PSIwebware Blog

Step 7: Launch the Improvement Program

This step is a significant milestone.  The level of achievement at this point can either make or break your relationship.  It is important to keep the key people in both organizations up to date on progress and you need to seek their support.

Plan to launch the program at the start of remedial work.  Make sure that you present any actions positively and constructively.  This is a blueprint for the future.

It might be a good idea to think of a clever name for your improvement program to catch people’s attention.  Your goal is to actively manage the improvement program and promote each key achievement within both organizations. 

Step 8: Monitor Progress

Monitoring progress carefully and frequently is very important at this stage.  Since the relationship has been strained, it is safe to assume that normal process for reviewing performance and introducing service improvements has not been working effectively.

In previous steps, we recommended that you investigate Maintenance Management Software or Janitorial Management Software.  These systems can be extremely helpful in monitoring your progress without doing any extra work.

Your improvement task force should meet on a regular basis to review progress, agree on additional actions, and modify the program where it isn’t producing the desired outcome.  As communications and services are brought back in line with the agreed upon standards, ongoing monitoring duties should be passed back to normal contract management mechanisms.

Look out for potential problems in the transfer process.  There is a possible conflict between actions started while improving the relationship and actions that are considered part of the normal contract.

It is important for both organizations to recognize the significance of this improvement program.  Give the program firm priorities and don’t override its activities.  Support from your senior management is extremely helpful in this situation.

In the final part, we will review steps 9 and 10.  Step 9 deals with communicating your achievements and step 10 covers what to do after you have successfully established a excellent relationship.

Step 5: Develop Proposals for Remedial Action

Review and compile the results of the interviews.  These results should include your findings of performance data and perceptions within your organization.  Analyze your data for trends and reoccurring issues to determine possible actions that could be taken to improve your relationship.

Look for opportunities to:

Deliver quick wins.  This will demonstrate to both organizations that you are dedicated to improving your situation and that you will take action wherever necessary.

Create more appropriate performance measurements and stop collecting data on areas that serve no useful purpose.

Uncover areas with the most “bang for the buck”.  Focus on low cost options that visibly improve communications and service levels.

“Sell” what is working well within your organization, but might not be fully appreciated.

Initiate actions that will benefit your relationship without incurring significant expenditures.  One way to do this is to become more organized and stop wasting manpower.  Maintenance Management Software or Janitorial Management Software will save labor and give you a good return on investment.  Most importantly, these Facility Management Software systems will give you a framework for Preventive Action.
 

Step 6: Agree on an Action Plan

Agree to agree.  Sit down with all of the key people who can resolve issues and bounce remedial action ideas off each other.  Also, encourage contributions and additional ideas for activities that could potentially help you improve the relationship.

Produce a rough draft of your action plan that both parties agree on.  Senior management from both companies should approve of this draft.  Without approval, neither party can be sure that the other will deliver.

Take your proposal to the problem-solving group that you set up in step 1.  Be sure to explain that the draft is based on findings from your investigation and it takes into account both parties’ views.

Next, refine the proposal and finalize the action plan.  After this, your problem-solving group now becomes your improvement task force.

In part 5, we will review steps 7 and 8 of Challenging Failure.  Step 7 deals with launching the improvement program.  Step 8 covers monitoring your progress.

Step 3: Research the Problems and Perceptions of Problems

Prior to your first meeting of your company’s problem-solving team, do a little research to understand how the known issues affect your outsourcing relationship.  Don’t forget to look at the perceptions of those issues.

Follow these steps:

Schedule a series of meetings with the key people involved within your company to gather their views and opinions about the outsourced services.  Before the meetings, create a list of questions that covers the key problem areas.  This will not only give you information needed to address the issues, but it will also show your colleagues that you are taking constructive action to deal with the outsourcing issues.

Analyze performance reports for the last 6 months to a year.  You should look for trends of improvement or reduction in consistency and quality of service levels.  Also note how many service targets have been missed and how frequently.

Hopefully, your team has been tracking performance.  Even if you only have paper records, it is important to spend the time and put this information into a spreadsheet for analysis.  If you are using one of the better Janitorial Management Software or Maintenance Management Software systems to actively track performance every day, you should have quite a bit of information available to help in your research.

Identify a set of performance measurements that accurately reflect your improvement goals to address the perceived and actual outsourcing issues.

