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The move to solution buying Author: Chris Vandersluis © 2004 Chris Vandersluis

I had a question for Bill Gates recently and, as luck would have it, I was with Bill and got to hear the answer. For those of you who joined me at the annual Microsoft Project Technical Briefing in Redmond Washington in June, you know that Mr. Gates spent over an hour with the group and dedicated over half that time to answering questions from the floor. It was a lot of fun particularly as there was no restriction on the kinds of questions that could be asked and people were genuinely interested in the answers that would come from the richest man in the world.

My question was this: "I hear more and more talk about Microsoft transforming into a 'solution selling organization'. The challenge I think is that if an organization is only about solution selling then they are destined to become primarily a service organization answering to the requests of its clients rather than innovating. How will Microsoft maintain its innovative nature in that kind of environment?"

It was a good question I think but before I could even ask it, the question was asked from a somewhat different angle from someone else in the room. Mr. Gates replied that Microsoft is first a software company, now, tomorrow and 5 years from now and that certainly answered the question for me. It got me thinking though. For those of us in the enterprise project management industry we spend so much of our time working with clients trying to sell them solutions that I wonder how much time we spend actually looking at the problems.

The most recent trend in our industry is towards the 'Business Analyst'. This is a role between the users and the technical side of systems or project management that is supposed to marry the needs of the client with the capabilities of the process and technology required to meet those needs. There's little wonder why the role is such a hot topic these days. Virtually everywhere I go I meet with clients who are asking for help in designing or implementing an enterprise project management environment but seem to already know how that environment should look, what features it should include, how it will be used and who should get access.

My typical question for prospective clients of our products or services is 'What problem are you trying to overcome?' Sometimes the response is 'we need you to install an enterprise project management system'. That's fine of course, but you know, that's a solution, not a problem. We spend far too little time considering what we are trying to accomplish with process and, even worse, technology change. If you think you should be in the market for an epm tool, I think you should start being a 'Solution Buyer'. This starts with defining what business challenge you're trying to overcome. We often work with a large white board when we're doing this exercise. We ask 'what business decision must you make in this area?' First answers are usually off the mark. 'We need a resource leveling report,' says someone. "No, a capacity planning report," calls out another. Left unchecked this quickly devolves to trying to figure out what the differences are between these reports and who should get to see it if we ever get it printed.

We guide the conversation back "What business decision will you make if you get that report," we ask. "We need to know if we should hire or lay-off," the reply might be.

That's a business challenge. We put that decision at the far right of the white board. "What information will you require to make that decision?" we ask. Now a capacity planning report sounds pretty good. Availability due to summer vacation might be another. Perhaps a cash flow report might be key. We put all the required elements to the left of the business decision and draw links. For each report we look at what analysis or system could provide it. These boxes go to the left of the report and finally at the very far left of the white board goes a space for what elements of data must be input to feed these analyses. Resource availability schedules and project assignment lists would come to mind.

It's not really rocket science; it's Business Analysis 101 and we don't do enough of it. But, if we did, I think we would meet vendors in a very different manner. "Here is our problem," we would say. "Do you have a solution for that?" It's an instant cold shower for vendors whose answer is no when the client is that clear.

The non-solution sellers will immediately launch into a great conversation of the features of their products and services. "But can you solve this problem?" you can ask. It brings instant clarity to a conversation that is already complex enough.

For those of us who really are solution sellers, it's a rare but exciting conversation when the client is crystal clear about what they need to accomplish. I can't begin to tell you how many Requests for Proposal we've had to answer where the document listed feature, after feature, after feature that our 'solution' had to deliver yet never identified what problem these features were to solve. When we would arrive to speak with the clients they often weren't able to articulate their problems themselves.

When prospective clients are clear about the business challenges they must overcome, there is very little focus on features at all. After all, there are probably many different methods of solving a particular problem and if we're just focused on doing that, we can be creative and suggest methods or processes or features that might never have been revealed otherwise.

There are many benefits to working this way. If you do so, the business processes you are concerned about will likely get more scrutiny and be reviewed in more detail than would have occurred otherwise. Sometimes, the scrutiny alone reveals changes that should be made that make an enormous difference to operational efficiency before you even get to the selection of tools.

At the very worst, you will have mapped out how these critical processes work and you will hear possible improvements from a variety of vendors each with a different approach on how to accomplish it. Once you move to deploy a system or a process change, all the work you've done to define issues in your process will come back to you with interest as you are able to more quickly work on improving the process and enrolling the various participants in how to do so.

It's the summer time of course, and many people use that time to update our systems and get ready with new tools for the busier fall season. If you're one of them, I encourage you strongly to become a solution buyer before the solution sellers find you.

For more information on this article or any aspect of project management software or systems contact the author, Chris Vandersluis or HMS Software at info@hmssoftware.ca or by phone at 514-695-8122.