cc foundation courses - simulation and launch, the launch phase november 1998private &...

CC Foundation Courses - Simulation and Launch, The Launch PhaseNovember 1998 Private & Confidential

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Welcome to the Welcome to the Comms Centre Foundation Comms Centre Foundation

CoursesCoursesfor managersfor managers

6. Simulation and launchModule 6.2 – The launch

phase

Version 2Version 2


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Objectives of the session

• By the end of this session you will:– have an overview of what the launch of a new

operation entails– have an understanding of the typical issues that

will arise during the launch phase and the most appropriate areas of focus in response to these


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Objectives of the session (contd)

• What would you like…– to discuss during this session?– clarify or resolve during this session?– to gain as a result of attending this session?


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Format for the session

• When does the launch phase happen?• Go live - what happens?• What is the nature of the launch phase?• Go live and launch phases - what will they require

from you as a manager?• A practical exercise• Launch phase issues and areas of focus• Do’s and don’ts• AccreditationAppendices• More do’s and don’ts• Supporting documentation


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When does the launch phase happen?

• The lifecycle of a long-term operation

Simulation

Training

Go live

Development phase

Briefing

Launch

phase

Consolidation phase

Strand design and setup

(incl user acceptance)


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When does the launch phase happen? (contd)

• ‘Go live’:– the short period immediately after the team start

making or receiving ‘live’ customer telephone calls for the first time

– this period is measured in days rather than weeks


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When does the launch phase happen? (contd)

• Launch:– the phase immediately after ‘go live’– it lasts until the operation has reached an

acceptable degree of stability, particularly in the areas of:» client relationship» people» technology» interfaces» back office

– this may take 6 months to achieve


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Go live - what happens?

• The first opportunity to see how real customers respond to contact with the operation and the service provided by it

• The first opportunity to see how the client’s organisation responds to the operation’s existence

• All members of the team are in a rapid and steep learning curve, including the managers

• The pace of change and development is hourly rather than daily


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Go live - what happens? (contd)

• The degree of ease with which the operation will achieve its SLAs, KPIs, goals and targets starts to become apparent

• Acceptable timeframes within which the operation will ‘find its feet’ are established

• It is totally unpredictable, the most unstable phase of the contract

• Likely to involve razzmatazz, PR opportunities and client visits at a time when you feel leastready for them


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What is the nature of the launch phase?

• The period in which the operation ‘finds its feet’, as instability lessens over time

• Everybody is still on a steep learning curve, which slows down towards the end of this phase

• Enormous amounts of troubleshooting and corrective action will be required initially, lessening over time

• Change and development occurs at a daily and weekly pace


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What is the nature of the launch phase? (contd)

• Strong bonds and relationships form within the team

• Many of the team members may initially be in their probationary period and will have their probationary review approximately three months into the launch phase

• The culture of the operation is ‘bedded in’• The ‘honeymoon period’ ends between

you and your client and you and your team members


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Go live and launch phases - what will they require from you as a

manager?

• Over to you...


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manager? (contd)

• Focus on expectation management in relation to client, all operation team members, project manager, managing consultant, CC management team

• Active acknowledgement and encouragement of what is working (maintaining a balanced perspective for all)

• Honesty about what is still being worked on - your operation is ‘a work in progress’ (AKA in Merchants jargon: a BWO) throughout this phase

• Management of change bit by bit(AKA in Merchants jargon: ‘bite sized chunks’ rather than ‘the whole elephant!’)


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manager? (contd)

• Concentration on stabilising the operation before adding new functions

• Pacing of yourself, your team and your client• Maintenance of calm and order despite a

feeling of being ‘out of control’, ie the swan concept - you may be paddling madly under the water but on the surface you appear serene

• Maintain attention on developing the required culture - without this direction the team will simply ‘evolve’ and teams left to their own devices tend not to choose the path of highest standards and greatest challenge


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manager? (contd)

• ‘Sleeves rolled up’ involvement from all members of the operational management team

• Huge amounts of patience - you may find yourself explaining things more than once to clients and team members• An acceptance that you will make

mistakes and a willingness to have other people know about them, including your team members

• A sense of humour!


