JD Edwards ERP Projects: Avoid Costly Proposal Mistakes

So let's maybe go into a little bit of how communicate this, Let's make it a little practical, save that a proposal in front of me. What red flags should I be standing for? Yeah. So if it's a larger statement of work, you know, this doesn't always apply to let's say if you're doing maybe a 20 hour statement of work to build an orchestration for a specific process. The time frames and the kind of the hours allocated to the various weeks, months of that statement of work is a good area you can look at closely to understand if this professional services organization is really taking into account all the factors. You know is if they're really looking into and scrutinizing and really being detail oriented around their statement of work, that's a really good place to look. If they have kind of really standard metrics, you know, this week is going to be user acceptance testing or this week is going to be discovery or this week is going to be you know, when we actually implement the solution. The more vague the terminology, especially related to the timeline, the more you should be asking questions.

The same goes for the overall deliverable section. You know, in many statements of work there is a services to be provided section and sometimes those sections are really, really detailed and they go into, you know, a lot of description of what exactly we're going to provide when we deliver on this project. That's a good sign. You want those statements of work to be lengthy, to be detailed. And if they're not, if they're really vague, you should be asking questions around why we think we can hit a specific gold timeline or, or a specific budget that you and your company have set for a project like this. You know, typically, unless it's a really, really vague time and materials that you don't know really what is required and we don't know what is required. And we have that mutual understanding that you know what this one's going to be time and materials and, and we'll keep you abreast of the situation, but we're going to have to, we're going to have to play this one by ear a little bit. If it's not a a project like that, I would really ask lots of questions around the deliverables, the services section, the services out of scope section, because that should also be very detailed is what we won't be doing in this project and what you or your team would be accountable for providing along with that, you know, required resources or another really good area I've seen is the assumptions clause. This is what we assume based on what we've talked to you and your team about. If those assumptions are incorrect or off base, you should correct them. It will only affect both parties negatively if our assumptions and our understanding of scope is incorrect.

Right. And to maybe backtrack a little bit of if you do see one of those vague ish where there is that understanding, but that would really open the door for maybe a change order. So what would a strong change order policy look like in how can you maybe spot a weak one? Yeah. So a strong change order policy is typically in the form of a a group of sections, but also a disclaimer. And in many cases there are disclaimers in these statements of work that will say something along the lines of, and I'm paraphrasing, you know this is our current understanding. We have given you the statement of work based on the information provided and perhaps even the history, the customer history if it's a recurring clients from a consulting firm standpoint. And then it is really outlined in a detailed services to be provided or maybe another way to phrase that section and then services that are out of scope section.

So to cover the consulting firm, typically they will say this is our understanding of scope. We're going to be providing these services. It's going to take us around this amount of time that breaks down typically into a number of hours or in some cases, if it's outside of the United States, days use day rates in a lot of cases. And then this is what's out of scope. This is what you and your organization are going to be entitled to provide. And then in the services to be provided, you know, break it down. This is what we want to get in the initial discovery phase because in many cases there's a, there's an additional discovery or an assessment that happens after the statement of work. Then we put together our plan of action. Then we build and we deploy this solution or we go through and we implement this upgrade and then we account for the retro state. And then we go through user acceptance testing and then we provide documentation and then there's a really extensive deliverable section. So really what you're looking for is detail and it's in the assumptions clause. You are looking at some things that you didn't know that you provided or perhaps even someone else in your organization may have provided that could be incorrect. It's really important for you and your company to really. Read that top to bottom, start to finish. Understand what you are going to be accountable for and what you are not. Understand what your resource is and your resource requirements are going to be. And then if it's really, really vague for a really complicated project, I would review it and then maybe ask for more specific terminology in there to protect both you and the consulting firm. Because the last thing you want is to budget a project for you to get excited and for you to be happy that you're coming in under budget. And then 2/3 of the way through it, you and the consulting firm are now at odds because they've come back to you and said, hey, we're way over budget on this. We have, you know, we've got, you know, 20% more hours already than we proposed for the entire project. And we're in week 30 out of 50. So it, it's worth your time to read into that and make sure you understand everything that's being said. If you don't understand what's being stated in that statement of work or, or in that MSA ask, you know, it's, it's kind of like no, no good consulting firm will be upset that you're asking questions about it. It's just a part of the, it's a part of the process and, and we account for it in time and, and we're happy to do it. You know, as an account executive, if there are questions that I can't answer, I can bring in an additional resource that can. So never be afraid to ask.

