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Suggestions for Microsoft Project Server (EPM) deployment
#4: When you shop for
services base your choices on value not price. We are Wal-Mart culture and most Americans will
buy cheap over quality or sustainability most
days of the week. We demand access,
availability, and cheap. Most of us who have
been involved with computing remember that one
of the primary reasons we standardized on
Microsoft products was that they were cheap.
Cheap operating system that ran on cheap
hardware, free browser software, and if we
purchased one set up products we might get other
software thrown into the purchase for free. SQL
was free at one time, Windows SharePoint
Services is free today.
 Experience:
We were working with a large communications
company on project management software selection
about 15 years ago. This is what they said, "We
know that other software is better than Winproj
(an early name used for Microsoft Project), but
we are going to standardize on Office, and well,
Microsoft told us they are going to throw in a
couple of thousand copies of Winproj for free,
so we are going with Winproj."
Firefox is rapidly cutting into the dominance
of the free Internet Explorer for several good
reasons, but we don't think we would see this
adoption if it wasn't also free. Most of us use
Google for searches and we know that Google
makes about 5 cents for each search we make, but
I don't think we would use the tool if they
charged us for each search.
There isn't anything wrong with wanting
cheap, but when it comes to consulting services
you need to think more in terms of value. For
example, let's say you want someone to come in
and do an EPM presentation for a day with a
group of your decision makers and you want
everyone to get a very close look at EPM and you
want to talk about deployment strategy,
requirements, issues, etc.
You look around and come up with a list of
people who can come and spend a day with you.
One company is out of town and will come in for
$2,300 and you have to pay travel costs so the
total change is $3,500. Another firm tells you
that they will charge you half their daily rate
of $1,800, and third firm says that they will do
it for free, with the hopes that you hire them
to do the deployment for you.
So who do you select? We think that the
question of price at this point shouldn't even
be a primary concern. We know that price is
certainly an issue at some point, but the
initial selection process should be based on
value and then value needs to be weighted with
cost. You should first be asking questions
related to who is going to present the most
accurate and straight forward presentation of
the system, and who has the most expertise and
his willing to tell us what we need to hear?
The consulting world is very different than
the product world. Credible individuals and
firms sell their expertise and work off a pretty
standard social exchange economic model (price
paid = value provided). Good firms want to
increase their value because that is the only
way they can increase their rates. They
are not in a position to sell more product to
increase profit and they only have so many
billable hours during a year. They simply don't
do work for free and they don't work cheaply.
Not if they are any good.
If you are thinking EPM, you have a lot at
stake. This is going to be a costly venture; you
are going to have to spend a lot of time to get
this to work for you. There is exposure, risk,
and most everyone associated with projects will
be involved to some degree with an EPM solution.
These are some points worth considering:
- The cost of help is going to be a
fraction of the actual cost of deployment
and extra money spent on the best consulting
and training will save you considerable
money and grief later on during deployment.
- Even with the best consultants you need
to "consider the source" and try to
determine if what they tell you has an
underlying agenda that is inconsistent with
your objectives.
- Shop value first, cost second.
- Don't just assume the most costly
sources are the most experienced and honest
- but don't buy cheap. In the consulting and
training world there is always a reason for
"cheap" and it isn't altruism.
- Ultimately, all consulting and training
should help lead you to complete ownership
and self-reliance.
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