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A practical exercise

• The scenario– you are one of a team of operations managers– your operation went live three weeks ago

• The exercise– get into 5 groups, one for each of the key areas of

management during the launch phase:» client relationship» people (teams and managers)» technology (IT, telecomms, on-line)» interfaces (between teams and with client

departments)» back office


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A practical exercise (contd)

– identify between you the most pressing issues that you are likely to be facing in this area on any operation (a minimum of four and a maximum of ten)

– decide as a team how you are going to address them– present your issues and solutions to the larger group


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Notes


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Notes


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Notes


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Launch phase areas of focus - client

Typical issues • High expectations from senior management,

subsequent pressure on client project manager for the operation to work smoothly from the outset

• Nervousness and apparently irrational demands from client contacts responsible to their organisation for the success of the operation

• Expectations of perfection, given Merchants are ‘the experts’

• Client onsite in early days, causing tension and fear of mistakes amongst team members and managers


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Launch phase areas of focus - client (contd)

• Focus – a lot of client contact, focused on reassurance, education

and explanation– expectation management regarding:

» by when SLAs and KPIs are likely to be achieved» timescales of development and stability» which areas are the most difficult to get right» the nature and pace of the learning curve for a new Comms

Centre team» management focus and activity » production of deliverables

– appropriate and regular review sessions– maintaining control of PR activities and client visits to

ensure that the launch is not a ‘free for all’, whilst appropriate visitors are also welcomed and their visits are orchestrated


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Launch phase areas of focus - people

• Includes:– skills– attitudes– capacity plans– management


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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• Typical issues:– according to call volumes, boredom or overwhelm

in the telephone and administration teams– a dropping back into old habits and/or a drop in

standards– further gaps in understanding and know-how come

to light– incomplete implementation of the briefs given


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– analysis of MIS and associated troubleshooting becomes de-prioritised rather than a proactively used management tool, whilst managers fire-fight other areas

– coaching and measurement of skills appears a luxury and is not fully implemented

– insufficient time from the Training Development Advisor is booked in advance, therefore coaching is not fully implemented

– inexperience causes mistakes– desperation to ‘get it right’ causes stress, especially

when mistakes happen– managers are unsure about what to prioritise and action

first– managers get snappy and withdraw from the team into

their Macs or into meetings


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– everything goes well but there is an ‘anti-climax’ because it is not challenging enough, or is different from expectations

– team members enjoy the excitement of the go live and launch phases and lose interest at the point when the operation goes into the consolidation phase


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• Focus– maintenance of regularity and quality of team

interactions, including for the managers, despite pressures of work

– active maintenance of open channels of communication, both horizontally and vertically in the hierarchy

– floor-walking and coaching by managers– review and reinforcement of adherence to briefs,

processes and checklists– maintenance of agreed work routines, to include

analysis of MIS and resulting troubleshooting– emphasis on understanding the causes of mistakes,

solving and preventing them for the future, rather than on personal blame


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– provision of further product or script training as required to ensure team members are happy on ‘what’ they are talking about, before emphasis can be increased on ‘how’ they are talking

– ongoing development of communication skills and team understanding of the business requirements

– quality control, quality control, quality control– circulation of information, especially the positive– involvement of team members in individual and

team troubleshooting from the outset– managers fulfilling their roles as described in their

job descriptions, troubleshooting any additional requirements - do they highlight a need for change control?