So are there signs that a vendor is intentionally vague to say, flexible or is it worse? It's like profit later? It really depends on how open the dialogue is between you and the customer. If there's really open dialogue, it's a mutual understanding that you know, we know that there's a problem here. We do not know the root cause because really a litany of different reasons. It can be that the customer doesn't know where to find the root cause and therefore can't share that with the consulting firm or professional services firm. It can be because it's just a, it's a new problem and, and you know, maybe a lot of companies are experiencing it. No one's really figured out how to resolve it. And there's going to be a certain amount of digging and sleuthing, I guess, to get to the root cause of that problem. Really what you want to look for is how open is the dialogue and really as a consulting firm employee, the customers that I work with best are the ones that are the most honest and upfront with me. You know, we're, we're not here to spread your information. We typically have Mndas signed anyway. If that that were something that we wanted to do, we wouldn't be able to do it legally. Although it's not really the lack of information sharing is where I see these things go sideways. Now, the opposite end of this is I have seen really big statements of work. I've seen them done by really savvy organizations that do it maliciously and and intentionally. Again, not in the JD Edwards space. I've yet to see that, which is a good thing.

But then there are just vague statements of work because perhaps the consulting firm is young, you know, it's not as well established, there aren't as many employees. Maybe they're early in their lifespan as a consulting firm and maybe the CEOS writing statements of work. And he's also doing a lot of the legal stuff. And then they're also, you know, going through and and doing marketing and sales. So, you know, they just don't have the time to devote to a really thorough statement of work. But I think it really all depends on if it passes the smell test. If you as a customer read through that statement of work, you find it to be very vague for a project that's fairly complicated, you know, in the to the tune of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. And you ask them to elaborate on specific subsections or maybe add specific detail to a, a section of a, a statement of work or a contract. And they push back on you or they are unwilling to answer any questions around it or they may not know and you can see them kind of fumbling with their words. Those are signs that you should probably dig deeper and make sure that those concerns are addressed. If I get caught in a, an area where someone asks me for additional detail and I simply don't know because I'm not the subject matter expert, I'm I'm an account executive and I need to loop in a, an additional resource. It, it doesn't take that much work and it's actually typically pretty easy. All resources make themselves pretty available for questions. Just this morning I asked four different people, four different very technical questions that I just could not answer on a call myself. And typically my talk track around that is, you know, it's, it's a great question. I could try to answer that, but I, I'm afraid I'd be kind of talking out of school or I, I just wouldn't know all the intricacies of that. Let me let me talk to a resource like let's say Tim Cramer for IBMI or you know Luke over in our X86 private hosting practice. You know those those sorts of things are really easy to go and ask my Co workers about. So if if you encounter a situation where someone pushes back pretty hard on you asking a question that is really centered around a vague subset of a statement of work, that is a red flag and you should consider it a red flag and you should push a little harder to get them to answer that question.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you can't have that conversation with a customer where you're trying to build that relationship, you're trying to build that trust, that's a tremendous red flag. If they're not willing to give you the answer or at least find it because yes, most sales executives, they're not going to know the answer off the top of their head, but they know somebody that does. So at the end of the day, if you're having those issues with those conversations, that's one of the biggest red flags that you could possibly see in this. Yeah, I'm not saying run, but I am saying don't, don't stop asking that question just because you get a little resistance. You you should hold firm in that and and maybe get them to bring in a couple of other people so that they can go into that in more detail because, yeah, that is that is certainly a red flag.