Objectives of the session

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Welcome to the Comms Centre Foundation
Coursesfor managers6. Simulation and launch
Module 6.2 The launch phase
Version 2
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Objectives of the session

• By the end of this session you will
• have an overview of what the launch of a new
  operation entails
• have an understanding of the typical issues that
  will arise during the launch phase and the most
  appropriate areas of focus in response to these

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Objectives of the session (contd)

• What would you like
• to discuss during this session?
• clarify or resolve during this session?
• to gain as a result of attending this session?

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Format for the session

• When does the launch phase happen?
• Go live - what happens?
• What is the nature of the launch phase?
• Go live and launch phases - what will they
  require from you as a manager?
• A practical exercise
• Launch phase issues and areas of focus
• Dos and donts
• Accreditation
• Appendices
• More dos and donts
• Supporting documentation

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When does the launch phase happen?

• The lifecycle of a long-term operation

Briefing
Strand design and setup (incl user acceptance)
Development phase
Consolidation phase
Training
Launch phase
Simulation
Go live
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When does the launch phase happen? (contd)

• Go live
• the short period immediately after the team start
  making or receiving live customer telephone
  calls for the first time
• this period is measured in days rather than weeks

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When does the launch phase happen? (contd)

• Launch
• the phase immediately after go live
• it lasts until the operation has reached an
  acceptable degree of stability, particularly in
  the areas of
• client relationship
• people
• technology
• interfaces
• back office
• this may take 6 months to achieve

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Go live - what happens?

• The first opportunity to see how real customers
  respond to contact with the operation and the
  service provided by it
• The first opportunity to see how the clients
  organisation responds to the operations
  existence
• All members of the team are in a rapid and steep
  learning curve, including the managers
• The pace of change and development is hourly
  rather than daily

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Go live - what happens? (contd)

• The degree of ease with which the operation will
  achieve its SLAs, KPIs, goals and targets starts
  to become apparent
• Acceptable timeframes within which the operation
  will find its feet are established
• It is totally unpredictable, the most unstable
  phase of the contract
• Likely to involve razzmatazz, PR opportunities
  and client visits at a time when you feel
  leastready for them

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What is the nature of the launch phase?

• The period in which the operation finds its
  feet, as instability lessens over time
• Everybody is still on a steep learning curve,
  which slows down towards the end of this phase
• Enormous amounts of troubleshooting and
  corrective action will be required initially,
  lessening over time
• Change and development occurs at a daily and
  weekly pace

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What is the nature of the launch phase? (contd)

• Strong bonds and relationships form within the
  team
• Many of the team members may initially be in
  their probationary period and will have their
  probationary review approximately three months
  into the launch phase
• The culture of the operation is bedded in
• The honeymoon period ends between you and your
  client and you and your team members

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Go live and launch phases - what will they
require from you as a manager?

• Over to you...

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Go live and launch phases - what will they
require from you as a manager? (contd)

• Focus on expectation management in relation to
  client, all operation team members, project
  manager, managing consultant, CC management team
• Active acknowledgement and encouragement of what
  is working (maintaining a balanced perspective
  for all)
• Honesty about what is still being worked on -
  your operation is a work in progress (AKA in
  Merchants jargon a BWO) throughout this phase
• Management of change bit by bit
• (AKA in Merchants jargon bite sized chunks
  rather than the whole elephant!)

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Go live and launch phases - what will they
require from you as a manager? (contd)

• Concentration on stabilising the operation before
  adding new functions
• Pacing of yourself, your team and your client
• Maintenance of calm and order despite a feeling
  of being out of control, ie the swan concept -
  you may be paddling madly under the water but on
  the surface you appear serene
• Maintain attention on developing the required
  culture - without this direction the team will
  simply evolve and teams left to their own
  devices tend not to choose the path of highest
  standards and greatest challenge

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Go live and launch phases - what will they
require from you as a manager? (contd)

• Sleeves rolled up involvement from all members
  of the operational management team
• Huge amounts of patience - you may find yourself
  explaining things more than once to clients and
  team members

• An acceptance that you will make mistakes and a
  willingness to have other people know about them,
  including your team members
• A sense of humour!

