CRM project planning...

I’ve spent the last few days putting together case studies based on some of our assignments from the last several months. One thing that struck me hard, was how much of our work has been around helping our clients budget for projects and work out what internal resources will be required to execute successfully.

The question most organisations want answered when contemplating a project is ‘how much is it going to cost?’. The traditional route to answering this has been to meet with vendors and solicit proposals. There are two big problems with this. One, vendors are well aware that they live in a competitive market, and they aren’t in the business of putting obstacles in the way of clients doing business with them. The net effect is that man day estimates of their involvement in the project tend to be on the low side.

The second, and much bigger issue, is that what vendors quote for, is generally a fraction of the overall project. Sure, they will customise their software, integrate it if you want, provide training etc, but there’s a huge amount of work involved in project delivery beyond what they will ordinarily provide.

A vendor proposal will typically exclude, though may not be explicit in saying so, areas such as process design, process documentation, data preparation, basic configuration such as mail-merge templates, security settings, pick-lists etc, administration, hand-holding, usage audits, ongoing training, plus of course the involvement of the internal project team itself. Any one of these areas can be significantly more extensive than the entire vendor involvement in the project.

The wash up is that many organisations embark on projects at times where they don’t have the internal resources in place to deliver successfully. The net effect is that the project, starved of the inputs it needs, fails to produce a decent return on investment.

OK I'm biased, but if you are contemplating a CRM project, I'd advise you to spend time carefully (and ideally independently verifying) that you really have a grip on the cost and resource requirements. As in air travel – it’s wise not to start a journey if you haven’t got the fuel to complete it.

CRM projects and user adoption....

This week’s edition of the Economist (July 23rd 2005) carries an article entitled ‘Terminal Care’. The article notes the technical success of the world’s biggest government IT project – Connecting for Health, or CFI - which, with its £6.2 billion price-tag, will link 31,500 family doctors with 300 hospitals, and will result in a fundamental change in the way National Health Service staff work. Despite the enormity of the project, and given the number of suppliers involved, the Economist notes that things have been progressing well, with one exception – the majority of doctors don’t want to use it. As the article perceptively notes:

‘As with almost any IT project, the hardest task is to get users to accept a new way of working. Most people fight change unless they can see it helps them do their job.’

Applying this in the context of CRM projects, I’ve seen a lot of technically well executed implementations ,which sadly have no positive impact to the business, because a large proportion of the potential user base has decided not to play ball. Anyone familiar with this blog, will know that we see clarity as to what CRM technology can achieve for the business as a fundamental of CRM success, but this concept needs to extend to the individual user. Only when individual users see how they will benefit, can user adoption issues be effectively addressed. Any CRM implementation strategy must answer one fundamental question for all users – what’s in it for me?

Top five hallmarks of a successful CRM deployment…

As a potentially insightful exercise I spent some time and listed what I felt were the top five hallmarks of a successful CRM project. The results of those deliberations were as follows:

One - A clearly defined set of business objectives for the project
Two - Active and effective executive sponsorship
Three - Availability of resources, particularly project team availability
Four - A long term view
Five - A well structured user adoption strategy

Strangely perhaps, technology selection, though definitely important, didn’t make it into the top five. Given that many projects focus on technology almost to the exclusion of all other areas, this may seem a dangerous heresy.

No light at the end of the tunnel...

This morning’s news stopped me in my tracks somewhat.

The Chiltern railway line, one of the mail commuter routes into and out of London, had been blocked by a collapsed tunnel in the town of Gerrards Cross. The tunnel in question had been recently built as part of the ongoing development of a new Tesco supermarket in the town.

I live a few miles down the road, and know this had been a hugely controversial project right from the start. In order to find the space to build the store, Tesco’s had struck on the innovative notion of building above the railway line in the town centre. Since the railway line went through the town in a deep cutting, this involved encasing the line in a concrete ring segments and back-filling the earth to create the site.

It looks like someone got the sums wrong. A large part of what would have become the car park had collapsed into the tunnel below. Fortunately there were no injuries.

When projects go wrong like this the effects tend to be much wider than failure of the project in its own right. Tesco (or more likely its contractors) will feel the pain of the delays, or possible abandonment of the project, but the implications are more extensive. Will it still have the appetite for similarly adventurous projects in the future? Will local authorities still be inclined to sanction them even if it has? How does this impact the companies plans to increase store numbers? What’s the damage to its reputation? And, what’s the cost of the deepening resentment from local residents and commuters?

In the same way, when CRM projects derail, the impact isn’t just the direct costs, there are important indirect ones to consider as well. Staff lose faith in IT’s ability to deliver. They lose faith in their management’s ability to deliver. Morale diminishes. And when the next big project comes along, lowered expectations, mean that staff are less likely to make the commitment required to make the project a success.

Whatever the project type - ground-breaking (in more ways that one) construction projects, or CRM deployments – when the stakes are high, it’s wise to plan very carefully.