Full Sail Partners Blog
As the New Year begins, most businesses, including ours, look for ways to drive even greater success than last year. If you are like most professional services firms, you evaluate project performance based largely on the efficiency with which the project is completed. Unfortunately for most firms, they only look at half of the equation.
Evaluate Client Feedback for the Full Picture
Client feedback should focus on helping clients achieve the long-term success they desire by measuring all the metrics important to project performance. As the title suggests, this includes measuring both financial metrics and client metrics. Client metrics measure how well your process is meeting your client’s expectations at each stage of the project. If your team is not asking whether their client’s expectations are being met, they are making three dangerous assumptions:
- An existing project delivery process will meet a new client's expectations (or a new project manager will meet an existing client’s expectation)
- A client’s expectations of the project manager they have worked with before is not influenced by external factors
- You and the client have the same understanding of project communication, deliverables, etc.
Benefits of Client Feedback
When your firm uses real-time, project-based feedback, you give your clients the opportunity to share their changing preferences and priorities with you throughout the project. You eliminate the assumptions that can result in poor project performance and unmet expectations. You strengthen your relationships with your clients as they realize that you really care about their goals. Ultimately, because the feedback you request is designed to benefit your client, you also give them the ability to help you help them achieve the success they desire.
Some of the benefits of improving your project performance and creating success for your firm include:
- Establishing a reputation as experts, elite players with a premium brand.
- Reducing or eliminating re-work and scope creep
- Becoming the ‘go-to’ firm
- Impacting the bottom line by providing a steady stream of profitable work
As 2014 gets underway, let’s challenge ourselves. Instead of measuring the same things you have in the past and expecting different results, take the strategic step of tracking the metrics that matter. Just like, Peter Drucker says, “what is measured improves”. So the question to ask yourself is: Are you measuring the metrics needed to create the success you desire? Click below to learn more about measuring client metrics to create firm success.