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A practical exercise

• The scenario
• you are one of a team of operations managers
• your operation went live three weeks ago
• The exercise
• get into 5 groups, one for each of the key areas
  of management during the launch phase
• client relationship
• people (teams and managers)
• technology (IT, telecomms, on-line)
• interfaces (between teams and with client
  departments)
• back office

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A practical exercise (contd)

• identify between you the most pressing issues
  that you are likely to be facing in this area on
  any operation (a minimum of four and a maximum of
  ten)
• decide as a team how you are going to address
  them
• present your issues and solutions to the larger
  group

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Notes
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Notes
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Notes
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Launch phase areas of focus - client

• Typical issues
• High expectations from senior management,
  subsequent pressure on client project manager for
  the operation to work smoothly from the outset
• Nervousness and apparently irrational demands
  from client contacts responsible to their
  organisation for the success of the operation
• Expectations of perfection, given Merchants are
  the experts
• Client onsite in early days, causing tension and
  fear of mistakes amongst team members and managers

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Launch phase areas of focus - client (contd)

• Focus
• a lot of client contact, focused on reassurance,
  education and explanation
• expectation management regarding
• by when SLAs and KPIs are likely to be achieved
• timescales of development and stability
• which areas are the most difficult to get right
• the nature and pace of the learning curve for a
  new Comms Centre team
• management focus and activity
• production of deliverables
• appropriate and regular review sessions
• maintaining control of PR activities and client
  visits to ensure that the launch is not a free
  for all, whilst appropriate visitors are also
  welcomed and their visits are orchestrated

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Launch phase areas of focus - people

• Includes
• skills
• attitudes
• capacity plans
• management

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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• Typical issues
• according to call volumes, boredom or overwhelm
  in the telephone and administration teams
• a dropping back into old habits and/or a drop in
  standards
• further gaps in understanding and know-how come
  to light
• incomplete implementation of the briefs given

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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• analysis of MIS and associated troubleshooting
  becomes de-prioritised rather than a proactively
  used management tool, whilst managers fire-fight
  other areas
• coaching and measurement of skills appears a
  luxury and is not fully implemented
• insufficient time from the Training Development
  Advisor is booked in advance, therefore coaching
  is not fully implemented
• inexperience causes mistakes
• desperation to get it right causes stress,
  especially when mistakes happen
• managers are unsure about what to prioritise and
  action first
• managers get snappy and withdraw from the team
  into their Macs or into meetings

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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• everything goes well but there is an
  anti-climax because it is not challenging
  enough, or is different from expectations
• team members enjoy the excitement of the go live
  and launch phases and lose interest at the point
  when the operation goes into the consolidation
  phase

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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• Focus
• maintenance of regularity and quality of team
  interactions, including for the managers, despite
  pressures of work
• active maintenance of open channels of
  communication, both horizontally and vertically
  in the hierarchy
• floor-walking and coaching by managers
• review and reinforcement of adherence to briefs,
  processes and checklists
• maintenance of agreed work routines, to include
  analysis of MIS and resulting troubleshooting
• emphasis on understanding the causes of mistakes,
  solving and preventing them for the future,
  rather than on personal blame

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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• provision of further product or script training
  as required to ensure team members are happy on
  what they are talking about, before emphasis
  can be increased on how they are talking
• ongoing development of communication skills and
  team understanding of the business requirements
• quality control, quality control, quality control
• circulation of information, especially the
  positive
• involvement of team members in individual and
  team troubleshooting from the outset
• managers fulfilling their roles as described in
  their job descriptions, troubleshooting any
  additional requirements - do they highlight a
  need for change control?

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Launch phase areas of focus - people (contd)

• regular management meetings, starting with a
  download and flight (eg humour and a share
  of personal experiences) before moving onto
  business
• no compromise by managers around agreed ground
  rules , working practices and quality standards,
  despite the pressures of work and focus on
  achieving SLAs and KPIs
• active encouragement by managers for team members
  to take on additional responsibilities and become
  self-managing
• requests for outside input for managers if
  necessary, eg from project manager, managing
  consultant, CC management
• encouragement of team spirit, sense of (trench)
  humour, focus on the vision, long-term objectives
  and bigger picture

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Launch phase areas of focus - IT and telecomms

• Includes
• database
• telecomms
• on-line systems
• MIS
• business processes

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Launch phase areas of focus - IT and telecomms
(contd)

