Look around at any project these days and you'll see a great number of people working for organizations who are not employees in the traditional sense. Businesses now take advantage of freelance talents to work on a specific project. After the project or their role within the project has been completed, the individual leaves for other opportunities. In many organizations some work is also outsourced to other companies to complete one aspect of the project.

Information technology has enlisted the assistance of independent consultants and outsourced the development of software products for years. This trend has now expanded to all aspects of the business. We are not talking about an end-to-end business process where different organizations perform the function of the business flow, we are talking about corporations hiring temporary talent to complete pieces of the product. This translates into building the "product" within the confines of the "program."

Insist on some employees!
This trend definitely expands the use of consultants and the outsourcing of specific work products. The involvement of these non-employees is short term and just-in-time. This can be a double-edged sword. Because they are short-term, they usually do not work through the life of the product, and when they leave, a certain amount of knowledge leaves with them. Of course, what they produce is very valuable and should be documented. However, there is always a portion of knowledge that remains in the heads of the experts. Because of this, it is important to both the program and the corporation that an employee works closely with these experts to absorb (via Vulcan mind-meld) those important undocumented details. These details help to protect the program and product as well as develop internal people. Some details to pay attention to are as follows:

• Who did they call when they needed to brainstorm, verify, or needed ideas to solve an issue?
• Did they perform a task or activity differently than the norm or from what is documented? Did it work? Did it save resources (time, money, people)?
• Did the completion of their task meet the expectations of the corporation? If not, was it a better product?
• Did you learn something from their work-style that can be reused on future iterations?

We are not suggesting a one-for-one employee-to-consultant ratio. Nor are we suggesting micro-management of their hour-by-hour activity. We are suggesting that an employee, who has a vested interest in the success of the program and product, learn from the knowledge experts and determine how the corporate process can be improved from that knowledge.

Additionally, by having an employee work with the knowledge-worker, they obtain the undocumented details that help to continue the program's success. They also build a relationship with the consultant or outsourced firm to freely call them for quick questions and advice throughout the product's life. Contrary to popular belief, a sign of a good consultant is their willingness to work with you on these quick calls even after their contract has ended. A good consultant understands the importance of "sharing" their knowledge!

People Accountability
It is important that program managers learn to manage people - employees and consultants and organizations - including business partnerships and outsourced organizations - by accountability.

In order to maintain this accountability, you must carefully itemize your expectations in a service level agreement. This includes important details such as:

• What is to be supplied to the vendor.
• What they will deliver. This includes responsibilities, work product contents and format; noting any standards to be used.
• Quality of the deliverable, including an acceptable defect rate.
• Timeframe, including critical dependencies.
• Costs.
• How the costs will be monitored.
• Tolerance, including notification procedures if things do not go as planned.
• Issue resolution procedures.
• Acceptance criteria.
• Warranty, ownership, and usage rights for the acquired work product.

SBDi has experienced Program Managers on staff to help you with your large-scale mission-critical products. We can assist your organization in defining the roles and responsibilities that can be the basis of a service level agreement for the entire Program Team.

Pat Ferdinandi