Talk to your colleagues to see if they have experienced similar issues and see if they came up with a solution.  Essentially learn from other people’s mistakes.

Compile all of your research into one report and have a group of colleagues in your company review it and confirm your conclusions.

Step 4: Informal Discussions between the Client and Service Provider

Prepare a set of questions from what you learned during your research, which should be similar to the questions you asked your colleagues.

Start with your main contact to review your set of questions.  Your goal is to understand how your client (or service provider) perceives your relationship and where they think improvements could be made.

Below are some guidelines to understand perceptions of performance:

Are requirements clearly stated 100% of the time?

Does each organization live up to its promises?  Does each party get things done when promised and are the agreed actions completed up to performance standards?

Are invoices paid on time?  Are invoices dealt with promptly if disagreement about charges occurs?

Are performance review meetings held?  Are they well organized and constructive?

Are problem escalation procedures followed?

How is the overall outsourcing relationship rated?  Do both parties have issues?  What steps can be taken to come up with a compromise?

The key here is to be open to the fact that you might not have as done a good of job as you thought.

This is the stage where you need to listen, not to justify your actions.  This is constructive criticism that you should pay attention to because your client (or service provider) is giving you direct feedback.  If they aren’t happy, then neither are you.

In part 4, we will review steps 5 and 6 of Challenging Failure.  Step 5 deals with developing proposals for remedial action.  Step 6 covers agreeing on an action plan.

Step 1: Establish Communication Channels

Communication is vital when dealing with an outsourcing relationship.  Frequent and effective communication will be very important in this turn-around process.

A few things to consider:

Balance informal and formal meetings.  Neither is sufficient by without the other.  Not all issues can be solved over lunch nor can they be sorted in a formal meeting with many attendees.

Review meeting agendas to make sure that the issues discussed are relevant to the overall problem.

Work with people that you feel work productively.  However, these people must command respect from their colleagues and have the authority to make important decisions.

Set up meetings to analyze issues, develop an appropriate action plan, and to monitor progress.  Emphasize solutions to problems and service improvement.  These are not meetings to point fingers.  Instead, take a positive and constructive approach to problem solving.

Remember:  It is easy to forget the need to communicate, but without effective communications, you will not be able to keep and build good relationships.

Step 2: Review the Contractual Arrangements

Investigate the exact nature of your contractual agreement carefully.  It’s a bad idea to rely on your memory or opinions from others.  You actually need to review the contract.  This will ensure that you don’t have situations where proper procedures were not followed.

Make sure you check the contract for the following points:

Is the contract properly signed by both parties?

Is the contract regularly updated and did both parties sign the latest version?

Are the performance standards defined adequately and are they being met daily?

If you find that the contract is not adequate, you will at least know where your organization stands and can avoid groundless claims and unwarranted threats.

Beyond definitions spelled out in your contract and communicating with the other party, there should be a well documented Service Delivery Plan.  This plan gives you a roadmap of services that will be performed, and can be administered through advanced Janitorial Software or CMMS Software to make tracking progress simple & effective.

In part three, we will review steps 3 and 4 of Challenging Failure.  Step 3 covers researching problems and perceptions of problems.  Step 4 covers informal discussions with both parties.

When dealing with a failing outsourcing relationship, getting back on track can be achieved by following a ten step program of improvement.  Before we can get to the 10 step process for success, we need to review 10 important concepts.

1.  Realize that people have different perspectives on problems and you need to
remain objective at all times.

2.  Don’t be a contributor to the problem; be part of the solution.

3.  Set Milestones: It is rare to jump from a failing relationship to a successful one
overnight.

4.  Make sure that everyone is clear about roles, responsibilities, and ownership
of issues.

5.  Talk and listen to your service provider or client.

6.  Refer to facts, not hearsay or rumor.

7.  Documentation of progress is going to be required.  Tracking can be simplified
with tools like CMMS Software and Janitorial Software.

8.  Don’t threaten the other party; this doesn’t fit well with the open and honest
relationship you’re working hard to build.

9.  If you are the client, and the situation deteriorates, you will still be dependent
on your service provider (at least in the short term).  You will need to work closely
with your service provider to transfer services to another provider.
You can’t just simply walk away.

10.  Instead of seeing the other party as the cause of all your problems, work together
to fix your problems.  In this way, you have a higher possibility of saving your
relationship.

In part two, we will review steps 1 and 2 of Challenging Failure.