“The Practice of Managing Human Capital through the Right Solution”
Most consultants begin their Workforce Management (WFM) career in house with a major software vendor. Often the sales order “thrown over the wall” to the service side to begin the client engagement. This sales order might and might not fit the clients actual requirements, but it’s all we’re given and what we have to work with. In this environment, we are stuck in a one dimensional view of what needs to happen next. License seats were sold, and it is our job to figure out how to implement the software according to the promises made.
Many vendors do have good application / pre-sales engineers capable of designing the solution to fit the customer’s needs but many often struggle in the area of Business Analysis VS Application Consulting.
The difference in my opinion is simple and clear.
1) The WFM “Application Consultant” or AC is focused on gathering information related to the automated calculation of gross pay, better transparency to front line managers and payroll and reporting surrounding these areas. Shown in Figure 1a
Figure 1a
2) A “Business Analyst” or BA focuses on the business processes areas within an organization. From the Standard implementation model, enterprise wide considerations are implemented shown in the Expanded Discovery model shown in Figure 2a
Figure 2a
The result is the client’s business intelligences needs are uncovered and they actually meet the enterprise wide business requirements. Now they can take full advantage of WFM data. This creates a deeper level of transparency in the organization as a whole. It also results in having strong decision making data needed to navigate the financial health of an organization. Typically this level of consulting provides tangible tools to the finance department where most of the critical evaluation of the company’s health is being monitored.
1) Engage the Right BA early in the discussion (Pick the right guy)
We often find that the BA, in-house or contracted, arrives on the scene way too late. Many promises and decisions have been made that have little basis in reality or actual company practices, abilities, budget or data. Bring in this person when you are beginning to think about purchasing new software. (This might be a good time to review Bryan’s 5 Things blog entry (link)… Build those teams and build them early!)
As an independent consultant I have heard the conversations from WFM vendors jockeying to figure out how to justify an additional module or higher number of license seats base on the preliminary information discussed during the sales cycle. We LOVE the vendors, but it’s all about the licenses right? This is not intentional deception because that is the sales rep’s job and he does it well! The issue is that the rep only sells one vendors products so the environment that enables a full discovery effort is cut short and therefore the integration matrix is not fully recognized. Many times vendors use a partner model to solve this issue. Integration and transparency through a complete fit/gap and process improvement analysis should be paramount to any discovery effort early on in the WFM implementation planning phase.
2) Can the budget drive the process when it’s just been made up? (Not the cheapest one)
The next most common problem with engaging the correct person for the task is that the Vendors salesman might have great models to use to help the client determine his budget for the project. What those models don’t know is well, anything about the company other than how many employees it has.
So we budget for junior level consultants to be deployed into complex engagements without understanding the risks they are introducing into the project. You can only know so much when you sign that sales order.
I can remember my early years in the WFM practice and being deployed to an engagement with very junior level skills. In fact I spent a large part of my time on the phone with senior level staff while they guided me through how to program certain aspect of the WFM software. The bottom line was that I had a set amount of service hours purchased to accomplish my task. This is fine and satisfies the vendor and client’s initiative to automate payroll and have better control put in the hand of front end managers over their staff. OR IS THIS FINE?
3) Expand your horizons. (Don’t depend on one person, one dept, on business unit for all decision making data)
It was not until I took the leap into independent consulting that I learned I was missing a critical piece. And truthfully, this piece starts long before the sales order is signed. Companies operate in a vacuum. Sometime as shallow as a single business unit. The “New Consultant” is not equipped with the experience or knowledge to dig deeper. Even when the Application Consultant does possess the skills to accomplish this, the world they live in often doesn’t offer them the environment to get creative in the early stages of the project. If you remove the one dimensional view during this process and engage the client at a level that is focused on the company’s business processes throughout the entire enterprise, the magic starts to happen. You can develop a Future State that is meaningful with actionable tools that maximize their investment in a WFM solution.
The BA often works for a consulting group and is therefore positioned in a non-biased open approach when engaging clients and clients are recognizing this. This is key! Consulting to a client at deeper levels brings real value into the project and results in huge value added components added to solutions that offer actionable tools to the company and allows them to better manage the bottom line. This is what clients are expecting when they purchase solutions and services but often they don’t realize critical gaps exist and opportunities where missed or undiscovered until after the implementation is complete. Missed opportunities and remaining gaps are why clients are retooling with new solutions often in an attempt to get at the BI they need to better manage the company. The Business Analyst’s job should be to discover, design, build and deploy a solution that has real value.
WFM consulting practices and WFM software vendors work very well together and have been successfully implementing WFM solutions for years with solid results. Clients considering their next implementation just need to slow the process down a bit and evaluate what it being proposed, the team that will be required to implement as well as long term goals that should be clearly defined. The model that I see working out there working is a combination of things.
Figure 3a
· Chart your course: Clients START with a solid business case study working with a consulting practice. Company’s having success start with consulting firms who deploy a good BA long before software is discussed. The BA and client work together to look at Current State of the entire enterprise by developing a detailed outline of the processes and BI. They discuss and decide on potential solutions, determine the budget required and look and what can be done this year, next year etc.
This does two things:
o Educates them completely on where the TRUE needs and business requirements are throughout the organization and give them a road map through for a 1 to 5 year plan on where their BI needs to go. It sets the BI goals. It eliminates future vacuum decisions that impact the total BI goals.
o Now that they posses a full understanding of their requirements, a solid business case now allows them to entertain the software vendors being considered and better equips them during the sales cycle discussions.
· The “A” Team: Resources in a Best Practice environment are made up of a multi-vendor matrix of the Consulting Firm, Software vendors and often third parties. This is critical to ensuring that the right set of skills are deployed throughout the lifecycle of the project.
· The Lighthouse: The resources assigned to the project should begin with a solid Project Manager. Now that you have your goals, business case and requirements in place a non-biased PM can ensure that the project adheres to them. The PM will have your interested on the radar throughout the implementation. This is critical because it is all about supporting the client’s goals and keeping them at the forefront of implementation when building the team of resources involved and managing the project management matrix as well as maintaining the project charter initiatives.
· You Get What You Pay For: Resources around a project should be considered carefully!! I cannot stress this enough. Know what you are getting because “YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR”. Successful implementations that are staffed with the “Cheapest” consultant on the market have a significant negative impact to any project. I could go on and on about this. Perhaps I’ll write another blog entry.
With over 10 years in the WFM business, I can say with confidence that companies are not making bad decisions when considering solutions but rather uninformed. Companies have access to highly qualified consultants in the WFM field that are ready and willing and more importantly “Qualified” to help. You will find that they have a deep passion for improved process, quality and follow key best practices in our field that is the Management of Human Capital. They truly have a staked interest in helping company’s truly realize their full potential in BI and to maximize the budgets our clients set for these projects. As well, the creative non-biased freedom they have to bring in WFM technology and marry it to an organizations business processes and systems is their driving force.
