What happens in sales...
Have you ever been involved in the sales process? If the answer is yes, then you are one of the lucky ones. Participating in the process, helping sales to shape the quote is something that paves the way to a successful project outcome. Unfortunately this approach is more the exception than the rule.
Why involve a Project Manager?
First of all, it is a way to gain a degree of knowledge about key stakeholders you will be dealing with as a PM. You will gain an understanding of what the motivation is for starting the project, what is the goal of the project and what challenges need to be fixed by the business to call the project a success.
Being involved in the sales process is a golden opportunity to put the offer on a solid foundation both in terms of solution design as well as estimation of key milestones and price estimates. This doesn’t mean that you will get the best estimate you can and have all project key needs addressed. In a sales process trade offs and compromises are common practice, in the end you are competing against other bidders who might try to undercut you.
No Project Management framework highlights this need. The Pre Project phase is lighlty addressed (if at all) or ignored altogether.
Sales will usually go ahead, and sell whatever they deem right. My personal favourite blunders in the sales process are:
Committing to Milestones in the negotiation phase. Contract is awarded sometimes weeks or months after those estimated completion dates where communicated. Somehow they end up beeing incorporated in the contract
Committing to comply with deliverables required by customer’s internal Project Management framework and compliance without understanding what they are and without allocating a budget to achieve them
Documentation...oh please, who needs that?
to be continued...