What number should a systems build be held to?

Question

Reading a proposal for a build across a small portfolio and the deliverables section is all nouns. Pipelines configured, sequences written, integration connected, training session delivered. Every one of those is something I can verify exists and none of them tell me whether the thing worked.

So I asked about a number in the agreement instead. Response was that consultants can't be held to conversion because they don't control who answers the phone, which is fair. Nobody can promise an outcome and I wouldn't want them to. But that argument taken all the way means the only accountability is that the software is switched on.

The candidates I can think of. Speed to lead, which the system genuinely controls, though it says nothing about whether anyone converts. Percentage of leads with a logged touch inside seven days, which measures whether people actually use what got built. Appointments set per hundred leads, closer to the money and heavily dependent on staff. Or no number, and you judge it in month three by whether anyone opens it.

I lean toward wanting something measurable in writing because I'm the kind of buyer who wants the boring version that works. I also suspect a number in a contract just makes a consultant optimize the number.

What do you write down, if anything?

luis_carrera · Answer

Still in the analysis stage on most things so take the vote and not the reasoning, but the one you listed that seems hardest to game is logged touch inside seven days. Speed to lead can be hit with an auto-reply that does nothing, and appointments depend on your people. Usage is the thing a build either causes or doesn't.

dpatel_re · Answer

Underwriting is my whole job so I'll say the unromantic version. A metric in a services contract is only meaningful if there's a remedy attached, and the remedy people actually accept is more unpaid work, which you don't want either. What I'd do instead is stage the payment. Some at build, some at 30 days once agreed usage numbers show up in the reporting. Same discipline, no argument about causation, and how you word any of that is a lawyer question.

nicole_adeyemi · Answer

@sextant staging the payment is the answer. I did a smaller version of this on a land pipeline build, held back a quarter until I could see 60 days of records with dates on them. It changed the consultant's behavior in the training phase more than anything in the scope did, because he suddenly cared whether we used it. @windlass usage is right, and I'd add that whoever defines usage should be you, before the build, or it gets defined afterward as whatever happened.

What number should a systems build be held to?

3 replies