On Becoming A Client - Engagement Initiation Document

Dear Colleague,

Congratulations and thanks for considering my firm for your next business development initiative.

Having come so far, using traffic language, we've reached the yellow light. From this point we have to decide whether we turn it to green and go ahead or turn it red and go home. So, before you read any further, please read the Frequently Asked Questions section first, so you have a better understanding of who I work with and how I work. Knowing the method to my madness helps you to make an educated decision as to what to do next.

Every time we engage external help, we do it because we want to change something in our lives, may it be business or personal life. Yes, business is just one of the several facets of life. It's the means to a better end. In this case you want to change something in your business, and that takes a truckload of courage, discipline and commitment.

Over the years I've had the privilege to work with hundreds of great technology companies, helping them to be the best they can be by stepping up to higher levels of success, so they can better serve their clients and bring pride to their industries, communities and professions.

I take this obligation seriously because I know the improvements we achieve today can pave the path to long-term success for your clients, for your firm and for your people and for you.

I will do my best to assure that your first experience with me is challenging, demanding and rewarding. My engagements are based on the same methods the military uses to train soldiers, although I don't make you run, shoot or crawl. And I never yell. I was a quiet soldier in the army too, and I'm too old to start yelling now.

My engagements are short and of high intensity. It's a demanding yet, exhilarating experience. The military has taught me that if we train people properly, we aren't able to tell a drill from real life and death situations. The real thing may be even easier. And as an ex-military, I work with my clients as if their lives depended on our engagements. Maybe not their lives, but their livelihood does depend on it.

Keeping the "The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war" mantra in mind, the military, that allows only very small room for errors, consistently over-trains soldiers, to make sure they can handle the toughest and most hostile situations in war. Actually, it's only soldiers and elite athletes, who train above and beyond real life demands.

For instance, the Ironman triathlon race consists of 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling and 26.2 miles (full Marathon) of running. But in training, elite Ironman athletes often swim 3-3.5 miles instead of 2.4 miles, cycle 140 miles instead of 112 miles and run 28-32 miles instead of the normal 26.2 miles race distance. They over-train, so they can better handle anything the race may throw at them.

Why is this important?

In the army, our mantra was: "One shot, one kill." There is no room for error and often no time for a second shot.

My engagements' mantra is similar: "One gig, one success."

The military's operation is based on the 5 Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

In reality, far too many consultants and consulting firms live by the 5 Us: Unprepared, Undisciplined, Unaccountable, Uncommitted and Unfocused, operating like cars screeching down the highway in second gear with the handbrake halfway on and puking black smoke in each direction, every mile of the way running themselves closer to final burnout.

Every engagement requires serious investment of time, money and effort. It only makes sense that engagements have the highest chance to succeed, giving you the greatest value and the highest return on investment. Therefore, in every engagement, we enforce the military's Warrior Code...

• We always place the mission first: There is a hierarchy of priorities. The engagement comes first, then the team and the individual. Personal agendas that can jeopardise the mission are not tolerated


• We never accept defeat: We hang in to the end and complete the engagement with success


• We never quit: In for a penny in for a pound. We start together and finish together. Not joining the team at the beginning is fine, but once you're in, you're in until completion


• We never leave a teammate in need behind: If teammate fall behind on their work, then the team jumps in to help to complete the work to make sure all tasks are completed on time


• We always lead by example: We ask others to do only what we are willing to do. We preach only what we're ready and willing to practise

In the army there is only one way of improving our chances of staying alive and winning: Training and more training. Yes, if you train intensely enough, it can almost kill you. But if you don't, and if you don't get "battle ready", it will almost certainly kill you… sooner or later… in battle. However, this approach is also the ticket to victory.

So, when I work with you, out of respect, I treat your situation as a life and death matter, so I demand a hell of a lot of the engagement team. I do this because after our engagements, life will demand an awful lot from you, and while my demands come with a safety net, in real life the competition treats you pretty ruthlessly trying to scoop up your fair share of success and put your out of business.

Shortly after starting working together, new clients quickly discover that successfully implementing a meaningful change initiative is physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. For every new client, the shock of leaving a familiar, comfortable, convenient, traditional environment, and replacing personal independence with collaboration with a stranger can cause significant stress and some initial frustration.

You may get sick and tired of my demands and provocative style, but I also hope you recognise that I do it because I care about your success. I would do a disservice to you by letting you "cruise" on your current habits, knowing that maybe some of those habits have contributed to the very situation we want to improve.

You might also think that I play the role of this demanding arse-kicker to feed my own ego. No. I can tell you I had my ego kicked out of me during my military service in the early 80s. I hope you understand that I do what I do because I know it works, and I want it to work for you too.

