15 July 2010 - 14:56 Consulting with Critical Logic - A Discussion on the Client-Contractor Relationship

By Tammi Nguyen

It is the first day on a new project and I am on the client’s site to sit in on the kick-off meeting that introduces Critical Logic to the key players on the project team.  My manager is getting ready to make a presentation on how the project will benefit from our process and the services provided by our people.  Sitting through the presentation, I quietly observe the reaction of the people in the room.  I notice that most people are making an effort to actively listen to the presentation while others are uncomfortably fidgeting in their chairs.  The presentation progresses and we are met with a lot of questions and requests for clarification.  There is an individual in the room that seems particularly tuned into the presentation only to refute the benefits of our services.  The conversation escalates and this person becomes agitated - a good indication that he is not quite ready for the change that is about to take place on the project.  The director of the project who has also been quietly observing people during the presentation has to intervene to bring things to order. Despite the hiccup, the presentation ends on a good note and everyone thanks us as they exit the conference room.  I take a deep breath and smile at my manager as we are collecting our things.  We have about an hour to regroup before our next meeting with the project team starts.

Most projects that I have been assigned to work on have started out this way, but they vastly differ beyond this point.  No two projects have ever been the same.  Even when projects are similar in nature, the amount of support from management and resources allocated to a project have always determined the direction and pace of the project.  What can and does remain the same is the level of commitment and professionalism we provide on the project.  Critical Logic’s mantra has always been to focus on providing our clients with expertise in requirements validation and test development which leads to defect-free software at the functional level.  Flexibility is among one of the great advantages of the client-contractor relationship with Critical Logic.  We will adapt to the project’s budget, schedule, processes, and standards as a part of our service and commitment to you.  In short, we are here to serve the needs of the project and ensure the overall quality on the final product.

Even with all the benefits of contracting, many people are still reserved about working with contractors.  The level of resistance can be used as a gauge of how well a project is progressing.  In my experience, the more resistance there is to share information with us, the more at-risk a project is in of not meeting key milestones and delivery dates.  In many cases, the struggle to obtain information is often due to incomplete requirements that are still in progress.  At Critical Logic, our philosophy is to embed ourselves in the project right from the start. This means that we can begin analyzing information as soon as it becomes available.
Being able to provide meaningful feedback early in the process is only the first step in a series of steps that leads to clear-cut requirements.  Our ambiguity review process provides a thorough dissection of the requirements documents to sort out questions that may lead to defects in development.  We have consistently found defects are generally introduced during the requirements phase of a given project.  The cost to fix these defects increases exponentially the later in the development cycle the defect is discovered.

Another large component of our process is to provide our clients with 100% test coverage with traceability.  Using our own technology, we leverage the clarified requirements developed since the start of the project to produce comprehensive test cases.  Individual requirements can be traced back to one or more test cases.  The format of the test cases can be customized to fit the needs of the client.  Upon delivery, the test cases come with a certification package that will provide an explanation of the test coverage for each set of test cases.  We guarantee complete test coverage.

Critical Logic has a long history of having successful relationships as contractors.  I have found that one key factor to a successful client-contractor relationship is that contractors are vested only in the project.  Our goal is to provide our client with the best service and our work remains unaffected by internal events or decisions made by the organization that can sometimes cloud objectivity.  Our process is transparent to give our clients full visibility to our productivity by providing our clients with weekly metrics to track our progress.  As experts in the field, we provide support and training for all our clients to promote a better understanding in forming a partnership between the organizations.  This is often seen as the desirable alternative to hiring and training new resources onto the project.  So despite the common reservations regarding the utilization of contracting services, the list of benefits provided by contractors goes on and on.  There are a number of variables that cannot be controlled in a given project… however the one thing that you can always count on is the consistency and efficiency in services that Critical Logic can bring to your organization as the experts in our field.