Question 11

An example, where an employee has to use their own judgment in the service delivery process at Accenture would be during the design phase of an implementation project. Once a customer delivers their requirements the design team is tasked with designing the layout, logic and interfaces of the system. This requires significant judgement since their is no truly prescribed way to proceed. The design team has to decided how the software will look aesthetically, how the interfaces with other systems should be designed and the process in which information will flow through the system. The designer's own experience influences how he/she will design the system logic. Based on their design, the outcome can be a system that meets, exceeds or falls below the customer's requirements and expectations. Should the the system fall below expectations there are several ways to ensure the design team does not fail to deliver again. First, they could be offered training in the specific software or module. Second, they can be teamed with more skilled personnel who can help guide them through the process. Third, project managers could take a more hands on approach and be more involved with reviewing the design team's work through the design phase. Fourth, a super-user from the client team could be partnered with the design team to ensure that all client requirements are being met and designed correctly. Lastly, if the problem was egregious or if the designer had similar issues before, the designer could be removed from the position.

Question 10

1. Since Accenture is such a large organization and with such a wide variety of services offered, I'll focus on on particular micro-level problem that can occur during service delivery that can go unnoticed by the customer. One of Accenture's main services offered is that of systems implementation. During the initial part of any implementation, called the requirements gathering phase, a significant investment of time is required by the customer so they can clearly relay their requirements for the new system. Say for example, SAP R/3 - HR module is being installed the customer will have to state what functionality they want. At this point, very detailed and thorough documentation is required to ensure no requirement is missed. Should Accenture miss an important or large requirement the mistake can prove very costly. Once requirements are gathered they are put together into design documents, tested, sent to the software engineers to be built, and deployed. Within testing there are 6 different phases as well. Should a requirement be missed all of these phases would have to be re-done retroactively for the change. Testing would prove difficult because you would have to see what effect the requirement has on other functionality. Further, there is a cost associated with "negative pr". The client may think Accenture dropped the ball and is not fit to continue the implementation.
2. A plan of action would be to ensure that first all requirements are clearly documented prior to moving to the next step. To ensure their completeness Accenture could have a workshop with key client users and the project sponsor. At this workshop Accenture could go through the list of requirements and verify one last time that they are correct. To ensure accountability the project sponsor from the client side would sign off on the requirements. This would provide an audit trail that the client agreed to and verified the requirements prior to any creation of design documentation.