three tips to avoid vendor snafus

TDF e-Net recently asked Judith Hale (http://www.haleassociates.com/ or haleassoci@aol.com), the author of Performance-Consultant's Fieldbook, 2nd Ed. (Pfeiffer, 2006) and Outsourcing Training and Development: Factors for Success (Pfeiffer, 2005), among other titles, for advice on avoiding vendor snafus. Here's what she had to say:

Create operational protocols. When entering into a relationship, both clients and vendors tend to spend a lot of time and energy defining the terms of the contract and attempting to think of every possible contingency in advance, but they rarely put any thought into defining how the two parties will actually work together once a contract is in place.
How will you communicate, for example? How will you settle disputes? How will you deal with changes? And how will you handle development needs that are outside the scope of the current contract?
It's a given that almost all vendors and clients will run into these and other issues at some point during their working relationship, yet the majority of clients and vendors continue to ignore this reality -- then act surprised when problems arise. The key is to recognize upfront that change is inevitable and to stop writing contracts that are so tight, they don't allow for future adaptation and innovation. My advice? Write your contracts for intent, and acknowledge within each contract that ongoing collaboration will occur to create additional protocols as time passes. Also, be sure to write in protocols that detail how you will work together, how you will communicate and how you will handle disputes.

Decide what you want –- and be specific. As the client, you need to decide what you want from the relationship and fully define your expectations from the get-go. Do you have an expectation of independence, for example, or do you expect the vendor to grow capability within your company?
There's a big difference between the two. If all you want is to hand off the project and have someone else do all the work and send you a bill, that's one type of relationship. (If you go this route, however, you can't complain when the vendor is done with the project and you find out, three to 12 months later, that you can't maintain the program on your own.) Content is volatile. Learner profiles change. Technology gets faster and more sophisticated every day.
So, how will you upgrade, modify and maintain the program over the long term? If you will assume responsibility for doing so, you need the in-house skill sets necessary to make it happen. And if you expect the vendor to assume responsibility for transferring that knowledge and those skill sets to you, be sure to outline those expectations on the front end.

Do your part. Too many companies think that outsourcing means they are absolved of responsibility and don't need to manage the vendor relationship. They find a vendor, hire them, hand off some information, and then walk away, thinking that a miracle will somehow occur without their involvement. Not surprisingly, most clients are disappointed with the result –- and they have only themselves to blame. Why? As the client company, you sit on all of the knowledge the vendor needs to succeed.

I have seen companies appoint a single reviewer to work with their vendor. The vendor then builds an entire learning program based on the input of this one reviewer –- only to have the final program rejected by the client company. The problem? The reviewer didn't represent the holistic customer point of view. If you don't want this to happen to you, ensure that your vendor has access to all of the right people and all of the knowledge it needs to succeed. Make the right people available, and ensure that the people you do appoint understand what you are looking for.