Project Management - Business outcome-based pricing models

As a Successful Project Manager, we are constantly looking for Process improvement to reduce the Cost and Quality product on time. Despite of religiously following an existing pricing models like Time&Labor & Fixed Bid, we end-up with disappointments many times. This blog is an Ideation blog to share my thought process on Project Operating Model.   

I have gone through an article about “Business out-come based pricing model” last week. It was very interesting read and I felt that it is much needed for us at this point of time due to many factors including quality of deliverables received from suppliers from outsourcing.

We might have seen many emails stating that there was an issue with System A/B/C, please apologize to all customers for any inconvenience caused etc. I strongly believe the outcome-based pricing model will be a promising solution to prevent such issues if we considered as the supplier will be paid only based on the outcome.

Deriving the out-come SUCCESS criteria for any project will be complicated and which may leads mistrust. If we formalize the SUCCESS criteria for a project prior to outsourcing, outcome-based pricing model will be a real game changer i believe. 

Read business outcome-based pricing model first post link at http://www.firstpost.com/business/igate-aims-to-shake-up-it-billing-model-with-outcome-based-pricing-635462.html

Please post your opinions/suggestion in the comments section below to understand your views..


Thanks,
Nanjundan Chinnasamy

Dealing with the Employee from Hell

For those you are first time managers, it may be very difficult to understand the employee behaviours, patterns and how to deal with those Employees. Here is an article which may help you to deal with such Employees.

Not all the points from me OR on my own words.  I’ve added few on top of one of my Favourite book (Dealing with the Employee from Hell by SHAUN BELDING – Summary).  This blog is part my People management blog series. Hope you can see such interesting people management blogs in coming days.

1. What Employee wants? - DART

• Direction, Appreciation, Respect, Tools
• Telescope effort - Look at the problem in both the way. You will get different view. Eg. Telescope gives different view when you look at otherside.

2. How to set the stage

• Become a better boss
• create an enjoyable environment
• Communicate with your employees
• Lose the stupid rules - No rules if possible – KISS principle might apply here.
• Use the power of pardac
• don't embarrass your employee
• listen to your employees
• pay attention
• find out employee thoughts
• Echo employee thoughts
• Acknowledge employee ideas
• Set expectations
• Respond

3. Anatomy of a Great Boss - You get what you give

• Leadership all about,
• Trust
• Respect
• Action
• Focusing on common goal
• Championing employees
• Championing the company

4. Setting immutable performance standards

•    Principles of immutable performance standards
•     Stick to the important things
•     Keep them simple
•     Make them universal
•     Make them fair
•     Make them a source of pride
•     Make them measurable
•    Deal with Positive n Negative consequences

5. Performance Coaching

•   SOAR -
•    Set goals
•    Observe performance
•    Assess performance
•    Respond appropriately

6. Setting goal

•   Make the goals relevant
•   Keep them simple
•   Make them attainable
•   Make them challenging
•   Communicate their importance
•   Give them time frame

7. Observing performance

•   Look for the things good first
•   Be open
•   Be discreet
•   The TRAP - Don't loose the focus on your objectives

8. Assessing performance

•   Avoid preconceptions
•   True assessment required

9. Responding to Performance

•   The Positive response
•   The constructive response
•    Make it Good-Bad-Good-Bad stuff format
•    Don't use However, But, although - get the employee agreement
•    Reinforce the good ones
•    Gain the commitment to continue
•   The Corrective response
•    Fear of failure
•    Misunderstanding the task
•    Lack of self-awareness
•    Brain cramp
•    Disagreement with goal

10. Art of delegating

•   Delegating process
•    Decide what to be delegated
•    Choose your delegates
•    Discuss tasks with employees
•    Show your employees how to do the job
•    Supervise your employees
•    Follow-up instantly
•    Provide indirect, passive supervision

11. Carrots n sticks

• Push right button to the right ppl for the right reasons
• Incentives &  Rewards can be classified as

  

X	Tangible	Intangible
Visible	EARTH	FIRE
Discreet	WATER	WIND

12. Setting Employee free

•    Get the 2nd opinion
•    Cover your basics
•    Set the decision date
•    Break the news

13. Poison in the pool n curious quirks

•    Poison in the pool:
•    The Whiner-If someone unhappy, they will not make others also unhappy
•    The Gossip
•    Jealous Joe
•    Mr Sarcastic - Just humour, don't do any work
•    Snake in the gross - Good in talking n doing bad on back
•    Bully - Over confident
•    Curious quirks
•    Sunshine up the shorts
•    Mr. Impossible
•    Social Butterfly
•    Not My Job
•    Heart on Sleeve
•    Unfocused
•    Temporarily Challenged
•    All about me
•    Yeah But
•    Liars,Cheats and thieves

    

 

This book is available Online @ www.vivagroupindia.com. I strongly recommend the next generation leaders to go through this book (if possible have a personal copy to refer now n then). Again management is a continuous process to learn and discover solutions for the issues whenever encountered. Happy leaning..

Thanks,

Nanjundan Chinnasamy

How to survive during Global Recession….

For all people, here are some tips how to survive during Global Recession as a software Engnieer..
1. Automate the Manual JOBS and TestCases
Hope this could easily be implemented in any kind of project.
· Automating Jobs: First try to find out the list of manual jobs if any (Ex. Build process). Automate them first. We can take the build process for example. People working in Development project well be aware of the build process. We have ‘n’ number of open source tools to automate the build process. Examples are anthel Pro, cruse Control Build. So whenever you checkin code to versioning system build is automatically started and placed in some share location. So we can avoid some/much time in taking a build.
· Automating TestCases: Create automated test cases for your applications. That should run before taking the build (This can be done with any build tool like Maven/Ant). If you are a JavaDeveloper, use JUNIT to write testcases for Java Layer and Cactus/StructTestcase/Shale/JSFTestcase for web component test cases. Yes we can test without container for webcomponents. Are you .net user? Use NUnit (That is the only thing I heard).
· Of course we can use PMD/Check Style to automate the code review. In general if anything takes more of your time, try to automate those.
2. Implement Scrum model in your Project: Currently most of them are working in water flow model. This will be taking considerable time(min 3 months) to complete one release if it is very small. So the user or Quality Assurance team should wait till this TAT(Turn Around Time) to see the implementation. I could see we are not able to satisfy the clients with this model. This is the reason we can go for Scrum model. In scrum model the only difference is TAT, yes it is very small (2-3 weeks). We are giving the updates/release on every 3 weeks. By doing so we could satisfy most of our clients however they can see their requirement implementation (hopefully before the billing cycle). Need more details on scrum model? Visit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)
FYI: All the project can’t follow Scrum model. It depends on the type of the project and Client, of course!
3. “Out of the box” Implementation: This we all know and have heard word from managers. Yes we should understand the business, try to find out loop holes/ area of improvements where we can save the money. Not for us guys! For client!
We implemented all of these in our project. it’s cool and going smooth.
Hope you guys do the same to make business different. I am sure you can feel the difference.
All the best!!!