The success of your complex project depends on a constructive critical friend

There are few things more important to the prospects for your complex/strategic projects than finding a strategic supplier partner that reflects your own dedication. This doesn’t mean agreeing with your every decision. It means acting as a constructive critical friend — putting the success of the project to the fore and willing to challenge you, when necessary. This is as much about your suppliers’ attitude as it is their experience and expertise. ??

What is a ‘Constructive Critical Friend’?

You’ll want to have a constructive critical friend on your side because they improve your chances of achieving your business outcomes within time and budget. An intelligent supplier acting as a constructive critical friend will offer innovative solutions. They have a clear understanding of your aims and outcomes, the prospect of achieving these, and building a fit for purpose solution for the project. That means they can tell you when things can be improved and challenge you when any of the above is lacking.

Is Your Supplier a Critical Friend?

To discover whether your supplier acts as a constructive critical friend, you need to look at the KPIs that are set to evidence progress in your project.

In many of the strategic and complex project relationships we have been asked to realign after the event, KPI measurement is one the most hotly contested areas.

Primarily, this is because KPIs are all too often used as a stick with which to beat the supplier if they are not achieved. KPIs should be, first and foremost, a learning tool.

The Right KPIs

The ‘right’ KPIs help provide you with insights as to what is working well with your strategic partnership / complex project and what is not. And it’s the detail of the insights you gain from your KPIs that help to determine whether they are ‘SMART ’.

The idea of SMART KPIs is that they provide insights, not only of ‘what’ is not performing, but ‘why’ and ‘where’ the problem is originating. If your KPIs aren’t providing you with those insights, then it is unlikely you are measuring the right areas - or if you are measuring the right areas, then consider whether you are measuring them in the right way.?

An Intelligent Supplier and SMART KPIs

This is one of those areas where intelligent suppliers act very differently from those that are less ‘intelligent’. An intelligent supplier will review your business vision, outcomes, objectives, delivery strategy and so forth. From these, it will work with you to structure SMART KPIs that help you understand how to:

1. Align KPIs and business outcomes
2. Ensure the right ones are in place
3. Provide insights that help you achieve your business outcomes as quickly and cheaply as possible.

The Difference Between Collaborating and Agreeing

A successful Intelligent client and intelligent supplier team works collaboratively to ensure the client reaches its end-goal.

Does this mean that the relationship will be disagreement free? Not at all. There will always be the potential for disagreements and misalignment – the relationship is unlikely to be healthy if it is not being constructively challenged, with each party able to critical-friend challenge the other.

However, the difference between a disagreement and acting as a critical friend is that intelligent client and supplier teams always sense check themselves. A critical friend challenge is about the outcomes to be reached.

And if they aren’t being reached, irrespective of the mechanics and opinions of individuals, these individuals have the maturity to recognise something in the objectives, delivery process and performance management system is misaligned and is driving either the wrong insights, the wrong behaviour, or both.

Conclusion

A constructive critical friend is a true sign of supplier partnerships in a working strategic relationship, where every aspect of a project’s make-up and aspirations is checked and constructively questioned, and any input from either side is given a fair hearing and reviewed for the good of the relationship.

It would be difficult to imagine a client/supplier relationship existing in which SMART KPIs could be co-authored and plans and processes, vision and outcomes critical friend challenged by either party, unless the right environment had already been established for this form of dialogue to flourish. For a critical friend relationship to flourish, our research has shown you need 8 core elements that show you're working with an intelligent supplier.

Read more about how to spot these 8 behaviours of intelligent suppliers, as well as more crucial insights into successfully managing a valuable and productive relationship with a strategic supplier in our knowledge centre.