So I had secured the need, budget, authority and timing, the all important NBAT, but still the sale stalled. The customer loved our solution as it addressed the lack of executive alignment that he was facing, he had plenty of budget, and he didn’t need anyone else to “sign off” on the purchase. So what was the problem?  I was baffled for months on end until I can across Sharon Drew Morgen and her book Dirty Little Secrets, Why Buyers Can’t Buy and Sellers Can’t Sell and What You Can Do About it http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/. 

What I failed to realize was that the decision that the buyer was making involved much more than the NBAT.  There were other objectives at play for the buyer that I was not aware of.  In addition to getting an executive alignment solution at a good price, the buyer also had to sort out the tangled web of people, policies and politics that impacted this purchase decision.  There was a whole system inside the company that I wasn’t privy to and until it is addressed, this sale would never happen. 

I must say that as the CEO of a decision making company that prides itself on helping people make decisions in large part by helping our customers to expose the range of objectives involved in a decision, that I was a bit embarrassed by my oversight on this sale. Even more embarrassing was that I didn’t know how to fix the problem and bring the customer around on the sale.  It wasn’t until I learned to start listening for the “system” instead of the “need” that I began to crack the case and lead the customer through the buying process and ultimate closure of the sale.  Check out http://dirtylittlesecretsbook.com/ to learn how to start thinking about the purchase decision as a system and how to facilitate your clients, partners, colleagues through the purchase process. 

Kudos to OMB and Federal agencies for completing the ratings of 100% of their major IT investments, which by the way was no small undertaking .  So we now have a complete and well presented view via the Federal IT Dashboard (http://it.usaspending.gov/) of how well our “major” Federal IT investments are adhering to cost, schedule and various risk (via the Evaluation Factors) metrics.  Assuming the data is and remains accurate and current (and sure, why not , we have a pretty good picture of the Investment side of the ROI equation.  

As OMB seeks to continually improve reporting via the IT Dashboard and facilitate effective management of our Federal IT systems, I’m hopeful that OMB’s next step will be to focus on the Return side of the equation.  After all, we don’t create and manage projects simply to have them completed on time and budget.  While some investments are still under initial development and thus have not yet had the opportunity to produce a return, many of the “majors” are in the Operations and Maintenance phase where they should be delivering value (return) to their end users.    

Measuring return, especially in the Federal government where not all benefits can be monetized, can be difficult, but there are ways that this can be achieved.  For starters, a simple measure of customer satisfaction might be an informative addition to the Federal IT Dashboard.