What's missing with a lot of Programs & Portfolios at Ground Zero - Part 2

In continuation, here I capture some additionally VERY evident avenues that need need to be addressed (for Team Leads, Managers and Senior Managers & applicable to Projects & Application Managed Services)

- Quality resources (Implementation Projects & AMS): Right resource assignment is the key to quality project implementation and flawless working of applications in future. The team needs to have a mix of technical and functional consultants, coupled with Project Managers to to work closely with the customer, and to understand requirements & scope, issues and risks, scope, time and cost for realistic implementation, OR efficient handling of Incidents, SRs and Changes and adherence to KPIs, to avoid significant delays, disruptions or escalations.

- Complete understanding of Customer’s Business: the team, needs to understand the customer’s business, areas of operations and critical support and business functions, goals and end result before they start supporting the customer. The teams will be able to support the customer and its business better if they understand the business and are able to map it better with technology, its features, advantages and limitations.

- ADEQUATE collaboration between Vendor Partners and Customer teams: Managers, Team leads need to make sure cross team communications happen, there is a handshake between teams at all times, Meeting minutes are captured and sent to teams to avoid confusion in due course of project execution or support functions. This integral part of support is missed at times due to teams working across different time zones, lack of understanding or a forum to connect and communicate, significant team workloads, which hinders efficient collaboration

- Real-time and to-the-second approach: A 24/7 proactive monitoring approach needs to be adopted by the Managed Service Partners and Customer. Adequate tools & Technologies need to be installed and supportives (like reporting templates, team names, RACI chart, process knowledge) need to be in place, to help provide an accurate and real-time picture of the system health, System performance, System loads, process flows to the customer so that required action can be taken swiftly in adverse situations

- Complete & updated Documentation (Projects/AMS/Custom Developments /Code Changes): Details like technical and Functional Application design/operations documents, satellite systems & interfaces, process & data flow across landscapes, Codes & Custom codes, interface documents, Server ID and passwords, DR-BCP Plans, downtimes schedules, PoCs. Team Leads and Managers should have a keen eye on such documents and formulate, and agree with customer, if not already available. Implementation Projects and AMS Contract both need to have these handy at all times

- DR/BCP exercise: DR is assumed to be current by both, the Managed Services Partner and the customer. DR exercises need to be performed from time to time, strategies upgraded or improved, newer tools, methods or processes adopted to ascertain speedier restoration of Service. All risks, issues or possible points of failure needs to be highlighted to the customer and an improvement sought. This exercise, should always be highlighted as an area of of high impact.

- Criticality of Service and Business Process for the customer: What is to be done in the event of a failure, how does it impact the customer adversely, how much is the customer losing an hour of unavailable service?, is a question that catches nearly all the team members offguard. They either don't understand the business & technical area used for the business, or they never had these details made available to them. Managers and customers should both ensure the team understands the criticality of each application/server/service/process or even a small printer not working on a shop floor or a factory site

- Innovative and automation mindset, and Continuous Improvement approach needs to be developed within the team to save time, cost, efforts spent by the team and improve the efficiency and quality of support provided to the customers. This approach should be accompanied by timely Audit to ensure the teams are adopting the mindset.

Feel free to reach out to me with problems and provide additional show stoppers in the comments section