WHAT Solutioning means

Most people love the Solutioning phase. In fact, up to this point, many students are itching to find a solution that causes the client to do a series of fist pumps. In this phase, your team will shortlist a small handful of solutions that answers the problem you identified in the Definition phase while meeting the requirements outlined in the Analysis phase.

WHEN Solutioning Happens

An appropriate solution cannot be found until 1) you understand the business problem and 2) the client needs and future state desires have been fleshed out. While the Solutioning phase can only commence once the Definition and Analysis phases are done, it’s worthwhile to know that phases 2-4 of the IT consulting process can happen before the first phase. For example, if you’re trying to win some business, part of you preparing a proposal will entail you outlining a perceived problem, doing appropriate research, and coming up with a hypothetical and high-level solution.

WHO Solutioning Involves

Your amazing team and as many vendors that you can get hold of.

WHY The Solutioning Phase Is Important

This answer is quite obvious, but for those of you who are tickled by endless information, the Solutioning phase is important because it gives you, as a consulting trainee, an opportunity to provide an answer to a real business problem. Not to mention, it possibly helps to resolve a major pain that your client has had to deal with for some time. Ideally, the solution you come up with in this phase will bring your client business value.

HOW to Navigate Through Solutioning

While wrapping up the previous phase, Analysis, you probably started to see trends and indicators of how improvements could be made. Now during the Solutioning phase, the main objective is to determine suitable solutions and find vendors that have a solution that meets the predefined requirements. This is a critical area for consultants to excel in, since providing answers to business questions and challenges is the reason they are hired.

This phase requires innovative thinking and creativity (even creative problem solving) to chalk up solutions that solve some or most aspects of the problem area being investigated. The goal is to determine a recommended solution for the client and find a vendor that can make it happen. If your team is in the product stream, rather than working with vendors who have the solution, you’ll be coming up with your own solutions and presenting them in the form of wireframes and prototypes.

Once possible solutions are drawn out, your team will need to evaluate them, indicate the recommended approach, and document why the other options were rejected. Based on your team’s chosen approach to improve the business process, you can start to find an actual solution by first searching online for companies that offer a product or alternative that can be leveraged by your client.

To begin, prepare a Request for Proposal or Request for Information RFP/RFI (see Chapter 20 for examples) and distribute it to vendors that offer the solution you are looking for. Since there is no guarantee of receiving a response for every RFP/RFI sent, it is important to be professional and include the required information that the vendor requires. To assist with professionalism, you may want to create a group email address to use for exchanging communications with the vendor (can be Gmail, Ryerson, or any other email provider).

There are a few other things to consider for better RFP/RFI results. Some vendors will have their own template for an RFP. Find out up front when you get in touch with them. Also, to increase your chances of getting a response, be sure to ask your client if you can include their name and logo in the RFP. If they say ‘no’ that’s okay. You can, alternatively, provide an indirect description of the company – their size, what geographical markets they serve, industry and what they do (ie. a private, medium-sized medical provider that specializes in sports medicine services).

When you get your first vendor response, celebrate! Honestly, getting vendor responses is one of the biggest challenges Capstone students have when executing the project. If you don’t hear back at first, be persistent. After sending the first email, if you haven’t heard back within 2 business days, follow-up with another email and then a phone call after that. In all of your communications with vendors, make sure you remain professional at all times. The moment a vendor perceives that they’re interacting with someone who isn’t serious about doing business with them, they’ll avoid you like the plague.

Once you have received replies and completed RFPs from several vendors, conduct the evaluation process as a group to review all options. To help determine which vendor you should recommend to client to approach for the implementation, leverage the following assessments:

• Requirements analysis
• Cost benefit analysis
• Risk assessment

Based on the evaluation, choose your preferred vendor but don’t stop there. Just as before, it is important to summarize the outcomes and clearly conclude why you didn’t choose other vendors for their solutions.

Take all the analysis that was done and summarize it in a way that can be easily understood and managed. While the client is aware of the analysis you are doing, be wise in how you present the solution to them. You may encounter some hesitation or resistance to the findings. Document clear and concise supporting reasons for the solution to be communicated during the presentation and be prepared for some push back. In fact, you’ll do well to anticipate what their possible reservations might be and find ways to counter those uncertainties.