Client Relationship Building for Effective Delivery

Topic - Client Relationship Building for Effective Delivery

Audience - Anyone working for Delivery with Clients (PLs, PMs, Pgms)

Background- Few days back , got invited by Learning world of my organization to talk on Client Relationship Building for Effective Delivery. I just listed down some pointers for my talk and finally, trying to convert it to blog as session went very well. Thought of proliferating it further..

 

Anatomy of Client Relationship 

• Core is Client
• A two-way Connect 
• Relationship is between 2 individuals
• Focus should be on client as a person and not role in client's org
• 2 way interaction and communication
• Improves over time -
• Don't rush....
• Viewed holistically over time
• Mutually Beneficial - Win-Win

Why Client Relationship?

Need to bring below with Client ->

• Comfort ,
• Trust and Confidence and
• Reliability

Why?
Because Emotions are important as Client is 'HUMAN BEING'

How? - Client Relationship Building

•  Making Good First Impression
• Become Trusted Advisor
• Personal relationship
• Business Issues understanding

Life cycle-

 Key Elements 

• Reliability - POCs, commitment
• Credibility - Example/success stories with data, talk about issues/risks, Subject knowledge)
• Intimacy - Empathy, map your goals with client
• Self orientation - Listening skills. goals oriented and not deliverable oriented approach

Skills Required?

• Inter-personal skills required, 4 Cs:
• Client orientation
• Creativity
• Curiosity
• Collaboration
•  Commitment
• Empathy, think from customer shoes
• Articulation and Presentation
• Receptive to new ideas

Tips for Client Relationship - Specific to Delivery

• Project Initiation
• Stakeholder mapping and Objectives/Strategy
• Expectation Setting
• Client Relationship
• Clients personality  type - Introvert, Extrovert , Detailed oriented , thinking , judging 
• Need  - Achievement, power, friendly/affiliation
• Execution
• Mapping requirements/needs to design
• Listening/Understanding problem and Solution mapping
• Layout detailed plan and execute
• Tracking and Reporting
• Rhythm of Business /Communication management plan 

Word of caution..

• Dependency on single individual - The mitigation to  create backups
• Keep personal relations to the scope of Organization benefits
• Under promise and Over deliver - with a balance  

Ultimate Benefit

Business sustenance and growth happens automatically when you are TRUSTED ADVISORS!!!

Happy Reading and Writing!!

 

Manager;s Essential

Are you a Manager ? Learn essentials.....

Audience : Current Managers and Wanna-be managers....

Going through Organization Behavior book, found few interesting topics. Learnt good things so thought of sharing.....

Thanks to OB Book Robbins and some good sessions by Prof. Abhishek Goel from IIM Calcutta.

We keep hearing the word *Managers* around us, some of us are managers. Lets take a pause and ask ourselves:

What is manager?

For a third person eye :)

• Enjoy in cabin...
• Give all work to resources....
• Enjoy their life after delegating
• Boss whom you should be scared of
• Need to keep happy
• Do not know much , specially technology or the work I am doing
• ...And So on.......
   

Smiling.......Ok , now a on serious note....let us how many of us really understand the stuff managers do......

• Planning
• Take decisions
• Allocate Resources (Human , Others..)
• Control , Check and act
• Coordination and Collaboration
• Communication

Superb, now that we saw few things that managers do, can we think of essential skills:

 

 

 

Above are the things that usually come to our mind if we think of skills required in managers. According to Organization Behavior theories, few high level skill categories are:

 

1. Technical Skills - Knowledge or expertise Manager posses

2. People Management Skill - Work with , Understand and Motivate.

3. Conceptual Skill - Complex Problem Solving, Mental Ability.

 

An interesting fact.. from Luthan's Study..

 Few questions:

1. Should manager have all these skills?
2. How much time to spend in each activity?
3. When do i call my self Effective manager (High Productivity)?
4. When do i call myself Successful manager(grows fast)?

 

 

And now some intersting facts.......

 

 

• Communication is most effective and important activities managers should do.

• Effective managers spends 44% time in Communication and 26% in Human Resource management

• Successful managers spend 48% Networking and 28% in Communication.

 

 

I stop here for this post and let all of you think and comment on the debate here and More learning's on the way...

 

 

Comments are welcome to encourage me and improve me on writing.

Happy Reading & Writing!!!!!

Signing Off for this article..Reacha