General pointers for consideration, in a engagement based delivery model. Applicable for Design, Development and customer facing teams.

1. Engagement Model for Delivery
As part of every Engagement Model for delivery, the
process map and work flow structures will be defined
(Requirement Gathering, Scope, Contracts, technical
aspects, implementation, testing and finally
Delivery).
Oh yes! I know this Engagement Model, it is
published in my organization wiki pages and
Document templates. We all know.
Yet there will be few engagements which will be
extended or not accomplished as planned.
This article has been framed with an effort to
streamline the structured engagement delivery
process furthermore, from an Employee and
Organization perspective.
Here is an instance, Sales team has done the
Marketing pitch, it is now pushed to the Delivery
team, accountable by VP, Engagement Manager,
Lead, Developers and QA team.
Scope has been decided and delivery date has been
published. Based on the user role the responsibilities
will be divided accordingly.
The team gets to work on the engagement. Now
what?
Focus areas that cannot be missed:
1. Client first mindset
2. Providing information to a client
3. Problem Statement
4. Requirement Gathering
5. Solving a client’s problems
6. Solution Viability vs Expectation mismatch
7. Team spirit & your contribution
8. Applying Thought process - fixing the pain
points
9. Lessons Learned
10. Leveraging Feedback
Successfully Delivering an Engagement,
Diligently & Effectively
- Amit Pishe.

2. By this time, we know who the client is, what is their
portfolio/domain. Every client is different and needs
different level of handling experience, few may be
approachable, some of them quite timid, or even
irate to deal with.
Whatever the reason, Client should be the foremost
priority.
Companies do have in-house teams to get the job
done, but not many will have a full-fledged arena of
teams from various platforms.
Outsourcing is pre-dominant in such scenarios. With
outsourcing, Vendor – Client relation becomes very
important and how we deal.
Always try to build a good rapport. As the saying
‘What goes around, comes around’.
Treat the client professionally and with a sense of
urgency.
Make the client aware of your organization work
culture and processes that will be followed, ask for
clarification. They might not be fully aware how your
company functions.
Understand what the client is trying to tell. In few
cases client may not know what to expect from an
engagement, such cases need to be handled in a
consultative approach. Problem definition will need
to be framed by you.
Few clients are smart enough to tell what they want,
but do not know how to achieve the results. This is
the opportunity we need to utilize, as much time is
saved, understanding the Problem Statement. Flip
side may be the client can be very demanding and
bossy.
The focus should be on the understanding/defining
the Problem statement.
1. Client first mindset 2. Providing information to a client
3. Problem Statement

3. Tools & Techniques are readily available on the stack
to understand the client requirements (e.g. Mind
mapping, Interviews, facilitated sessions,
Questionnaire, Prototyping, use cases, RFP -request
for proposals, Brainstorming and so on)
Pick the method, most appropriate for Requirement
Gathering, as per the client environment.
Requirement gathering is the most critical part in an
engagement.
Get started with making a diagnosis (from the inputs
provided, it should form the baseline for the engagement),
look for ways to necessitate redefinition of the problem
itself, if needed.
Additionally, try to provide recommendations based on
the diagnosis. Finally assisting with implementation of
recommended solutions.
Knowing what to do is the most important part,
followed by how to do it, based on the Problem
statement
4.Requirement Gathering 5. Solving clients’ problems

4. With a solid plan reviewed and approved, projects
might still fail, or experience delays due to:
scope creeps, resulting from scope documented
incorrectly, new requirements being projected as a
bug, incorrect estimation & timelines, deliverables
not in-line to the scope itself.
Delay may also be due to customer unable to provide
the requested data on time. These are external
factors. Internal delays may be within the Company.
Gaps in requirements assessment, usually cause
delays. Expectation is not clearly set in the beginning
of the engagement.
Documentation is important at every stage of an
engagement. It will be a written proof in case things
turn hostile/ugly. It will be a reference for any
deviations, which can be controlled as soon as
identified.
Estimates & Timelines should include sufficient
buffer time, to cover for any shortcomings. This will
ensure timely delivery. Never try to crunch too much
time to impress the client, consider the regular effort
required from the team (not making them slog during
weekends and burning mid-night oil).
Client at times, demands more add on to the
deliverables, than what was agreed upon, this causes
expectation mismatch and things start feeling out of
control at this point.
Try to Negotiate & convince on what was agreed and
what is being delivered. Client may be unreasonable
sometimes, it is your job to clear conflicts and
manage the expectation. Never show your
frustration or aggressive even in hostile situations, be
polite yet stern in your responses.
If the Business from client side requires any new
feature, it must be discussed (at extra cost & effort),
and go-ahead provided from your management.
Open communication is the key- Weekly responses
and catch up with the client should be followed
regularly. Request for support from your
management, if the client is still not on the same
page with you.
Anticipating Risks during the initial phase of the
engagement is critical (few pointers like – resource
constraint, budget, system shortfalls, solution
provided is feasible or not and so on), will help plan
better in advance.
Contingency plan needs to be prepared to counter
the risks and have remediation steps in place.
Highlight it pro-actively.
6. Solution Viability vs
Expectation mismatch

5. Personal responsibility plays vital role in successful
delivery as well.
Casual attitude of ‘I just do my job and get salary,
should I really add value? must be addressed at an
Organization level. Try to be passionate about what
you do for your Organization, work towards the
Company mission and common goal.
Approach to doing things effectively, and following
Best Practices must be mandated. Practical
recommendations for improving organizational
effectiveness, must be taken up by the Management.
Introspect why few projects get so high visibility,
look at the effort put in as a Team.
Walking along as a Team you can achieve better
results, there will be exceptions with few shining
individual contributors.
Discipline and Attitude define an individual, being
an Individual star performer is good, but also be
approachable by the team(s). Do not create an
invisible wall to guard your success and take all the
credit.
Remember even if one member does not contribute
as expected, the entire team and the engagement
will Fail.
Building a healthy consensus and commitment
around corrective action, will help the client and
your team in the long run of the engagement, and
may open new avenues as well.
Acceptance of failure needs to come naturally, that
the engagement had broken down at some point.
Escalations will be there, but even before that you
should be able to sense, that something isn’t going
well in the project.
Evaluate the entire journey, check for milestones
which areas could not be addressed as decided.
Apply thought process and analyze fairly, on how it
could have been done better. It may be by reducing
the turnaround time, by using reusable assets or
solution templates for specific domains.
7. Team spirit & your contribution 8. Applying Thought process -
fixing the pain points

6. Learning curve will always be there in whatever
work we undertake. Diligently identify the failure
areas and see how to improve upon it.
Review from both client and your perception. Jot
down at least top 5 failure contributors and how you
can utilize the learning for the next engagement.
Facilitate client learning—that is, teaching clients
how to resolve similar problems in the future.
Always make it a point to get feedback from the
client on the performance of the engagement
delivery.
From user perspective and Business perspective the
client may provide insights, which we might not have
been aware of. This will be a guide map for us.
Take the feedback constructively at the face value,
being aggressive or defensive will only make it look
very unprofessional.
Look at ways to leverage the feedback - Client facing
teams always take the heat. Keep your superiors
informed well in advance on the next steps, to avoid
follow up emails.
These are few of my observations across years, that
can help deliver an engagement successfully.
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(*Image courtesy- Google, Shuttershock)
9. Lessons Learned 10. Leveraging Feedback