Defining "Worked With" Verbiage

Preface

We often write about how ERP sales teams ‘overstate’ their ability to deliver projects on time and / or the functionality of their technology.  I call this technique “BSBB” (B.S. Baffles Brains) and it often is the catalyst of the 75% - 83% failure rate of these projects.  You may enjoy reading “Doomed From The Start”.  There’s more information available under Resources For You.

Do you think that some consulting firms might also exhibit some of the same BSBB traits?

The Post That Got Me Thinking

A while ago, I saw a consultant's social media post that got me thinking about how some terminology could lead to some assumptions by people who saw it.  In one statement the person mentioned having worked with thousands of clients.  When you read that statement, what does working with “thousands of clients” mean to you?

1️⃣  This person has worked with thousands of organizations.

2️⃣ This person has worked directly with thousands of sites within organizations.

3️⃣  This person has worked with teams of people that directly impacted the work of thousands of people.

You may not think anything at all, but your subconscious mind will have picked up the general impression that this person has (and it’s likely true) worked for a long time as a consultant.  However, I know that I had started my consulting career while the author of one of these posts was still in primary school.

“Worked with” Definitions

When stating the approximate number of clients that I’ve worked with, I’m thinking in terms of the number of client organizations that I’ve done consulting work with.  The highest number of client organizations I’ve worked with in any 12 month period is 11.  Some of those were full solution (ERP or Business Transformation) implementation projects and some were organizations where some education / coaching services at various levels of management and project teams was needed.  By this definition, I’ve ‘worked with’ somewhere between 300 and 400 clients since 1983.

Note: This does not include the number of clients that the consulting groups / organizations that I have managed were engaged with. Those organizations had clients that did not require my direct services. In these situations, I managed the professional services people.

We could now expand that number by stating the number of client sites that I’ve worked with.  The validation for using this number would be that each client site likely has its own, unique challenges. I’ve worked with many clients that are multisite organizations with anywhere from four to over 25 sites.  By this definition, I’ve ‘worked with’ well over 1,000 clients.

At the next level of expansion, we could consider the number of client teams I’ve worked with.  Suffice to say that any ERP / Digital / Business Transformation project will have a minimum of six teams per site. Multi-site clients will also have the overall corporate project team. I suspect you get the point.

Your Take-Away

The take-away for the reader of this article is that it’s just as important to consider, and validate, the verbiage that your consulting partner uses as it is to evaluate the claims of your solution vendors prior to launching an ERP, Digital or Business Transformation initiative.

About the Author

Ken Cowman’s career has spanned 52 years with over 11 of those in materials and operations management and more than 40 years as a continuous improvement and enterprise solutions project manager, educator, process re-engineering leader and coach.  He is the Managing Director and CEO of Emercomm (www.emercomm.com) and can be reached via services@emercomm.com