And considering that your competition wants to see your head on a platter and your body quartered and put up on four pikes in the four corners of your city, the more effective the change effort, the less vulnerable your firm becomes to your competition.

You shouldn't be too concerned about your initial perceptions. It's true I demand a hell of a lot from clients during my engagements, but in spite of the toughness of the engagements, I treat people with the utmost care and respect. But every change initiative requires behavioural change and that's the hard part. So, in order to see our engagement succeed, we have to go through a rather bumpy ride. Hey, the enjoyment of a happy and healthy baby is preceded by some hard-core labour pains. At least, so I've heard.

But I believe by the time we make some good progress, you will feel good about the overall experience of our collaboration.

You accomplish feats you thought were impossible for you, and develop a sense of pride and confidence in your ability to successfully meet tough challenges to be the best you can be in your chosen profession.

One caveat though...

I know at times I can be an arsehole. But not for the sake of being an arsehole. It's for the sake of stretching your thinking about possibilities. It's for the sake of pushing you to a higher level of thinking that will inspire you to take "higher level" actions. This is the only way to achieve excellence.

We all need the independent, constructive insights of an unbiased, professional outsider that include external frame of reference, a new perspective and often a healthy kick in the arse to take action. Without that we end up getting better at what we do, and what we are already doing may well be the very root of our problem we're struggling to solve.

Yes, based upon past success, we repeat the actions which have caused our success. As a result of repeating these actions, we become more proficient and efficient at those actions. This leads us to an endless cycle of limited success and increased competency. But there is no exploration, new ideas are not tried, and even if tried, they don't do as well as the existing ones because of the disparity in competence between the two.

The winner's curse happens when a company is so good at one thing that it wins big. But when times change, the company just can't stop doing the things that made it so successful in the past. So it keeps doing very efficiently a very ineffective thing. For instance, think of the pre-Gerstner IBM: "We sell mainframes and mainframes alone. The future is in mainframes." Well, at one point it seemed. Then the world changed about IBM didn't. Luckily Lou Gerstner saved IBM from - almost - certain death.

Then we have the loser's curse, when a company fails at something so badly that it never wants to try it ever again even if there are other and better ways to do it that may result in a better outcome. E.g.: We've tried advertising and it didn't work. QED: Advertising is a waste of time and money. In the meantime the competition runs rings around the company through better advertising. So, advertising works.

We all need an external force that pushes us to the next level of performance.

The other caveat...

By now you may even have got the erroneous impression that I'm a smart dude. Stop right now, and consider this interesting fact. Chimpanzees have the largest brains among animals. They are individual geniuses. But as far as their group IQ goes, they are borderline idiots. Baboons, on the other hand, have pretty low individual IQ but very high group IQ. Baboons are great examples of collaboration and creating collegial cultures.

So, our success lies in how well we work together, how well the members of the implementing team interact with each other.

Two people, when blending their brainpower in an intellectual melting pot, can make as much as 366% higher quality decisions than either of them can make in isolation.

Completing the first engagement is a significant event, and I hope you will want to share the experience with your peers and colleagues.

So, I wish you strength, patience and passion to work with me, so together we can build your dream firm great clients want to do business with and top-drawer talents want to work for.

And here is some housekeeping stuff...

Client's Bill of Rights

1. You have the right to receive excellent service delivered in a focused, caring, challenging, ethical and professional manner


2. You have the right to expect the highest standards, commitment and accountability from my help and support


3. You have the right to expect to receive a 3-5 times return on your investment


4. You have the right to work with a trustworthy professional who is mentally, physically and emotionally ready to offer you superb help and support to improve your business


5. You have the right to have your situation to be treated as top secret and 100% confidential


6. You have the right to openly discuss errors and shortcomings in my work, and expect me to address and correct them promptly

Consultant's Bill of Rights

1. I have the right to receive 100% accountability, commitment and dedication from you and the other members of the implementing team


2. I have the right to receive prompt responses to my communications


3. I have the right to speak my mind and say what you need to hear, not what you want to or prefer to hear. If there is a conflict between being honest and polite, I have the right to be honest.


