Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Kalamazoo Dog House Story (Part 5, Conclusion)








How do projects help translate strategic objectives to front-line action? First read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. Now, our story concludes with a short phone conversation with the winning team, CanineClients.
Hello, this is Sue at CanineClients, may I help you?
Hi Sue, my name is Betty. My neighbor Alice and I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We have ordered and canceled two dog-house installations from PetKorp, because of the strange behavior of their employees, and we have decided not to buy from Doghaus.biz, for fear of the same problem. We're wondering if we might have better luck with CanineClients.

Well, Betty, for starters... Did those guys at PetKorp even ask you the names of your pets? What are your dogs' names?
Well no, they asked us to put Hank and Chico inside while they worked. Hank is my Siberian Husky. Chico is Alice's 11-year-old Chiahuaua. These little guys are our closest family members.

So, I'll bet Hank loves Michigan winters and Chico isn't very pleased with three-foot snow drifts. Right?
You got that right! That's why Alice needs electric heat for Chico, and why Hank doesn't need one. Hank just needs a new house.

At CanineClients, Hank and Chico are clients as much as you and Alice are. How can we help?
Tell me, Sue, if we order two dog houses from you, who will do the installations?

Michelle Parker handles every project in your area. She'll do the initial installation for both of you. Michelle doesn't do electrical installations herself, but she's your project manager and she'll make sure the electrical work is inspected by the City of Kalamazoo.
Michelle Parker will do both installations and manage the electrical guys?

Yes, Michelle works part-time at KalZoo Vet Clinic and part-time with us. She's great with animals. Michelle is available this Thursday at 10:00 a.m. if you'd like to introduce Hank and Chico to her. Oh, can she bring her digital camera? I want to see Chico and Hank together.
Yes, we would love to visit. That's a picture I want too.
For the conclusion and moral of this story, see the comments section...

posted by Garry B @ 6:49 PM, Read More...  
4 comments links to this post

4 Comments:

At 7:10 PM, Blogger Garry B said...

At CanineClients, every client engagement is a project. Project abstractions like "temporariness" and "uniqueness" are completely irrelevant. What's important at this company is that four clients (Alice, Chico, Betty and Hank) are individuals, and they each have unique wants and needs. The business strategy at CanineClients is to focus all attention on a single outcome: a client experience worth bragging about. Every discrete action from manufacturing to follow-up visits, are focused first on Chico and Hank, and second on Alice and Betty. Why? First, the company honestly cares about Chico and Hank. Because of their relentless outcome-focus, CanineClients, LLC hires only dog-people! But also, they want to give Alice and Betty to talk about CanineClients with their friends and neighbors. The experience always starts with knowing the dog's name.

Competitor PetKorp is focused on business success through internal competition, and that focus translates into poor front-line action. PetKorp's two subcontractors started by asking Betty and Alice to put their animals indoors while they work, and ended with a terrible customer experience, and bad news travels fast. Competitor doghouse.biz, though much better process-oriented and project-oriented, is no better at understanding client experience, because their focus is on profit per deliverable (PpD). They are deliverable-focused, not outcome-focused.

Jerry Manas has coined the term "Service-Oriented Project Management (SOPM)". His introduction to SOPM includes this quote from Albert Einstein: “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” PetKorp Industries and Doghaus.biz strive to be a success, but in one neighborhood in Kalamazoo, they are not. CanineClients, LLC strives to be of value, and in the same neighborhood, they are a stunning success.

Also, imagine what it will be like for PetKorp and Doghause.biz to react to CanineClient's business success. Their organizations are filled with people who are oblivious about Chico and Hank, and their people have been trained to deliver the numbers and deliver dog houses.

Here's the moral of the story:
Strive to be of value. Focus your project on intended outcomes, not just deliverables.

 
At 9:29 PM, Blogger Garry B said...

And a deeper moral to this story is...
It DOES matter how we define projects, because the definition can profoundly affect front-line action.

 
At 10:06 PM, Anonymous Eric Brown said...

There are a gazillion books in this world about business and creating 'competitive advantage' but the theory always boils down to the following theme:

"Create value for your clients"

Of course you have to do this in such a way that creates value for the business as well (e.g., make a profit).

The Kalamazoo Dog House story is a great series.

 
At 9:14 PM, Anonymous Jerry Manas said...

Culture guru Fons Trompenaars uses a great example of this in his book, "Did the Pedestrian Die?" The Boston Consulting Group did a study of mergers and acquisitions and found that about 30% failed. KPMG did a similar study and found that 70% failed.

The difference? The Boston Consulting Group merely looked at financial results for shareholders (whom Trompenaars defines as "those who don't share"). The KPMG study expanded the view to include stakeholders, such as employees and customers.

Trompenaars used a great analogy. He said the Boston Consulting Group would think a marriage is successful only if it produced children, whereas KPMG would favor the idea that love would be great, too.

In another marriage analogy, one of Trompenaars' clients claimed that they focus on weddings, not marriages.

Both of these examples nicely illustrate the difference between deliverables and outcomes.

We see how bad the project success rates are, and that's based solely on deliverables and time/budget targets. Can you imagine how bad the results would be if we based success on outcomes? The PM community is focusing on improving the wrong things.

PS: His book's title comes from a puzzle he poses to his workshop audiences: Your friend hit a pedestrian while going 35 mph in a 20 mph zone. You were a passenger in his car and there were no other witnesses. His lawyers says he could be in serious trouble unless you can confirm he was going the speed limit.

The question is: Should your friend expect full loyalty, some loyalty, or no loyalty in this situation? Trompenaars found that the answer greatly depended upon the country you were from.

And regardless of the stance, the stance strengthened if the respondent learned that the pedestrian had died. All in all, a book well worth reading.

 

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