{"id":56,"date":"2009-05-06T06:38:28","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T13:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.psiwebware.com\/blog\/?p=56"},"modified":"2014-02-21T09:16:02","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T14:16:02","slug":"outsourcing-relationships-challenging-failure-part-3-of-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/cmms-software-7\/outsourcing-relationships-challenging-failure-part-3-of-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Research the Problems and Perceptions of Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Step 3: Research the Problems and Perceptions of Problems<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to your first meeting of your company\u2019s problem-solving team, do a little research to understand how the known issues affect your outsourcing relationship.\u00a0 Don\u2019t forget to look at the perceptions of those issues.<\/p>\n

Follow these steps:<\/p>\n

Schedule a series of meetings with the key people involved within your company to gather their views and opinions about the outsourced services.\u00a0 Before the meetings, create a list of questions that covers the key problem areas.\u00a0 This will not only give you information needed to address the issues, but it will also show your colleagues that you are taking constructive action to deal with the outsourcing issues.<\/p>\n

Analyze performance reports for the last 6 months to a year.\u00a0 You should look for trends of improvement or reduction in consistency and quality of service levels.\u00a0 Also note how many service targets have been missed and how frequently.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, your team has been tracking performance.\u00a0 Even if you only have paper records, it is important to spend the time and put this information into a spreadsheet for analysis.\u00a0 If you are using one of\u00a0the better\u00a0Janitorial Management Software<\/a> or Maintenance Management Software<\/a> systems to actively track performance every day, you should have quite a\u00a0bit of information available to help in your research.<\/p>\n

Identify a set of performance measurements that accurately reflect your improvement goals to address the perceived and actual outsourcing issues.<\/p>\n

Talk to your colleagues to see if they have experienced similar issues and see if they came up with a solution.\u00a0 Essentially learn from other people\u2019s mistakes.<\/p>\n

Compile all of your research into one report and have a group of colleagues in your company review it and confirm your conclusions.<\/p>\n

Step 4: Informal Discussions between the Client and Service Provider<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prepare a set of questions from what you learned during your research, which should be similar to the questions you asked your colleagues.<\/p>\n

Start with your main contact to review your set of questions.\u00a0 Your goal is to understand how your client (or service provider) perceives your relationship and where they think improvements could be made.<\/p>\n

Below are some guidelines to understand perceptions of performance:<\/p>\n

Are requirements clearly stated 100% of the time?<\/p>\n

Does each organization live up to its promises?\u00a0 Does each party get things done when promised and are the agreed actions completed up to performance standards?<\/p>\n

Are invoices paid on time?\u00a0 Are invoices dealt with promptly if disagreement about charges occurs?<\/p>\n

Are performance review meetings held?\u00a0 Are they well organized and constructive?<\/p>\n

Are problem escalation procedures followed?<\/p>\n

How is the overall outsourcing relationship rated?\u00a0 Do both parties have issues?\u00a0 What steps can be taken to come up with a compromise?<\/p>\n

The key here is to be open to the fact that you might not have as done a good of job as you thought.<\/p>\n

This is the stage where you need to listen, not to justify your actions.\u00a0 This is constructive criticism that you should pay attention to because your client (or service provider) is giving you direct feedback.\u00a0 If they aren\u2019t happy, then neither are you.<\/p>\n

In part 4, we will review steps 5 and 6 of Challenging Failure.\u00a0 Step 5 deals with developing proposals for remedial action.\u00a0 Step 6 covers agreeing on an action plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the stage where you need to listen, not to justify your actions. This is constructive criticism that you should pay attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[44,50],"tags":[6,4,7],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"psp_head":"Outsourcing Relationships Challenging Failure Part 3 \u2013 PSIwebware - Hometown of TAMS<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is the stage where you need to listen, not to justify your actions. This is constructive criticism that you should pay attention.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index,follow\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/cmms-software-7\/outsourcing-relationships-challenging-failure-part-3-of-6\/\" \/>\r\n","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ATPx-U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psiwebware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}