4. I have the right to receive my payment as specified in our agreement


5. I have the right to receive instant feedback from you whenever you detect errors and shortcomings in my work


6. I have the right to receive top priority treatment on the engagement from you and your people

Client's Responsibilities

1. You have the responsibility, as a professional and as a volunteer, to serve your profession, your company, your people and your clients with honour, loyalty and integrity


2. You have the responsibility to be proud of your status as a professional on the engagement team, and to demonstrate this through your behaviour. You always act in a dignified but modest manner, and keep your operation neat and organised


3. You have the responsibility, as an elite member of your profession, to work on change incentives rigorously and diligently. You maintain your intellectual firepower, physical vitality and emotional empathy, as your most precious weapons, at peak performance at all times


4. You have the responsibility to treat every engagement as sacred. You implement it to the best of your abilities, and you do anything legal, moral and ethical to see it through to success


5. You have the responsibility to work as a true team member in a collaborative and collegial manner. You put your ego aside and don't stoop to compete with your own teammates. You will never abandon team members in need and never surrender your professionalism and honour to the quick buck or unfair personal advancement


6. You have the responsibility, as the ultimate decisions-maker, to act upon what we develop and to achieve the objectives we set out for our engagements. No outsider can do it FOR you

Consultant's Responsibilities

1. I have the responsibility to help and support you to create a challenging, demanding yet safe and aspiring environment in which the implementing team members are empowered and inspired to do their best work and be proud of it


2. I have the responsibility to interact with all engagement team members in my "best and brightest" condition, that is, physically rested, mentally alert and emotionally balanced


3. I have the responsibility to decline to work with your direct competitors to avoid conflict interest


4. I have the responsibility to provide practical recommendations that result in lasting improvement in your business


5. I have the responsibility, as an unbiased "guardian of the long term", to prevent you from getting derailed and losing focus from the engagement and giving in to the temptations of shortcuts and the quick buck


6. I have the responsibility to provide instant feedback both to you and other team members whenever I see an opportunity for improvement or issues that can undermine the initiative's success


7. I have the responsibility to inform you about breaches of ethical and professional conduct among the implementing team members

Some Thoughts On Engagement Management…

I feel lucky that I've learnt my project management skills in engineering and the military, not in the traditional business environment. I've found that if I had managed my "projects" in the army and engineering as businesses manage their projects, I would have produced massive destruction and unspeakable amount of casualties and fatalities. So, I manage my engagements in my quirky oddball style. I've found over the years that extra precision can't hurt business projects.

I've found that if engineering projects were managed as poorly as business projects, then millions of people would die every day in plane crashes, car accidents, falling buildings, collapsing bridges and other engineering screw-ups.

Some Caveats

Here is some "must know" stuff about working with me. We all have our own idiosyncrasies. I'm no exception. So, it's only fair to tell you that I don't deal in quick fixes and easy solutions. There is no single "magic bullet" for lasting results. I work with people who understand that...

• Nothing meaningful works the first time off the drawing board. Hey, in most cases it takes multiple "efforts" to succeed even in the basic task of conceiving a baby


• ROI starts with an Investment and then comes the Return. No investment leads to no commitment, which leads to no improvement. Plain and simple


• You have to do some work in advance to reap any rewards


• It's not enough to repeat the same old stuff longer and harder but you need to do something drastically different from what has created your current results


• You receive an opportunity for improvement, and it is up to you what you do with it. As business philosopher, Jim Rohn says, "No one can do your push-ups". You get out what you put in


• This will only work for you if you apply both yourself and the help and support you receive from me


• By engaging me, you invest in your future, and your investment reflects the result you expect. If you invest in a doghouse, you'll get a doghouse. If you invest in a palace, you have a good chance to get a palace. It's up to you what you set out to build


• I can take the horse to the water, provided the horse chooses to come, but then it's up to the horse to drink. As an outsider I can offer you new value (take you to the water) but I can't offer you new results (drinking the water). Only you, the business owner can turn the value you receive into lasting results


• While nobody can guarantee results, and it is also unethical, it is your responsibility to make the most of my help and support and turn the value you receive into lasting results. No outsider can do it FOR you


• I work WITH you but not FOR you

Thanks for your understanding.

The Snowball Effect

Poorly defined engagement vision leads to poorly defined and documented specifications. Poorly defined and documented specifications lead to lame or overzealous scheduling. Lame or overzealous scheduling leads to poor budgeting. Poor budgeting leads to no room for necessary changes.

And all these lead to missing the time frame, going over budget and making a pig's ear of the specifications. I start engagements with this Welcome Letter document to make sure that when clients initiate the engagement, they really and truly buy into the successful completion of the engagement. According to a 1997 survey, conducted by KPMG Canada, consulting projects fail for the following reasons.

1. Poor project planning. Specifically, inadequate risk management and a weak project plan. Risk management becomes more important as the organization gets bigger, so larger organizations need to pay more attention to this area. What often happens though is that in pursuit the quick buck, some clients want to skip or shorten the planning process and start implementing. But without a plan there is nothing to implement. Also, as a rule of thumb, every one hour of planning can save three hours of implementation time.


