The Battle Between Sales and Production

The battle lines between sales and production have been drawn since the unfortunate relationship began long ago.  Ultimately, production is responsible for the product or service that sales promised to a client.  Seems simple enough, however the struggle that has ensued starts when sales makes a promise to do something that is not within the control of production. 

Consider a project that requires a large amount of task completion to be done by the client.  When considering the triple constraint that all projects are bound by (time, scope, resources) , the fact that the client controls 2 of these components in this scenario renders production helpless in achieving a timeline promised by sales if the client isn’t given specific parameters to adhere too. 

In this scenario, in order to bolster the success of the production teams, the sales process would include the following:

·         Project proposed timeline:

When working through a possible completion time of a project for a client, if considering a model that requires a large amount of work to be completed by the client, how would you develop or sell this component?  In order to manage the client’s expectations, the process should follow several unique steps that are no different than building a project timeline through the proper process: (do know that the following example is built through the assumption that the project is a repeatable project that has specific nuances that need to be catered to for each client)

            1.  Develop a WBS that is inclusive of all major project tasks

2.  Sequence and estimate task durations

3.  Assign resources

4.  Develop timeline considering scheduling and resource constraints

By working through this process with the client, you are able to accomplish several things, 1) you help the client become intimately familiar with the project itself.  By working through the details of the work to be done, it provides the opportunity to present the needs of the client to ensure success.  2) What the staffing requirements will be for these tasks, and 3) an approximation of when, during the project timeline, these resources will be needed.  This ultimately sets very specific expectations in the client’s mind of what to expect and what will be needed of them to achieve the results they desire.

In any sales to production process, sales should tell the production team not only the scope of work that was sold, but also what the project timeline will be and how it will be staffed to accomplish this intent.  It should not be an effort by production to figure out how to achieve a desired outcome when the triple constraint is not effectively under the control of production.  Development of how something will be built or produced should not be a post-sale consideration, yet it should be a process of identifying the “what”, the “how”, the how long”, and the “how much” which will ensure you are not over promising and under-delivering on your client’s expectations.

 If a business is able to set expectations during the sales process as opposed to the project planning process post-sale, your perceived customer satisfaction levels will increase.  This will also enhance your ability to deliver on what was sold, the job satisfaction your employees enjoy will increase, and hopefully, at least indirectly (though I suppose you could argue directly), your referral rates will increase.