• Typical issues
• ad hoc requests for changes to the database from
  clients once they understand more of what is
  possible from having a Comms Centre operation and
  get more and more inspired
• growth in MIS requirements resulting in
  mushrooming of Excel-based reporting
• requests for changes to the database from TCs
  once they get used to their roles
• discovery of further bugs in the system not
  identified during user acceptance testing or
  simulation
• problems with on-line systems that were not
  identified during user acceptance testing or
  simulation

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Launch phase areas of focus - IT and telecomms
(contd)

• call or data volumes being higher than expected,
  causing the systems to slow down
• mistakes made by team members in using the
  technology, eg incorrect selection of call
  results on the database or work codes on the ACD
  turret
• the processes developed are found to be
  insufficiently robust and/or efficient and
  therefore need changing, with a knock-on effect
  on the technology supporting the operation
• over time the operations requirements outgrow
  the original IT and telecomms systems provided

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Launch phase areas of focus - IT and telecomms
(contd)

• Focus
• management of client expectations about the
  lifetime of the database as the operation
  develops
• maintaining usefulness and user friendliness of
  MIS
• recommendations to clients regarding changes
  proposed by the team or by ADT, eg in order to
  simplify and increase effectiveness of MIS
• adherence to internal IT change control
  procedures
• implementation of external change control
  procedures
• vigilance regarding accuracy of team use of the
  systems provided
• retraining as and when necessary

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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces

• Includes
• between teams within the operation
• with (other) client company departments and
  offices

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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces (contd)

• Typical issues
• telephone teams not responding to administration
  team feedback and/or doing things that increase
  the difficulty of the administration teams job
• administration teams either being rather heavy
  and critical in their feedback to telephone teams
  or the opposite, compromising through fear of
  confrontation
• administration team being treated like, or seeing
  themselves as, second class citizens in relation
  to the telephone team
• processes supporting the interfaces are found to
  be insufficiently robust or efficient and
  therefore need changing

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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces (contd)

• existing client teams overwhelmed by the demand
  from the operation eg if supplying administrative
  back-up or taking escalated calls, animosity from
  client department members or managers who feel
  threatened or put upon by the operation
• apparent apathy and/or lack of customer focus
  from client department members or managers
• client departments generating problems that are
  absorbed by the operation, eg complaint calls or
  repeated calls when the promised follow through
  from the client company does not happen

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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces (contd)

• client company managers or staff attempting to
  off-load work and responsibilities onto the
  operation, eg referring customers to call the
  Merchants operation instead of looking after the
  customers themselves
• client company managers requesting add-on pieces
  of work that are outside the brief
• cynicism from the operation teams about the
  client company because of a difference in
  standards, skill and approach between themselves
  and the client team/s
• greater efficiency in the client company, eg a
  well established department, than in the
  Merchants operation, therefore pressure to catch
  up

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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces (contd)

• Focus
• treating telephone and administration teams
  equally
• facilitation of horizontal feedback and taking
  it to the source both on an individual and team
  level
• briefing the teams not to react to or demonstrate
  antipathy in relation to client team members
• providing safe opportunities for team members to
  download frustrations in relation to client
  departments
• measurement of the impact of limitations in
  client departments on the effectiveness and
  productivity of the operation
• active provision of information, advice and
  recommendations to the client company about
  shortfalls in their departments, focused on
  customer service

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Launch phase areas of focus - interfaces (contd)

• management of team member expectations in
  relation to the speed at which client companies
  are able to change and address issues
• circulation of information regarding what is
  being done to address issues
• building relationships, building bridges,
  education, explanation and honesty in response to
  the client, backed by prioritisation of focus
  areas in order to quickly be perceived as
  catching up
• escalation of client-department issues to the
  project manager if they cannot be resolved at an
  operational level

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Launch phase areas of focus - back office

• Includes
• quality control
• fulfilment of customer documentation eg
  information requests, letters and call record
  sheets
• circulation of information

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Launch phase areas of focus - back office
(contd)