2. Weak business case. There must be a solid business case to initiate the engagement. The initiative must 1) increase revenue, 2) reduce costs and/or 3) avoid new expenses. And these ROI categories must be quantified. Hence the pretty detailed diagnosis.


3. Lack of client's commitment, involvement and support. After starting the engagement, many clients say, "Do it FOR me but leave me out of it. I'm too busy to get involved." This passive couldn't-care-less attitude usually kills engagements even before they start. Securing buy-in from the top, initiated by a strong business case and backed up with a realistic project plan, is an essential step to get started.

The 1995 Chaos Report by the Standish Group established the following reasons for project failures. Although this is for information technology projects, I believe we can safely use it as a guideline for any kind of project.

So, to avoid these disasters, we'll be doing lots of documenting to make sure everyone is the same page. I respect your time, money and commitment and want us to deliver the highest ROI for your company.

In the annual revenue range of $50-500 million, only 25% of companies take the time and make the effort to do a detailed ROI analysis before initiating projects. 75% fly by the seat of their pants and hope and pray not to lose their shirts (bras, socks hats and knickers, etc.) in the process.

Project Management Time Commitments

The following table lists the percent of time a people need to commit on any given week to the project based on their assumed roles. Times are cumulative, meaning if a person is both the project manager and a team member, that person needs to commit 75% of the person's total working time to the project.

*FTE: Weekly full-time equivalent

If you participate in the engagement in any capacity, please adjust your normal working commitments accordingly. For the members, for the duration of the engagement, of the implementing team, this engagement is priority over normal work.

On Documentation

As Kent Beck, the co-author of Extreme Programming explains in his foreword to Alan Koch's book, Agile Software Development...

"Agility in software requires iron discipline."

The only reason jazz musicians can improvise so well and do amazing jam sessions (a.k.a. projects) at the drop of a hat is because they are excellent on the basics, that is, they are perfect on the jazz standards, so when four unknown musicians get together, they can instantly play "Just Wanna Make Love to You" by Muddy Waters or "Red House" by Jimi Hendrix.

During our engagement we exchange several documents that are parts of my engagement management process. For the sake of accuracy, I like documenting everything. I send exact instructions, but if I failed to explain something clearly, please contact me right away and we clarify it. Yes, they take a bit of time and effort to fill in and to keep updated, but for the sake of successful completion, I believe they are vital.

It's a well established rule-of-thumb in project management that every hour of planning shaves off three hours of implementation. It sounds good to me.

The first document is a Feasibility Analysis and the Cost Benefit Analysis. It's for your internal use to build a case for your company to justify the initiative.

After filling it in, return it to me if and only if you decide to proceed with the engagement. This document is the basis of subsequent documents, including a detailed diagnosis and ROI analysis. This may seem a bit cumbersome, but I come from an engineering background, thus I'm big on precision.

Clarification

Please take some time and check whether or not I'm a match for your sales style.... Then consider the following questions before you go any further on the path of engaging external help and support (be me or anyone else). You have to have a pretty solid understanding of your situation before you can explain it to an outsider and ask for help. The more you know about your own situation, the more valuable the external help and support can be for you. So, on to the questions...

1. Do we really need outside help to make this change happen - what value can we derive from external help?


2. Are we ready, willing and able to clearly, objectively and richly describe the "whole story" behind our problem?


3. Can we articulate the value of the change(s) we want to see to happen?


4. Can we be sure that our assumptions about the issue are not biased or clouded due to our own involvement in the problem itself?


5. Have we thought through the criteria for a successful solution for this specific issue?


6. What are the difficult people issues and where will we meet resistance?


7. Have we considered the cost and consequences of managing any resistance?


8. Does everyone share our belief that we have a problem - what objective evidence do we have?


9. What has been stopping us from having already done this? Are we "really" prepared to share these reasons with others?


10. How will we "know" when our problems are resolved?


11. Have previous changes delivered sustainable value - what lessons should we learn from this?


12. What behaviours must we stop to ensure success?


13. What words will we hear and behaviours will we see to indicate that we have been successful?


14. What problems might we have in maintaining the change once complete?


15. Have we become focused with driving a particular solution - are we prepared to look at alternate options?


16. Are we clear about the forces that may prevent us from sustaining this change initiative?


17. Do we really have the passion and purpose to see change incentive through to the end (everyone in the organisation - not just some people) ?

So, if there is still an indication that you need external help, then now let's build a case for your situation. To do that, fill in this Feasibility Analysis and the Cost Benefit Analysis, so you can better decide whether or not to go any further.

And after filling in this form, you still believe you have a case to go ahead with and need some help and support, then let me know. Hell, we may even have a basis for working together.

With victory on high...

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan