organization. What’s better: sole proprietorship, limited partnership, general partnership, limited liability corporation, or subchapter S corporation? They all have benefits and limitations.

Bottom line is: If you don’t know what you are going to do with the answer, don’t ask the question.

I was brought in to consult on an ongoing evaluation effort last week…they had a consultant already on the job – wanted to get my input before they sent their RFP out. They had done a pretty good job…my only criticism was the sheer number of questions they were asking the vendor. I was pretty certain the guy had just downloaded a questionnaire off the internet because it was chock full of boilerplate questions. Here’s the rule: If you don’t know what you are going to do with the answer, don’t ask the question.

Here are some requests I took out of the RFP.

What has been your organization’s track record in meeting your internal development deadlines? Do you really think you are going to get an honest answer here? And what relevance does it have to your decision?

How effective have you been in implementing your strategy and vision? Who cares? The answer to that question lies in market share and the amount of revenue on the income statement. The free market answers that question. Also, it really isn’t even answerable.

Describe the limitations of your current system. That’s the evaluation team’s job. Once again, you are not going to get an honest answer here.

Describe the most common customer support requests. This sounds good, but what do you do with this information? Is it really going to come into play during deliberations?

There were more…let me know if you want to know the rest.

You remember the old consulting joke I sent you yesterday…have told that joke for years at kickoff meetings. Everybody always laughs at the punch line…The reason why that story is so good…is that all of us have worked with consultants like that. Young know-it-alls with a lot of enthusiasm, but little nuance or experience.My first experience with this type of consultant goes back to 1990…when I had my last regular job. And this guy was not a young-un, he was an experienced consultant.What I remember about ‘John’ was that he seemed to want to park his fat butt in my office and shoot the breeze with me. It always agitated me because I had stuff to do…he would literally come in and put his feet on my desk. And just talk and talk.What I also remember about this guy was - One, he always wanted to do studies - “Maybe I could do a study of this…maybe I could do a study of that”. Like we were co-conspirators or something. Jeez.Two, he taught me how to get rid of people who parked themselves in my office. (That’s another email for another day…)It is a big-firm consultant’s trick to do a study that drives more work their way…and ultimately drains your wallet. If your consultants have gone so far to put pictures of their spouse and kids in their work area - you have a problem.The consultants should get in, do the job, and get out. There is nothing wrong with the consultants finding problem areas, and then selling solutions to you. That’s different…it’s the ’studies’ that are pitched that should give you an eye tic.At that point…ask for your dog back.

A few weeks back I talked myself out of a paying engagement.

I was asked if I recommended that an outsider always be used on software evaluation and implementation projects.

The answer is no…it goes against what I believe, and frankly what I sell to my clients.

One of my service offerings – both through my book and my seminars is to show people (both consultants and non-consultants) what I do and how I do it. There are certainly some personality traits that lend themselves towards being a good project manager, but at the core most people can learn the required methodologies.

What I told this person though was to be wary of somebody who wanted the job just a little too badly…somebody who is just a little too eager.

What I am talking about here is bias and/or ambition. You don’t want people who are bucking to select a certain vendor because they worked with the package in the past or because they want to advance in the organization by the kudos that might be granted by being a part of a terrific software choice. (By the way, that goes two ways.) A vendor that was great for one company might not be the best match for another.

Be cautious of somebody who wants to lead the team too much. You want a reluctant warrior.

They are probably already over-worked because of their team-first temperament and sense of fair play. You know the type of person I’m talking about.

So, know you don’t need an outsider…but if you don’t have the ‘right’ insider, who is playing for the right reasons, then you might consider looking outside your own walls.