Impossible circumstances

I think at least once along your journey in service delivery, you will face a circumstance where you have been committed to deliver something that the organization you own cannot deliver what has been agreed. It may have been your predecessor, your boss, your CEO, or even you. Depending on the magnitude of what you cannot deliver, it is, of course more or less important to the actual service, but it is never a position you want to be in. Do your best to make sure that you can deliver what you say you will deliver, but even your best efforts may not be enough if it is outside of your control. If it is in your control, obviously fix it as soon as possible. But sometimes you can't fix the problem.

What is the best way to deal with circumstances that make your team unable to deliver your services to the full extent of your agreement in some way that is non-trivial? It is part negotiations, part CYA, and part risk management. Here's what you need to do:

If you made the agreement, then go to your superiors and explain what has happened in clear detail - it is always better to be open and honest up-front than not to be. It may have an impact on your job in the short term, but being honest can often make up for it in the long run because your superiors will learn that you would not try to hide the truth and that you own up to your mistakes, which is valuable in the business world even if most people would not admit it for fear of consequences. It will make them more willing to trust you than if they have to investigate it themselves.

Next, no matter whose agreement it was (from your boss to the legal department contracts people), you need to document four things: what caused the inability to deliver the service, what impact this means to the quality of the service, what solutions you have with estimated costs, and the financial impact of this issue. Let's step through these:

1. Cause
The cause of the issue needs to be identified. Make sure you complete this part as objectively and unemotionally as you can. By the time you have been berated by your customers for the issues arising, which is usually when these items are found, it can be very hard to do so, but it is very important that no one can deflect ownership of the problem merely because you lost your temper or they may decide to ignore you because "it's just another flare up, they will get over it in a few days."

2. Result
Make sure the actual impact to your services is clearly stated. It's includes things such as "we cannot afford to renew the support contract and will be unable to obtain vendor fixes for issues we encounter" or "there are no longer enough staff to support a 24x7 service line as has been committed to our business units." It could also be the inability to meet your SLA timeframes - outsourcing contracts seem to include these more often, and often these have financial penalties written into the contract documents themselves (no matter how wise that might be until a service has been defined, built, tested, and then baselined.)

3. Recommendations
If the only thing you take to your boss is the complaint, then you will be labelled negatively in the future for such issues you identify. Turn this as positively as you can. If you have a solution or three ready, then you are giving your superiors the opportunity to decide what needs to be done and your value in their estimation will go up, even if they have another idea to resolve it. It shows that you truly own your services when you go the extra length to think of how to resolve the issue. Maybe you recommend renegotiation, or you think that bringing in someone to help improve the process will help, or a new tool to automate something. Maybe you might even recommend exiting the agreement as it sits, if the issue is bad enough. Include anything you can on cost of the solutions, as well, as that is what executives need to know, even if it is only indicative.

4. Finances
Why the financial part? Well, unless is is your own company, most upper level management think entirely in currency. You have to translate the problem into their language so that they can understand or they would not know how to understand the impact and criticality, and they will ignore it. And the most effective way to communicate in any business today is to explain, "This is going to cost us the $75 million renewal contract planned in 6 months" or "We will be paying a penalty of $20,000 every contract cycle because of this." Your boss will then be able to compare this cost to the cost of any solutions in determining which one makes the most business sense.

5. Simplify
Make sure you write an executive summary on the first line of your documentation, just in case even higher level management than your boss needs to be involved, and it never hurts to have an introduction.

Now that you have this done, whether in several discussions or via letter or email, you need to make sure you have the documentation done. Ensure that your boss receives a copy of this and make sure you obtain confirmation of receipt - positive confirmation where you boss acknowledges receipt is much better than anything else.

If your boss would not respond, send it to his boss. Remember your target audience and maybe rewrite the report a little better. Also, make sure you register this issue in your company's internal risk management system so that there is a place for everyone to see it in your organization in case there is an issue or you are unavailable.

Lastly, file these artifacts away. If the worst comes to the worst, you need to have it to prove that you were not derelict in your responsibilities as a service delivery manager. It's not pleasant, but it is something you have to do to ensure you can prove you both did your job and let the appropriate people knew of the impending issues in order to save your reputation and job in the worst circumstances. At the least, it allows you to prove that you take a proactive stance in managing your issues when it comes time for you to apply internally for a new job.

What do you do when the customer comes back? The best thing to do, if you have informed your boss and given them time to consider instead of stalling for them is to ask your customer to escalate this to your boss so that they can have the discussion. Don't do this for lots of little things, but sometimes it helps your boss to understand the impact after the customer has spoken directly to them about the issues. Be careful what you say when telling your customer to escalate - give your boss the opportunity to hear and understand without biasing your customers upfront, and they might even help to impress the urgency of the issues and the criticality of a fix being put in place for you.