Charles Ellis

High Stakes Problem Solving

A large portion of my role as a consultant is to train new users to be subject matter experts (SMEs) or end users of Prometheus Group's software. Prometheus Group develops enterprise level software based on a combination of client contracts and potential future contracts. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was assigned at the last minute to a new implemention of a client's first site with a particular software.

The first day of engagement in my agenda was to train the SMEs. I expected that due diligence had been done and user acceptance testing was succesful prior to scheduling this training. The SMEs and corporate executives "informed" me otherwise very quickly.

I'm going to be honest, that was a scary situation. I was fairly new to consulting, and just as new with the software I was working with. I had to be decisive, ensure we still met the terms of the engagement, and listen to the feedback given by the client all at the same time.

So I continued the training after letting the client know that I understood the delivered product did not fit their needs today. While training, my expectation for the client was they would voice all concerns and questions which I noted down.

After every section of training, we discussed each issue found in detail. These issues became process changes internal to the client, were identified as non-issues once the functionality was further defined, or became change orders.

In breaks throughout the day, I would communicate the change orders to Prometheus Group, and make front-end configuration adjustments through the GUI to resolve some of the items that had to change. A standard week of training turned into a week of intense problem solving with the stakes being a 6-figure pilot that if successful, would turn into a 7-figure deal.

Keeping a calm head, and reacting rationally instead of emotionally made this project a success with three sites going live so far, and multiple other sites currently discussing purchase.

Building trust in client relations with patience and continued effort

There is always a project, the project, that no one wants. Perhaps an impossible timeline was promised. Or there's a high demand client. Or maybe scope creep wasn't properly managed and it's become overwhelming.

In this case, it was all three. This project was handed off six times. No one knew what had been promised, no one knew what the outlying items were. Most importantly, no one was communicating to the client. Then it was handed off a seventh time to me (a fairly new PM) and my colleague (a brand new PM).

The first call we had did not go well. As it shouldn't have. They were being handed off again. Essentially, we were telling them that everyone who had managed their project so far had better things to do.

We spent the first two weeks defining where the project was, what needed to be done, and the expected timeline. I have been fortunate enough to not be in the position our client was, so I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been to explain why they need this button to do that functionality for the seventh time.

Once we had defined the items critical to launch and rollout, my colleague and I prioritized them, then split up the tasks accordingly. Little by little, we chipped away, making incremental progress. One of our major goals was to restore the client's confidence in us, and the project. We maintained same day communications, and any task that we didn't have to delegate, we took the initiative to complete as soon as possible.

Spirits were still not high, people were frustrated, and every word we uttered was analyzed and scrutinized. This was not a healthy client relationship.

With our first milestone fast approaching, we realized it would not be met. The very next call, what do you know? The client asks "Are we going to make this deadline?" There were two ways to proceed and not a lot of time. So, I took a breath and said "No, we've hit set backs and this unfortunately won't be delivered by that date." I was disappointed in us; even though we had done everything possible to make this software delivery. What felt like several minutes of silence, which was probably only a few seconds, was miserable. After a pause, the client's project manager said "Thank you for the honesty."

Despite that setback we diligently continued resolving issues. Knocking items off their list one by one and communicating status updates. Our next weekly call, I could tell something was different immediately. The client's project manager was no longer defensive, in fact she sounded almost happy to have today's call, even though I'm sure she dreaded them previously.

This was huge. We had broken through months of barriers and disappointing results our predecessors had given. My colleague and I had been honest, communicative, and most importantly, we had listened, then followed up on their needs.

This is still an ongoing project but with one major difference. Our relationship with the client has drastically improved. By listening to their needs, maintaining open lines of communication, and being honest even when delivering bad news, there is now a foundation of trust.

I'd like to add one final note to this lesson. I stated earlier that this was a particularly demanding client. At the time we took this project on, that was true. But once that relationship change occurred, the demands became requests. The answers we gave weren't scrutinized. The conversations were friendly. I ask you to consider if a client is demanding, could it be because she knows that is the only way to get results? In this case, I believe that she was an excellent project manager and took the steps necessary for this project to become my company's priority.

Be courageous and open-minded to try something entirely new

One of many reasons I chose mechanical engineering as my major when applying to college was the bad taste I'd had of high school chemistry, and the promise of Chem. 101 being the only required chemistry class.

Someone failed to inform me that the cool classes on stuff exploding (thermodynamics) involved combustion chemistry. Or that quantum mechanics course I definitely didn't sign up for because the name sounded cool, had particles in boxes and calculable electron shielding.

I'm still confused as to who is building these boxes small enough for a particle.

Fast forwarding to my senior year, I accepted a researcher role for Viriginia Tech's Macromolecule Innovation Institute, where every project was focused in the field of polymer chemistry.

I'm ashamed to say, that while I had heard the term before, I didn't even know what a polymer was. On the first day of my new job, I found myself among some of the best undergraduate polymer chemists in the nation, hoping my naiveté would go unnoticed until I could freely google words like polymerization. Suffice it to say, I was out of place.

Here's as good a place as any for an aside. Probably the most valuable thing I learned in college wasn't a fact, or equation, not how to read graphs or design power plants (sorry Dr. Terry). But how to take an insurmountable problem, and break it into smaller, much more manageable pieces. And that's what I did. I started by learning that polymerization is the process of attaching molecules together, much like links in a chain, to make what is called a polymer. Little by little, I studied, I worked, and I eventually began to understand what people were talking about and what I was doing in my research.

If I hadn't been open minded about taking this role, I would've missed out on some fantastic memories with some equally fantastic people, and the opportunity to learn and perform tasks that most of the world will never experience. And besides, being able to tell people at parties that I used a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer will always grant me friends, right? The point of this story is, that just like the particle in a box, anyone can find the energy they need to leave their boundaries. And that's where the truly spectacular happens.