• Typical issues
• quality controllers are slow at the beginning of
  their learning curve whilst the telephone team
  are also making the most mistakes, backlogs form
  as a result and client letters or call records
  are delayed
• gaps in processes and procedures are identified
  as a result of troubleshooting
• once the operation is at full pace the volume of
  fulfilment is greater than was anticipated or
  tested during simulation, administrators fall
  behind and backlogs form
• the administration requirements mushroom through
  ongoing small requests from the client,
  resulting in overwhelm and backlogs in the
  administration team

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Launch phase areas of focus - back office
(contd)

• Focus
• QCing the QCing
• management of administration team to stay within
  their brief
• training of administration team in practical time
  management skills eg maintenance of accurate
  timesheets
• regular reviews of what they spend their time on
  and how long each job takes, proactive
  troubleshooting on these areas
• implementation of change control procedures and,
  if a very small change is agreed outside of the
  change control process, quantification to the
  client of what that has required, logging of this
  for the audit trail
• regular meetings and troubleshooting with the
  administration team

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Launch phase areas of focus - back office
(contd)

• rapid corrective action in relation to improving
  quality of work by telephone team
• ongoing simplification of processes and
  procedures
• if necessary, education of, explanation to and
  re-negotiation with, the client in relation to
  administration requirements and resources

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Dos and donts

• Do warn the client in advance that the business
  model may not have taken the learning curve into
  account and therefore that the team may not
  achieve KPIs and SLAs on the first day (and then
  again, they may do!)
• Avoid having your most senior client on site on
  the first day, or your client project manager on
  site hovering and looking over peoples
  shoulders
• After the initial stages of go live and launch,
  dont allow your teams to think that they have
  cracked it eg by discontinuing trainings and
  meetings - there is always something else to
  learn or improve upon and this is necessary to
  prevent complacency and boredom

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Dos and donts (contd)

• The events of the initial phase of the contract
  often set the tone for the future - start as you
  mean to go on
• Start communicating with the team early - do not
  leave it for a week
• Look after yourself in small ways out of work -
  the launch phase involves major change and large
  degrees of pressure as well as excitement and
  challenges - ensure you indulge in rest and
  recreation so that your batteries are charged

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Accreditation

• Nature of accreditation short written paper
• Completion time within a month of training
  attendance (unless reagreed in advance, by
  E-mail, with the trainer)
• Please find the format for this paper on the
  Knowledge Library (see supporting documentation
  slide for instructions on how to find it). The
  document will be named 3.7/SWP/ACC/date
• Please complete the paper on soft copy, insert
  your full initials in place of the date in the
  document name (for logging and filing purposes)
  and then E-mail it to the training programme
  co-ordinator
• Your marked paper will be returned to you via
  the internal post/E-mail
• Good luck!

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Appendices

• More dos and donts
• Supporting documentation

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More dos and donts

• Avoid the disappearance of Managing Consultants,
  Project Managers and senior Operations Managers
  once any initial panic is over - this causes
  teams to feel that they are not valued - some
  degree of regular and ad hoc contact should be
  maintained
• Avoid the disappearance of Operations Managers
  into their Macs once any initial panic is over -
  teams can get either lazy or cynical if they
  believe that you do not know or care what they
  are doing
• Keep the Project Manager and Managing Consultant
  up-to-date during this period - their
  expectations also need managing and they may be
  able to help with client management during this
  phase

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More dos and donts (contd)

• Avoid working all hours because there is so much
  to do - take a step back, look objectively for
  the root causes, prioritise as a management team,
  share tasks
• Dont pretend all is well to the team even when
  it seriously is not - although it may not work
  for them to see you warts and all and in a
  total panic, a dose of reality will mean that
  they are more able to help you troubleshoot and
  take the most effective action, they will also
  learn a lot in the process

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More dos and donts (contd)

• Get the clients and Merchants PR departments
  involved in the launch once you are out of the
  go live period
• If you have doubts about a team member act on
  them immediately, whether it is regarding their
  skills, aptitude or attitude
• Ask for help and support if you need it
• Agree targets with your client for the go live
  period which are lower than the overall SLAs and
  KPIs

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Supporting documentation

• All information related to this module will be
  found on the Knowledge Library as follows
• Comms Centre Foundation
• - 6. Simulation and launch
• - Training materials
• - Reference materials
• - Example best practice
• - Blank templates
• - Accreditations
• The reference code for this module is 6.2