A recipe for IT disaster?

I’ve just discovered a web service called CMyPitch. Among other things, they offer a Quick Quotes service. It’s dead easy – pick your category (eg Accountants or IT Services), answer a few simple questions, fill in your details and submit your request. They call you back to make sure you are genuine, have the budget to spend and so on, and then pass your details to up to 3 suppliers from their register. These suppliers then call you to get the details (I presume) and send you their quotes for the work.

My concerns include:

• You are only linked with 3 suppliers. This is because, in order to attract suppliers to their directory, CMyPitch guarantees not to put more than 3 of them in competition with each other for a quote. The information you supply is barely enough to pick a supplier, so how do CMyPitch decide which of their many suppliers should bid for your work?
• There’s little visible in the way of quality control of the suppliers. It appears that any supplier can register to buy leads from CMyPitch. There’s a rating system which can be used by any registered user of the site (presumably including the supplier themselves!).

Of course, there’s a chance that the process will work despite these limitations if the buyer has been diligent and written a set of requirements which they can then provide to the chosen suppliers. And if they insist on references from the suppliers. But will the kind of buyers who are attracted to something marketed as “Quick Quotes” be that diligent?

It would be in my interests to keep quiet about my concerns, as the ensuing IT disasters could keep me gainfully employed for years sorting them out!

My advice to anyone using the service would be to make sure you follow the steps outlined in a previous blog (“Buying the Right IT”), and just use CMyPitch to find some candidate suppliers, without feeling obliged to use one of the 3 they give you.

Planning to test what you buy

One of the advantages of writing down your requirements for a website or system is that you can then use that specification as the basis for testing what you’ve commissioned or bought.

For example, if your specification says “if a user makes an error when completing a form, the error shall be indicated to them clearly and none of the information they have already provided shall be lost”, then you can make sure you test this. It’s surprising how many web sites don’t respect their users and casually erase all the information they have just typed!

The specification can be used to create a test checklist, so that each item can be checked, ticked as ok or logged separately in a problem log to be sent to the supplier or developers. That way, you definitely reduce the chances of unpleasant surprises later on when web customers or your staff are using the system.

Rather than just test each item in isolation, it can be useful (and often illuminating) to create scenarios (or scripts) which you or others can test. For example, if you have commissioned an online shopping site, you may have scenarios to cover such things as:

• buying a single item, checking delivery options and altering quantities, before then abandoning the shopping cart
• buying more than one item, arranging for them to be delivered to a different address and paying by card
• finding out how to return an item and contacting customer service to complain about the quality of an item

This will let you see how well a series of actions work together. You can then tick off all the items in the testing checklist that performed as specified.

The more you spend & the more complex your new or updated system, the more time you’ll need to allow for testing in your plans. And it’s worth making sure that the contract you have with your developer ensures they have to fix everything before you accept the system or website and make the final payment.

It’s not just poor suppliers…

A recent article in Information Week examined how buyers of IT feel about their suppliers of IT. It was a mixed review with highs and lows, with buyers disappointed in suppliers who left them with unfulfilled promises and who used irresponsible practices. Salesmen who promised much and delivered less. Products that turned out to be less than a perfect match to the buyer’s requirements.

But not all the problems lie with the suppliers. As the article points out “When things don’t go well, tech buyers also deserve a chunk of the blame. They do a poor job communicating requirements. They fail to bring the right people to sales presentations and don’t ask the right questions. They don’t always allocate sufficient resources to deploy and operate products…”.

The absence of good requirements as a cause of IT failure (not merely disappointment) was underlined in 1995 by the Standish Group Report. They found that nearly a third of projects were cancelled before completion, and just over 50% of the projects cost almost double the original estimates.

Poor and changing requirements accounted for over a third of project failures. Add in requirements-related issues of unrealistic expectations or timescales and a lack of objectives, and together these are the primary causes of more than half of the IT failures described in the report.

Clearly the lessons from the Standish report still stand today – if you want to buy IT that delivers what you want, you first of all have to be very clear about what you want. (You also need to find good suppliers who are honest about what they can deliver, but at least you will have made a start!).

How to end up with the wrong IT

According to research, many owners of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) consider the prospect of investing in technology intimidating. It’s not surprising. Surveys show that anything from 30% to 60% of these investments fail to deliver on time or on budget, or fail to deliver the expected business results. This article describes how this happens – next time I’ll look at how to avoid disaster…

Three ways to guarantee disaster

1. don’t write down what you want – just chat to your chosen supplier, web developer or IT service provider and rely on them understanding what you need

2. ask your friend, neighbour, cousin, aunt or partner to build your system or web site, or to look after your IT network and computers – it’s so much easier, and you don’t have to go hunting for a supplier that you don’t know
 
3. don’t worry about protecting your business – a contract, particularly one that protects your intellectual property or which sets out deadlines and payment terms, would get in the way of a good relationship with your supplier
1. don’t think about your overall business – it’s simpler to buy the system or service you need just now to solve that particular problem, and worry about the rest later

2. don’t think about the people who will have to use your new system or web site – after all, you know best about your business and how it should operate

3. don’t set realistic objectives, dates or budgets for your investment – you want it as cheaply as possible and you need it “yesterday”

4. don’t keep tabs on your supplier – interrupting them with questions about progress or deliverables will only slow them down

Four ways to fail to achieve value for money

Next time… how to avoid these mistakes and make buying IT much more successful!