How to Run a Successful Software POC – Part Two. Be In Tight Alignment with Your Outside Partner

In the Part One, I discussed all the internal requirements and recommendations that need to be in place for a successful POC. In Part Two today, I’ll discuss the external elements that need to line up.

The Relationship with Your Partner is Crucial! The most important requirement is to establish a good working relationship with the partner salesperson who is the main point of contact with the vendor.

Make sure you are in alignment with your partner on what success of the POC looks like and steps that you have planned with them to accomplish that goal. Second, establish a good working relationship with the sales engineer and the partner’s technical enablement team that will work with you on the POC.

Explain the Technical and Business Problem to Your Partners! Take the time to explain the problem – not just the technical one but the business one underlying, the process, etc, that is being addressed by the POC. The more your partner understands the business problem, the better the POC will be. 

Example: A POC came to me from a technical colleague who had the first meeting with outside partner. In my subsequent meeting, the partner insisted they “totally understood the problem, my ‘job to be done.’” I said “then let jut run through what I’m trying to do.” After the first five minutes, the partner blurted out “I am so happy you have explained this to me, this is not what I heard before!” It’s a simple rule: Never Assume Anything

Goals, Metrics, Timeline: Then, make sure you and the salesperson and sales engineer are absolutely on the same page! as to goals, success metrics, timeline that the stakeholders from your team (peers, senior management, other departments) will use to review the POC as well as the salesperson’s own management team.

Resolve as many questions of POC support (SLAs): whom from the partner will be available for questions, how much of their time will there be, what a normal response time will be, before getting started. Have a pre-kickoff meeting with the partner team to review the planned initial presentation, roles in it, who will project management/track/document follow ups.

Meet with Your Stakeholder Team

Have a kickoff meeting with the internal group that will do the POC as well as the group that will need to approve the POC recommendations along with partner team. If any questions emerge internal group in the kickoff meeting that can’t immediately be answered, take these offline (this will prevent confusion or misunderstandings among the larger group).  Do not let these questions derail the kickoff – take it offline and come back to them.

Summarize Next Steps and Circulate: Send out a meeting summary with minutes, open question, next steps, milestones, etc. Document, document, document and share, share, share. Schedule the recurring review meeting with stakeholders - make sure it always has an up-to-date agenda with the current state, work, milestones, updates – and stick to it.

Meet Often but not Too Often: Make it often enough that over the course of POC the important groups are updated but not so often that it is burdensome. Keep the meeting short and to the point

Meet Separately With the Your Outside Partner: have a separate, smaller meeting with the salesperson and the sales engineer and key people you’re your side after the kickoff to make sure you are both on the same page about what was discussed, agreed to, signed off on in the kick-off meeting.

Resolve Any Outstanding Questions: This is also when you resolve any of the questions taken offline in the kickoff meeting. This will nip misunderstandings in the beginning an ensure alignment.

Next: Let’s Get Started!

This is the second in a four-part series of articles to help you develop and implement your own successful Proof of Concept project. Part One is here. Are there any steps, from your experience, that need to be included when deploying a POC project? I would love to hear your input below.

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