Lessons learned from site escalations

Global Power - Port of Hamburg

Photo credit: Massmo Relsig (Creative Commons)

Site escalations happen when client is not satisfied with the work done. It has not taken care of their requirements or the code is buggy. There may be also escalations due to hardware or infrastructure limitations but due to ignorance of the client, the programmer is blamed.

Different examples of site escalations

 

Residential project – India.

 

Client had no knowledge of av configurations or cabling. Our initial programmer didn’t finish his work and handed it over to a programmer who had no idea of the site. Ultimately it was a failure on the manager’s side to take up the project or managing the project. The project should have been tested, rather than shipping it and doing a project recall. The site needed a project manager who was aware of the region and site conditions rather than a programmer who had communications issues.

 

Conference project – India.

 

There was Samsung displays, Mitsubishi projector, sound structure, lighting and video conference not programmed. This project was also not tested and then shipped. There should have been a s.o.w and t.p flow confirmed. Site work should have been only configuration and not testing functionality.

 

Residential project – India.

 

This project took a duration of 3 months . Power issues were there or keypads wouldn’t have gone bad. URL listing was not done properly. Sow and tp flow were not confirmed. Codes were not tested and programmer lacked communication and managerial skills. How to convey to the client about power and network issues. Network scanning should ve been done on site. Daily reports should ve been send to the client.

 

Training Room project – India

 

Here the programmer didn’t get a sign off so when the hardware was replaced, the blame for system stability came on the programmer. Due to complex nature of the site, site support had to be done by someone senior. Client wants immediate support always. If we add clauses to the proposal for extra charge on weekend support, late night support and extra hours support then it makes sense.

 

Site escalations give clients an opportunity to vent out their frustrations on the programmer. Programmers need clients or they ll to do something else but how to put clients in their place. If the programmer is through with his work only site escalations will be device failures and not programming failures.

 

Site escalations cost money in terms of resource management which is usually not covered in the proposal.

 

Get every post emailed to you – click here!

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *