Company R is a manufacturer of automatic control systems, specializing in the development and production of core control components for food packaging production lines. When the company was just starting out, there was a single type of product and a small number of customers, so the whole process from R&D, design, production, manufacturing to on-site installation and commissioning work was done by their own people.
In the blink of an eye, R company has been established for almost 20 years, not only to realize the product series, customers have also been throughout most of the provinces in the country, the annual sales in the industry in the forefront.
Although the company's staffing than the beginning of the establishment has been expanded several times, but compared to the growth of the market scale, there is still a shortage of resources. In particular, the work of on-site installation and commissioning, relying on their own people to complete has been unable to meet the needs of customers. After the management discussion, it was decided to introduce an outsourcing team to solve the contradiction between the limited resources and the expanding market.
Cao Bo is the project manager of R's engineering department. In order to do a good job of managing the outsourcing team, the leadership asked him to draft an outsourcing management evaluation system for the engineering site.
Cao Bo learned that the current cooperation between the company and the outsourcing team adopts a similar personnel leasing approach. By the engineering department through the tender, select the long-term cooperation of the outsourcing team, according to the specific content of the outsourcing project, the outsourcing team to send the construction team to arrive at the customer site for the installation of equipment and debugging work, until the system through the initial inspection. During the construction period, the outsourcing team's on-site personnel's salary is paid by Company R, according to the personnel's on-site time reimbursement.
Because of the "contract labor" approach, the biggest problem Cao Bo faced was how to develop a reasonable performance appraisal method, which allowed the outsourcing team to work as efficiently as possible on-site, thereby effectively reducing the cost of human resources.
He once proposed that 30% of the outsourced team's on-site personnel salary be used as performance, which was linked to the scoring of specific on-site performance. But this approach was opposed by the outsourced teams. They took it for granted that their own employees were paid what they deserved, unless there was a separate additional cost, and did not agree with using salary as performance.
In addition, on-site appraisal scoring was difficult to implement. Although there is a person in charge of the on-site team, there is no way to ensure that the appraisal scoring is objective and accurate, because R's engineering department has very limited staff and is unable to supervise the outsourced staff on-site throughout the process.
Cao Bo is very distressed, the outsourcing team should be how to monitor, assessment?
Scenario Analysis
In complex project work, external procurement of products and services is becoming increasingly common. This type of contract-based cross-organizational cooperation does bring greater challenges to the management of projects. How can project managers do a better job of monitoring and controlling their outsourcing teams while managing their own teams?
First of all, it should be clear that outsourcing is not the same as dumping. From the perspective of risk management, the risk of work activities to a third party to perform, belonging to the "transfer risk" strategy: the risk itself, along with the consequences of risk, the impact of the transfer out of their own do not have to face those potential risks.
But "transferring" is not the same as doing nothing about the work. While it is true that the technical aspects of the activities are done by the outsourced team, if the project manager gives up the responsibility of managing them, the likelihood of future risks remains the same.
One might argue that since it is outsourced, there must be a contract. You can use the penalty clause in the contract to bind the outsourcing team ah! Indeed, any standardized contract text are less for the violation of the contract agreed upon behavior, the consequences of the provisions of the penalty.
However, if it really comes to the time to use the penalty, the harm has often already occurred! This kind of after-the-fact remedial penalties for the project work itself, and even the achievement of project goals usually have a negative impact. Therefore, the management of the part of the work undertaken by the outsourcing team can not be ignored, or even abandoned.
How does the project manager manage the outsourcing team?
Ensure that work requirements and specifications are delivered in a timely and accurate manner
Often, the scope of the outsourced work is clear. What the outsourcing team should and shouldn't do should, in theory, be well documented and clear in the form of contractual terms and conditions.
For the kind of outsourcing project with clear requirements, it can be signed as a fixed-price contract; if it is the kind of work whose scope is difficult to be strictly defined in advance, such as software outsourcing projects, it can also be used as a cost-reimbursement type of contract, that is, there will be a framework contract first, and then the final settlement will be made on the basis of the amount of work that occurs in the end.
However, regardless of the form of contract, the standard of work completion, that is, the objective basis for measuring the completion of the outsourcing team's work, must be sufficient and clear. Standing in the perspective of related party analysis, the outsourcing team is characterized by a small power, but the interests of the impact of a large.