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– regular management meetings, starting with a ‘download’ and ‘flight’ (eg humour and a ‘share’ of personal experiences) before moving onto business

– no compromise by managers around agreed ground rules , working practices and quality standards, despite the pressures of work and focus on achieving SLAs and KPIs

– active encouragement by managers for team members to take on additional responsibilities and become self-managing

– requests for outside input for managers if necessary, eg from project manager, managing consultant, CC management

– encouragement of team spirit, sense of (trench) humour, focus on the vision, long-term objectives and ‘bigger picture’


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Launch phase areas of focus - IT and telecomms

• Includes:– database– telecomms– on-line systems– MIS– business processes


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Launch phase areas of focus - IT and telecomms (contd)

• Typical issues:– ad hoc requests for changes to the database from

clients once they understand more of what is possible from having a Comms Centre operation and get more and more inspired

– growth in MIS requirements resulting in mushrooming of Excel-based reporting

– requests for changes to the database from TCs once they get used to their roles

– discovery of further bugs in the system not identified during user acceptance testing or simulation

– problems with on-line systems that were not identified during user acceptance testing or simulation


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– call or data volumes being higher than expected, causing the systems to slow down

– mistakes made by team members in using the technology, eg incorrect selection of call results on the database or work codes on the ACD turret

– the processes developed are found to be insufficiently robust and/or efficient and therefore need changing, with a knock-on effect on the technology supporting the operation

– over time the operation’s requirements outgrow the original IT and telecomms systems provided


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• Focus– management of client expectations about the

lifetime of the database as the operation develops– maintaining usefulness and user friendliness of MIS– recommendations to clients regarding changes

proposed by the team or by ADT, eg in order to simplify and increase effectiveness of MIS

– adherence to internal IT change control procedures– implementation of external change control

procedures– vigilance regarding accuracy of team use of the

systems provided– retraining as and when necessary


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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces

• Includes:– between teams within the operation– with (other) client company

departments and offices


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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces (contd)

• Typical issues– telephone teams not responding to administration

team feedback and/or doing things that increase the difficulty of the administration team’s job

– administration teams either being rather heavy and critical in their feedback to telephone teams or the opposite, compromising through fear of confrontation

– administration team being treated like, or seeing themselves as, second class citizens in relation to the telephone team

– processes supporting the interfaces are found to be insufficiently robust or efficient and therefore need changing


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– existing client teams overwhelmed by the demand from the operation eg if supplying administrative back-up or taking escalated calls, animosity from client department members or managers who feel threatened or ‘put upon’ by the operation

– apparent apathy and/or lack of customer focus from client department members or managers

– client departments generating problems that are absorbed by the operation, eg complaint calls or repeated calls when the promised follow through from the client company does not happen


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– client company managers or staff attempting to off-load work and responsibilities onto the operation, eg referring customers to call the Merchants operation instead of looking after the customers themselves

– client company managers requesting add-on pieces of work that are outside the brief

– cynicism from the operation teams about the client company because of a difference in standards, skill and approach between themselves and the client team/s

– greater efficiency in the client company, eg a well established department, than in the Merchants operation, therefore pressure to ‘catch up’


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• Focus– treating telephone and administration teams equally– facilitation of ‘horizontal’ feedback and ‘taking it to the

source’ both on an individual and team level– briefing the teams not to react to or demonstrate

antipathy in relation to client team members– providing safe opportunities for team members to

download frustrations in relation to client departments– measurement of the impact of limitations in client

departments on the effectiveness and productivity of the operation

– active provision of information, advice and recommendations to the client company about shortfalls in their departments, focused on customer service


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– management of team member expectations in relation to the speed at which client companies are able to change and address issues

– circulation of information regarding what is being done to address issues

– building relationships, ‘building bridges’, education, explanation and honesty in response to the client, backed by prioritisation of focus areas in order to quickly be perceived as ‘catching up’

– escalation of client-department issues to the project manager if they cannot be resolved at an operational level


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Launch phase areas of focus - ‘back office’

• Includes:– quality control– fulfilment of customer documentation

eg information requests, letters and call record sheets

– circulation of information


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Launch phase areas of focus - ‘back office’ (contd)

• Typical issues:– quality controllers are slow at the beginning of their learning curve

whilst the telephone team are also making the most mistakes, backlogs form as a result and client letters or call records are delayed

