Knee Surgery with Ockam's Razor

Okam's Razor states that any solution/explaination should not be any more complicated than necessary to solve the problem. As I drifted off into unconsciousness under the effects of the anaesthetic, I was confident that this principle had been applied and that I would wake up and find the dressings on the correct leg - a real boost when you are just about to undergo invasive knee surgery.

Yes, I had surgery on my left knee a couple of days ago - not too serious in the grand scheme of things, but serious enough for me. I have run since I was 11 years old, but infortunately I have not been able to get out for a few months now. The Doctor recommended surgery to repair the damage and promised that I would be out running again in pretty short order. However, the thing that was troubling me when I went into the hospital was "would they cut into the correct knee ?" You hear about people having the wrong kidney removed, and I was anxious that all concerned knew which one was the correct one because I would not be able to remind them if they went after the right (wrong !) one when I was out cold under a general anastheitic.

Initially things went well and I was pleased when the Receptionist, the Ward Clerk, the Charge Nurse and the Anaesthetist all checked their notes and confirmed that the operation was to take place on my left knee. My wife, who had some medical training many years ago, surprised me by asking each of them to ensure that they meant MY left knee, rather than the left knee as they looked at the patient from the end of the bed. This disturbed me because this potential problem of perspective had not even occurred to me ! I became more nervous than I had been before. However, they all took it in their stride and understood the point she was making - apparently left and right in hospitals do get referred to in this way (my Wife claims this is why to this day she is awful at giving directions when we are out driving) - and they each confirmed that it was my left knee that they would be dealing with. At each point, the staff wrote notes in their files, and I even had to confirm it in writing myself on the consent form. Good for "Traceability" I thought.

Finally, not long before the operation, the Surgeon himself came in to see me. He once again specifically confirmed that it was my left knee that was the problem, but then he asked me to roll up my trouser leg, and promptly got out a Permanent Marker Pen from his pocket and drew a big arrow on my left shin bone pointing to the left knee. " We cannot get it wrong this way " he said - adding "I have never got it wrong yet, and I do not intend to start now". How simple - after all the talking, paperwork, sign offs and traceability documentation, a simple black arrow and a marker pen were to provide a much more effective fail safe in the heat of the operating room, and became the cause of my peace of mind as I drifted off under the effects of the anaesthetic.

How on earth does this relate to Outsourcing ? Well I got to think about how well Service Providers ensure that mission critical tasks get done correctly - and just how useful ITIL and ISO processes and related documentation really is - or do they just help to demonstrate in the eventual root cause analysis project that the problem caused by a cock up was just an isolated exception. I did not want my knee to be "an isolated exception", and I suppose Customers do not want their systems outages to be one either. I wondered how many "Black Arrows" or "simple Marker Pen solutions" could be adopted in order to bolster up the fancy processes that are in place in many outsourced IT shops ?

My conclusions for pragmatic outsourcing are:

For Service Providers: Understand where the potential "left knee / right knee" issues are for your clients - and then address them in a way makes them comfortable and confident

For Customers: Are your Service Provider's answers to your sensitive issues all based on process and paperwork ? ..... are there enough "Black Arrow and Marker Pen" fail safe solutions out there as well ?

As the somewhat simplified version of Okam's Razor has it - keep it simple stupid !

Outsourcing Predictions for 2008

At the start for the year it is traditional to make predictions for the year ahead. Accordingly, I have reviewed a number of outsourcing blogs and articles and I note that the same themes come up regularly:

1. the rising cost of Indian resources
2. there will be consolidation within the Service Provider sector
3. BPO will finally come of age

This is pretty familiar stuff and very much internally focussed on the industry itself. I will not discuss these further here.

A couple of other predictions caught my eye though, being more outward looking, and are worthy of comment.

1. Will the US elections have an impact on the industry ?
2. Will the predictions of an economic downturn have an impact on the industry ?

Dealing with the US election first, it is noteworthy that there has been little or no comment by the candidates of either party on outsourcing or offshoring. This is contrast to the 2004 elections when there was rather more noise. A number of commentators have predicted that outsourcing is a dead issue but have promised to keep an eye out for any future comments. Personally, I am not sure it is a dead issue - in my view there are some embers there waiting to be fanned into flames. I have dealt with a number of US companies within the last year and there is still a nervousness about outsourcing, and a real fear of offshoring. The US politicians may not be talking about it, but companies are definitely taking account of the politics of outsourcing in their decision making.

Turnng to the potential for an economic downturn, a number of commentators suggest that this will support the continued growth of the industry as companies are forced to chase cost savings. However, one commentator suggests that an economic downturn could increase the TCV of deals being done because companies will have to bundle services in order to achieve costs savings quickly – whereas in the recent past they have had the luxury of being able to outsource piecemeal because cost pressures have not been so acute. I disagree.

I think that the lessons of the early mega deals have been well and truly learned and the multi sourcing trend is here to stay. This driver (economic downturn – or at least the threat of one ) is real, but the response will be different than that predicted here. My view is that companies:

1. Will continue to source from the recognised best in class providers
   a. To maintain service quality / manage risk
2. Will continue to source through 3rd party advisors
   a. To ensure deal acceptability and to enable timely internal sign off
3. Will move to complete deals more quickly
   a. To be able to recognise the benefits more quickly
4. Will consider doing deals in parallel rather than in series
   a. ie companies will (say) run a Desktop bid with one set of suppliers at the same time as doing a (say) network bid with a different set of suppliers
   b. This will have the same effect as increasing TCV (more spend addressed at the same time), but, crucially
   i. Spreads the performance risk (improved quality - the objective of multi sourcing)
   ii. Ensures the best price for each element (reduced price - no cross subsidies between Service Towers)
   iii. Allows each contract bundle to be closed out independently (increased timeliness – reduced interdependencies)

I also think that there will be other developments:

1. Further demands demand for increased contract flexibility
   a. Arising from companies contracting quickly, they will be looking for ways of making sure that they are not locked in to a bad contract
   i. Ie, if they “act in haste”, how can they prevent being forced to “repent at leisure”
   b. This will manifest itself in
   i. No exclusivity
   ii. Wider volume variations being asked for
   iii. Partial termination clauses becoming more common
   iv. Renewed interest in responsible Benchmarking
2. A greater willingness for companies to accept commodity services (vs bespoke)
   a. It is quicker/easier/cheaper to agree to what service providers want to sell
   b. There will be less notice taken of internal “naysayers”
   c. Outsourcing will be used as one (of many) weapon(s) to drive internal change
3. An increased opportunity for Service Pproviders to develop the nascent market for service integration
4. Alternatively to 3 above, there will be a boom in the recruitment of “hired guns” to manage deals

My message is therefore:

For Customers: Re-examine your business case - is it just about labour arbitrage or are you getting some quality improvements and risk reductions. How can you use the wider economic circumstances to your advantage ?

For Suppliers: Re-examine your contract terms. How can you make your organisation more easy to do business with ?

Predictions of the future will never be accurate, but having a point of view gives you something to measure the present against.

Happy New Year !