In other words, as party B with limited power, the outsourcing team undertakes outsourcing work for the purpose of obtaining the necessary benefits. Therefore, they have the subjective willingness to proactively complete the work in order to get the appropriate benefits in a timely manner.
The project manager has to ensure that the relevant information transfer with the outsourcing team is timely and accurate. The project manager should arrange for identified team members to act as the interface with the outsourcing team and be responsible for the first time to understand the outsourcing work status, convey the work requirements, and reply to the outsourcing team's questions. This is especially true when there are new requirements, when new work standards emerge, and especially when changes occur that are inconsistent with the terms of the contract.
Only by ensuring that work requirements and specifications are communicated in a timely and accurate manner can the outsourcing team have a clear idea of how the work should be done to meet the needs. Otherwise, unclear standards, uncertain requirements, and the need to rework work that has already been completed will not only impede the normal progress of the project work, but will also seriously affect the morale of the outsourcing team and undermine the cooperative relationship between the two parties.
Provide support
For the part of the work that has been outsourced, the project team should also do a close communication, timely understanding of the problems encountered by the outsourcing team, and proactively provide the necessary support and assistance.
Although the relationship between the project team and the outsourcing team is that of party A and party B, when facing the customer, it should be treated as a whole. In the specific work, does not involve the terms of the contract, does not involve the legal responsibility of the case, both sides should support each other, cooperate with each other, the so-called "responsibility to be clear, the interface to be fuzzy.
Typical cases, such as customer relationship coordination, individual technical issues with the solution, within a reasonable range of specific tools, the use of vehicles, the project team's ability to support the smooth progress of outsourcing work, often can play a significant role in promoting.
More importantly, this helps to break the traditionally cold relationship between the project team and the outsourcing team into a mutually supportive, benefit***sharing, and more connected partnership.
Strict assessment
As mentioned earlier, even if the work is outsourced, the project manager can not have the idea of dumping the burden, and can not rely solely on the contractual penalty clause to restrain the behavior of the outsourcing team. As with managing your own team, job performance cannot be improved without rigorous and reasonable assessment.
Generally speaking, the evaluation and measurement of the outsourcing team's work completion include both technical and performance aspects. The evaluation criteria of the technical aspects are usually easier to quantify, combined with the corresponding technical indicators and management requirements agreed in the contract, such as progress, scope, quality, etc., to get a clearer and clearer quantitative standards.
The evaluation of performance is mostly subjective in nature, such as customer satisfaction, compliance with specific behavioral norms at work, and the timeliness and effectiveness of information feedback and problem handling. For these common evaluation indicators, to obtain timely and accurate information, the project manager can take a regular or irregular site inspection and customer feedback combined approach.
As the saying goes, hearing is believing. Project managers in the management of the outsourcing team, can not just listen to the report, look at the mail, must be arranged to team members on the site of the work situation for the most intuitive check. In particular, irregular site visits, in addition to allowing the project manager to grasp the real state of the outsourcing project in the first time, but also an opportunity to communicate with the outsourcing team face to face, which also helps to identify problems and solve them in a timely manner.
In addition, through the on-site customer visits, the project manager can also understand the outsourcing team more, more real on-site work status and performance. This kind of multi-angle, all-round supervision can give the outsourcing team to bring some pressure, and then play a role in standardizing and restricting the work behavior.
As for the outsourcing team assessment needs to be introduced in the necessary incentives, penalties, in the contract does not violate the relevant provisions of the basis, should be confirmed by the two sides by the *** with the negotiation, and in the implementation of the project during the implementation of strict implementation. Reasonable incentives and penalties mechanism is also the most direct and effective means of managing the outsourcing team.
Although the work is outsourced, but the outsourcing work, outsourcing team management responsibility is still borne by the project manager and the team. Only through the strict supervision of the whole process can ensure that the project work is carried out in a standardized manner, which also helps to optimize and enhance the level of cooperation between the two sides, and establish a more secure partnership.
Scenario review
1. Outsourcing is not the same as dumping the work, but the project manager and the team have to bear the responsibility of monitoring the whole process.
2. To ensure that the work requirements, specifications, timely and accurate delivery, so that the outsourcing team clearly know how to carry out the work.
3. To maintain close communication with the outsourcing team, understand the problems they encounter in a timely manner, and proactively provide the necessary support and assistance.
4. Strict assessment, taking the combination of on-site inspection and customer feedback, the specific rewards and punishments mechanism is determined by mutual agreement.