Steve Bogner is Managing Partner at Insight Consulting Partners and worked with SAP HR/Payroll since 1993. Follow Steve's thoughts on SAP HR technology, process and people, as well as the consulting profession here at the Insight Blog. Steve is also on Twitter at 'SteveBogner'.
Why is it that firms are willing to outsource - both off-shore and near-shore – critical business processes yet they continue to insist on implementation teams being together onsite every week for months or years at a time? Many firms trust a business partner in some remote location to process their benefits and payroll, which are two complex and critical business functions. If people don't get paid, it's a safe bet they won't come to work – that is critical! Yet, when implementing systems such as SAP HR, firms insist on flying consultants from all over the country to a central location – week after week for months or years at a time. That's no longer a necessary or beneficial way of doing projects.
Software firms create big, complex systems with teams spread out over the globe. They have the project management methods and technology to make that work. Other products are designed, created and rolled-out by teams that are spread out over the globe. Companies have office staff working from home 2 or 3 days a week now. And aside from off-shoring some ABAP development, we don't see offsite work happening much if at all with SAP implementation projects. Why is that?
Many SAP consultants and project managers don't know any other way to do it. They have always relied on and sold the model of having everyone onsite together, in a big team-room, working all week (or maybe Monday-Thursday) face to face. If I can see you here in the team-room, I know you are working on something. If I can't see you, I don't know if you're working or not. And that is, I believe, one of the big reasons we still fly consultants in every week. Measuring work by walking around and seeing people at work is different from measuring the progress & delivery of tasks on a project plan.
Another important reason we fly consultants in every week is that we're afraid that if we don't, someone else will, that they will gain the client's favor, and we will lose some business. The flip-side of that is the client will get only those consultants willing to travel every week, which isn't the same as getting the most qualified and appropriate resources for the project. Many experienced consultants no longer want or need to travel every week, yet their contributions are valuable. I believe many in the consulting profession don't want to really recognize this trade-off because it's uncomfortable to talk about.
Many successful firms have had geographically diverse teams working together for years. Even for the traditional office jobs such as those we find in HR, accounting and IT, some firms have had a lot of success letting employees work from home 2 or 3 days per week. If quality suffered or it was too expensive, they wouldn't continue doing it.
In the past few years there have been many advances in using technology to bring disparate team members together to work on projects. The big favorite? Microsoft Sharepoint – the all-pupose site for bringing teams together to work on projects. And new from SAP there is Streamwork – a site for collaborative work. Don't forget Skype and dozens of Instant Messaging systems. There is plenty of technology to help dispersed teams work well; perhaps the challenge here is to determine how best to use the technology.
Is this merely a buzzword? Or, do we take it seriously? How sustainable is it to fly consultants in every week, drive to an office, stay in a hotel, and fly back? A year of flying alone generates tons of CO2 emissions; round trip from Cincinnati to New York City for a year generates about 15 tons. SAP itself has made quite a commitment to sustainability, as have many of their customers and prospects. Will consulting firms join them in that endeavor, and if so, how?
There are some definite advantages to working together onsite during certain phases of the project. Project Preparation and a good deal of Blueprinting are best done face-to-face. And even though working from disparate locations, it's still a team and having face-time is a critical part of team cohesion. Still, that is nowhere close to being onsite for the whole project. It's time for SAP implementation practices to catch-up with the distributed way that work can be done today.
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Comments
Re: Why Onsite All the Time?
Hi Steve
This is one of my favorite blogs to date and one that I feel very strongly about.
The on-site consulting model in my mind is one that is very out dated with the tools available to the mobile worker. On my largest client I am on-site 12 days a month and work 8 remotely which has worked out very well and it is a win-win all the way around. I also help support several clients remotely and they get the benefit of a very senior consultant, only at the times they need me, at a reasonable rate with no travel expenses.
I think it is important to note that not all consultants have the dedication, skill set and knowledge to work remotely as well as not all client engagements lend themselves to that model. That said there are a lot more engagements that could be partially remote than are which ultimately increases overall costs and in a lot of cases reduces the quality of the consultants.
Great job and topic.
Jarret
Re: Why Onsite All the Time?
Excellent topic. Extremely well written, even if its only because I agree with you :)
Seriously, though, the need to be 'on the ground' depends on your role in an implementation / development, and where the team is in the schedule.
As an example (and this is a gross generalisation), wouldn't you want the Functional people to be embedded in 'their part' of the business for most of the project, while your BASIS people belong in the same room as each other for most of the project ?
The key thing is that 10 or 20 years ago, you could get good quality people to do the travel you speak about, by paying enough money. Nowadays, people who can afford to be choosy (because they're good and the market knows it) seem to be motivated by more complex things.
And as you say, by insisting on one particular attribute (that has no relationship to the quality of work produced), the end customer doesn't always get the best person for the job.
Re: Why Onsite All the Time?
Jarret & Martin - Thanks for your feedback!
Martin, I'm not so sure any more about having functional people embedded with the client team all the time. I've done a lot of functional consulting, and I think it is all too easy & common for us to become a crutch for the client. If we are there, it is really easy and convenient to lean on us to do all sorts of things. That's fine sometimes but it can lead to a bad sort of dependence.
I think we do 'things' too much (config, troubleshooting, etc), and don't guide, train and mentor nearly enough. Most customers have a good group of smart people on the project who can do a lot, given the right development and guidance. Once the consultants are gone, they will have to do it all anyway.
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