– gaps in processes and procedures are identified as a result of troubleshooting

– once the operation is at full pace the volume of fulfilment is greater than was anticipated or tested during simulation, administrators fall behind and backlogs form

– the administration requirements mushroom through ongoing ‘small’ requests from the client, resulting in overwhelm and backlogs in the administration team


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• Focus– QCing the QCing– management of administration team to stay within their brief– training of administration team in practical time management

skills eg maintenance of accurate timesheets– regular reviews of what they spend their time on and how

long each job takes, proactive troubleshooting on these areas– implementation of change control procedures and, if a very

small change is agreed outside of the change control process, quantification to the client of what that has required, logging of this for the audit trail

– regular meetings and troubleshooting with the administration team


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– rapid corrective action in relation to improving quality of work by telephone team

– ongoing simplification of processes and procedures– if necessary, education of, explanation to and re-

negotiation with, the client in relation to administration requirements and resources


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Do’s and don’ts

• Do warn the client in advance that the business model may not have taken the learning curve into account and therefore that the team may not achieve KPIs and SLAs on the first day (and then again, they may do!)

• Avoid having your most senior client on site on the first day, or your client project manager on site ‘hovering’ and looking over people’s shoulders

• After the initial stages of ‘go live’ and launch, don’t allow your teams to think that they have ‘cracked it’ eg by discontinuing trainings and meetings - there is always something else to learn or improve upon and this is necessary to prevent complacency and boredom


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Do’s and don’ts (contd)

• The events of the initial phase of the contract often set the tone for the future - start as you mean to go on

• Start communicating with the team early - do not leave it for a week

• Look after yourself in small ways out of work - the launch phase involves major change and large degrees of pressure as well as excitement and challenges - ensure you indulge in rest and recreation so that your batteries are charged


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Accreditation

Training

papers

• Nature of accreditation: short written paper• Completion time: within a month of training

attendance (unless reagreed in advance, by E-mail, with the trainer)

• Please find the format for this paper on the Knowledge Library (see supporting documentation slide for instructions on how to find it). The document will be named 3.7/SWP/ACC/date

• Please complete the paper on soft copy, insert your full initials in place of the date in the document name (for logging and filing purposes) and then E-mail it to the training programme co-ordinator

• Your marked paper will be returned to you via the internal post/E-mail

• Good luck!


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Appendices

• More do’s and don’ts• Supporting documentation


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More do’s and don’ts

• Avoid the disappearance of Managing Consultants, Project Managers and senior Operations Managers once any initial panic is over - this causes teams to feel that they are not valued - some degree of regular and ad hoc contact should be maintained

• Avoid the disappearance of Operations Managers into their Macs once any initial panic is over - teams can get either lazy or cynical if they believe that you do not know or care what they are doing

• Keep the Project Manager and Managing Consultant up-to-date during this period - their expectations also need managing and they may be able to help with client management during this phase


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More do’s and don’ts (contd)

• Avoid working all hours because there is so much to do - take a step back, look objectively for the root causes, prioritise as a management team, share tasks

• Don’t pretend all is well to the team even when it seriously is not - although it may not work for them to see you ‘warts and all’ and in a total panic, a dose of reality will mean that they are more able to help you troubleshoot and take the most effective action, they will also learn a lot in the process


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More do’s and don’ts (contd)

• Get the client’s and Merchants’ PR departments involved in the launch once you are out of the ‘go live’ period

• If you have doubts about a team member act on them immediately, whether it is regarding their skills, aptitude or attitude

• Ask for help and support if you need it• Agree targets with your client for the ‘go live’

period which are lower than the overall SLAs and KPIs


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Supporting documentation

• All information related to this module will be found on the Knowledge Library as follows:

Comms Centre Foundation- 6. Simulation and launch

- Training materials- Reference materials- Example best practice- Blank templates- Accreditations

• The reference code for this module is 6.2

cc foundation courses - simulation and launch, the launch phase november 1998private &...

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