Category: Customer Success

When does a paid discovery project make sense?

In a past post I referred to some podcasts on value, value pricing and software development. Michael had a few questions about the podcast. These are deep questions so I thought it would be fun to answer them in a video format where I can talk through the considerations and my response.

The first question from Michael:

How and when do you recommend charging for a value conversation like in a payed discovery phase?

I am afraid that in the beginning with little practice, conversations digging for the value will lead to repeated long meetings (noooo!) and potentially a big loss of time/money. Sure qualification of prospects is a key factor but still I feel that DISCORVERING the value brings a lot of value in itself for the prospect.

Here’s my response:

The irony in reducing cost

I’ve never read a book about RFPs (requests for proposals), at least not that I remember, and I don’t think it would ever be worth it to read a book about RFPs. Judging by just about every RFP I’ve ever seen, most of the books must advise people to create excessive check lists of the things they want done. The…

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Visceral reactions

At least once a week, we all have something come across our inbox (whether a voice mail, text message, email or otherwise) that triggers a visceral reaction. The reaction could lead to responding in ways that will not only be unproductive, but could make us regretful. The trick is to find a way to put enough space between the initial…

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Stop solving problems

Businesses constantly talk about things they want to be doing, people do this too. I refer to these as potential projects, perhaps it would be better to think of them as prospective investments. Occasionally organizations and individuals are thoughtful enough to at least identify a problem they would like to solve. But that’s usually the extent of justifying why the…

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How a team can develop its responsibility

I had a great question come up in the comments of my post about how Handoff erodes trust: You have a team of developers, and a large project, and you need to break up responsibility. Instead of a “hand-off” strategy for development, does each developer take responsibility for a set of features beginning-to-end? Are there other alternatives? Even if you…

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Handoff erodes trust

When work is partitioned into intermediate results, results that may or may not lead to a desired outcome, responsibility fractures. In a chain of intermediate results, individuals do their part, like working an assembly line to produce a desired outcome. When the desired outcome involves the application of knowledge in a creative fashion, quality is no longer objective. The work…

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Budgeting should follow, not lead

Most organizations are ensconced with the specious practice of budgeting. It works well as a means to estimate costs and allocate money to make sure costs are covered. In addition to estimating costs, budgeting is often the means by which capital is allocated for potential investments. Often, budgets are established on a yearly basis and capped. Individuals or groups within…

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Coalesce Responsibility

One technique to establish an environment of direct responsibility is for an individual to absorb responsibility with a focus on absorbing responsibility that’s involved in establishing customer needs through to delivering customer results. But it’s not always possible for one individual to do all the work necessary. There often are many skills involved in doing the work to translate customer…

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Absorb Responsibility

Direct responsibility affords effectiveness instead of the elusive efficiency gains supposed in slicing and dicing responsibility. But, when bureaucracy slices and dices responsibility into many intermediate pieces, it can be difficult for those at the bottom of the ranks to affect change. It would seem that changing the slicing and dicing would require buy in from the top. While establishing…

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