The beta generation

When we are developing learning solutions for clients, we have a process that we follow. Once a project has been scoped and the contracts signed, we draw up architecture and design documents and start to mock up the solution. We do this in stages with sign-off at the end of every stage. Alpha. Beta. Gold.

While the process is restrictive, it is also necessary to prevent "scope creep". We will have quoted our clients on the delivery of a specific product, and entered into a contract to that effect. As the project progresses, there is a very strong chance that one of the stakeholders (or one of us) will have a brilliant idea that has the potential to transform the solution. Or the client will suddenly realise that a particular issue wasn't mentioned at the time of scoping, but is critical to the issue at hand. Unless the client-side sponsor is prepared to completely re-evaluate the budget for the project, it may be impossible to implement said brilliant idea, and there will almost certainly be an additional cost involved in expanding the brief to include the overlooked issue.

I totally understand the drivers behind this. We can't work to an ever shifting brief off a fixed budget. That's what the scoping document and change control process are there for.

Sadly, we now live in a different world, where it is not just the epiphany that has the potential to upset the apple cart. Allow me to elaborate.

I have been working with a client on and off for about two years on a transformation project. My role is to design the learning solution to support the client side staff members through the transformation process. The problem is that the transformation process keeps, well, transforming. We never seem to reach a point where the processes are robust enough to warrant spending money developing a learning solution to support it. We seem to be burning budget just keeping up with the changing process, without ever getting as far as building the solution. Every now and then, the client will call us in, thinking that the time has come to start developing the learning solution. Then, in the course of the discussion, it will become evident that this or that area of the process has yet to be finalised, or an issue comes to light that no-one had even considered before, so we will be put on hold while these matters are addressed.

And while all these changes are going on, the staff members are speculating and no-one is quite certain where everything is going and what the medium-to-long term implications are for them as individuals. This has happened more than once, with different clients. On a previous occasion, the project simply fizzled out.

It puts me in mind of all those analogies we use about life being what happens while we're waiting for something else, or about children learning as much from their parents' unguarded moments as they do from those that are intended to be informative. It seems to me the time has come to develop a business model for a permanently beta learning solution for a permanently beta transformation process, because these seem to be increasingly the norm.

If we wait for the processes to be firmed up before we deliver a learning solution, we may never deliver the solution and, in the meantime, the staff are wondering what the heck is going on and why no-one ever tells them anything. In extreme situations, they may even get the impression they are deliberately being kept in the dark.

So how will this model look? Maybe it will have to look more like an SLA and less like a fixed contract. Or perhaps there needs to be less initial solutioneering and more on-the-fly stuff developed on a time-and-materials basis.

Looking ahead, (I think) I see an increased need for fleetness of foot and handbrake turns. And my opinion is that, not only will/should this influence the nature of the learning solutions put in place for staff. It should also influence management styles. Keeping everything close to your chest until you have "something definite" to tell your staff may see you never speaking to your staff again!

Those with more commercial nous than I have tend to groan at my naievete on this point, but I can't see how we are going to successfully navigate our way through the murky waters of permanent beta unless we are open, honest and transparent about it.

So that was me, thinking aloud. What do you reckon?