How to manage application with vendors effectively

One of my friends was asking me how to manage the vendor so that we have smooth operations and IT support without having major or minor hiccups in the vendor-buyer relationship and support process.

The approach and management of the vendor depends and changes based  on whether is it existing relationship or is it new contract and I am concentrating on the former in this blog. If it is existing relationship and vendor already supporting the systems, We need to plan very carefully as it involves understanding the existing systems, taboos, formal and informal communication systems, problems and solutions, team dynamics and need for improvements.

In order to manage the vendor relationship positively and effectively, I have divided this blog post in to five major areas to get the grip on the entire system and maintain the momentum.

1. Stake holders
2. Applications supported and sensitive application areas, previous issues, problems and solutions, organizational assets and processes (SLAs, Model templates and Communication channels),
3. Support planning
4. Execution
5. Monitoring and Controlling

Vendor management cannot be done in isolation without understanding details of the above five major areas. Let us look into the details of the each area.

1. Stakeholders:

What we need to know?

We need to identify the stakeholders and prepare the list of all the stake holders (both Internal and external). After finishing the identification of the stakeholders, classify these stake holders  based on their power, legitimacy and influence based on salience model described.

Understand the stakeholders’ needs in terms of their area of interest viz-a-viz application, reporting requirements, problem areas, previous escalations etc., Once we understand these details, we get sense of the overall user base, organizational structure, various stake holder, their needs and their priorities.

How do you get it? Tools and Techniques.

1. Conducting meetings
2. Reading available documents - organizational process assets.
3. Meeting/interviewing people personally.
4. Consult senior managers for help and feedback

Output:

1. List of all stakeholders.
2. Stakeholders' business needs.
3. Stakeholders' priorities.
4. Understanding of the reporting needs.
5. Classified list of Stakeholders - power, influence, who can help and who need information etc,
6. Application users,
7. List of vendors and the teams
8. Applications - vendors support  matrix

2. Support processes and the application

What we need to know?

Once you get the fair idea of the stake holders, their priorities and needs, the next step is to understand support process and the applications the organization is supporting. Find out the list of services, application areas, communication channels, escalation points, reporting formats and requirements, out of the office hours supporting mechanisms, terms and conditions in SLAs, on call support and costs, target requirements.

After understanding the support process, you would get an idea of the applications being supported, priority and sensitive areas of the services supported by the vendor, list of problems, implications and solutions.

How do you get it? Tools and Techniques.

1. Study the SLAs
2. Meet the users and browse through the applications
3. Guided application/s navigation
4. Organize user meetings
5. Study previous reports/formats
6. Stakeholder-Report matrix.
7. Vendor team and capability matrix

Output:

1. List of services and application supported by the vendor
2. Priority of the services/applications
3. Urgency/Importance of the services
4. Reports by the vendor
5. Reports by the business and to the business
6. Communication channels - formal and informal communication
7. Escalation process
8. Understanding the support system – Help desk, remedy, same time etc.

3. Support planning

It involves planning for all the activities that requires successful planning of all activities need to be done.

What we need to know?

Once we have the above list of supported applications, users and its matrix's, you plan for regular routine activities and new enhancements to support the system smoothly.  We need to identify daily routines such as any incidents/requests opened, priority, issue logs, check lists of support activities, weekly routines such as meetings, status reports and monthly routines and so on and clear plan of action for the routines and change request which are result of bugs. For example, If we get new enhancement who will approve it, time taken for change implementation, go live etc.

How do you get it? Tools and Techniques.

We need to take all the outputs from the previous process and analyze, prepare lists of routine activities of daily, monthly nature and ad-hoc activities. Prepare list of reports and formats and users of these reports. If you get any doubt, go back to the previous steps and repeat it until clear idea of the planning. Discuss with the senior mangers of the planning process and get inputs from them and modify your plan.

Meet the vendor team and understand the work culture, abilities,team structure and reporting organization. This will help you in understanding the team dynamics and abilities of the vendor team and results in better estimation of the work load and planning.

Output:

You have the clear plan of what are all the things you need to do regularly

1. List of daily , weekly activities and monthly activities
2. Change control process and implementation
3. Reports and reviews plans and formats
4. Vender reports and meetings and its frequency
5. Issue logs and regular updates to issue logs.

4. Execution

This stage involves performing all activities we have planed in the previous step.

What we need to know?

We need to work with the Vendor/the team and business users to provide the good support regularly. We need to have constant look at the issue logs, all routine activities and report to the business users periodically and incorporate the changes into the plan/process. We also need to send and get reports from vendors regarding the status of the incidents and enhancement requests and verify the same..

How do you get it? Tools and Techniques.

1. Always well inform the vendor on the priorities and issues.
2. Inform the vendor on business implications
3. Use effective communication channels such as phone calls / meetings/Personal visits
4. Regularly report the issue status and have the live issue log
5. Regular follow up
6. Share metrics with the users and vendors.
7. Root cause analysis

Output:

1. Status of the support and enhancement
2. Problems faced by business and vendors – related to technical/business
3. Performance against the targets
4. Issues which need to planning
5. Feedback from the existing systems and processes.
6. New changes and planning
7. Incident patterns
8. root cause

5. Monitoring and Controlling

It involves looking into the processes which are planed and executed for smooth support process are running/ working properly and correcting activities which are not as per the plan/not able to achieve desired output so that we are back on track to have good customer satisfaction.

What we need to know?

we need to measure the performance against the the plan and take corrective actions. To do this we need to do the below activities.

1. Progress against the plan
2. List of activities and its percentage completion
3. Process and plan revisions
4. Status of the tickets

How do you get it? Tools and Techniques.

1. Have the reports and verify it. Ensure things are as per the plan. Information is correct and accurate.
2. Issue logs and status
3. Metrics analysis and plan for the resolutions for it
4. Have regular formal and informal meetings, feedback.
5. Surveys with internal and external stakeholders and action plans
6. Earned value metrics for enhancements/major changes
7. Status meetings

Output:

1. Changes to the plans and activities
2. Changes to the support system
3. Plan for the new changes
4. Improved reporting systems
5. Enhanced customer satisfaction.
6. feedback to the vendor