Ashim,

Thank you for your question, I will do my best to address it in an email, but it is a fairly broad question.

Yes, I have worked in leveraging services across app dev both cots and custom apps over the years.  There have certainly been varying outcomes and lessons learned with each separate engagement.

On the COTS side of the house I have worked with both ERP applications and Enterprise Architecture applications.  On the custom app side i have worked on too numerous projects to recant in an email but i have worked on projects at FBI, HHS, DHS, DoD, INTEL and Treasury, each one had its on unique challanges , outcomes and lessons learned.

It would be helpful if you could be a bit more specific in the information that you are looking for so I could give you a specific answer.  For example.  when I worked on the ERP systems it was extremely challenging for a number of reasons.  From a procurement side you had to sell the COTS application to numerous groups with numerous decision makers along with each one of them having individual budget authority.  Additionally, you had the challenge of retraining an entire workforce, who usually was very happy with the way things were and knew this app might threaten their job.  You had to sell from the end user to the very senior executive level and get everyone moving down the same path for over a 12 month period.

The services side of this was as challenging because everyone on the team including the software manufacturer wanted a piece of the services work, and carving that out was no small task.

Then I have worked on $240k very niche custom apps that were completely different. so a bit more detail in where I can answer your question would be helpful.

On the services side when you look at spec and design, onto implementation and training, and then follow on end user support and app maintenance, you must look at each engagement individually.  There is never an occasion where I can take any single past work I have done in this area and plug in lessons learned and predict outcomes, but rather it is that combined experience that I need to draw on to take bits and pieces from each one of those.  That being said there are a few general lessons learned I can share.

1.  Understand who your application will impact and what systems they will impact.  We have found that you can walk into a meeting with all of the key decision makers to talk about a custom or cots app and get buy in from them over the course of the sales cycle only to learn that the new system they are bringing online is not compatible or there has to be tie ins to another organization that has to be looked at.  It is critical to map out both the human and technology factor from both the actual application side as well as the professional services pre and post deployment side.

2.  In the cases where you will have multiple companies doing different parts of the professional services, ensure that everyone is on the same page and they work together very closely.  The people doing the implementation should be in sync with the training group and should be in sync with the post deployment support group.  If you deploy an app and the training people aren’t training on what was actually deployed and the help desk people don’t know it either...well you have problems you don’t want to have.

3.  Application professional services is NOT a price sell, it is a risk management and mission fulfillment sale.  If a customer asks you if they can have 2 days training instead of 4 dont say “sure we can do that for $200k less” say “sure, which part of this mission critical app would you like not to know how to use?” Presenting your professional services as a key element for helping them improve the way they do something is the mission of professional services across application deployment. Scope it out properly and show them why they need what you are telling them and what the consequences are of trying to cut corners.  At the very least if you can’t do that make sure you are not on the hook for SLA’s that you can’t fulfill due to cost cutting.

4.  Keep an eye on the future. everyone knows that when you deploy an application that missions will change and hardware will change that will all potentially impact the application you have installed.  Make sure you know where they are going so you can talk to them about the value of your professional services to make sure that the app will be able to go with them.  DOI did an EA deployment a few years back of a COTS application.  Last year the software company did an update of that software, but DOI had modified the software so much that they had to spend over $3million to make the existing software able to incorporate the free cots updates, needless to say DOI was less then thrilled that the professional services had not be able to anticipate this.

Again, I can probably give you more specifics and relevant lessons learned and outcomes if you can tell me exactly what you are looking for. either way i hope this was helpful.