As enterprise IT environments increase in diversity, most service providers will be subjected to work in a delivery model that involves more than one provider and scope that is shared - often with a rival against whom they bid for the project. How can the service providers and their customers ensure collaboration works to provide value to business ? This presentation introduces the concept of a Collaboration Charter to enable multi-partner initiatives and to ensure that they succeed.

1. Foundation of a Multi-Partner
Delivery Model
The Collaboration Charter
Author: Subodh Jambhekar / Jan 20th, 2011

2. What is a Collaboration Charter ?
 A Collaboration Charter is a multi-party charter signed by:
- the Client,
- the Suppliers
- pre-existing project/service teams
- possibly, certain sub-contractors
 Signatories agree to act fairly, in an open and trusting manner, in
good faith, be co-operative and avoid disputes by adopting a ‘no
blame’ culture.
- It requires the partnering team members to develop their relationship with a view
to achieving trust, fairness, dedication to the program goals and an
understanding of each other’s expectations and values.
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3. Objectives of a Collaboration Charter
 The objectives of a Collaboration Charter are:
- Reduction or elimination of waste
- Improved efficiency
- Cost-effectiveness
- Innovation
- Speed
- Continuous improvement
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4. Key Attributes of the Collaboration Charter
 Unifies the program management process
 Integrates design/build/deployment with one plan for the whole team
 Decision-making process is led by a core group of members by
consensus
 Provides for a common communication framework
 Defines a non-adversarial escalating dispute resolution procedure
 Requires the partners to notify the others as soon as they become
aware of any matter which could adversely affect the project
 Establishes the mechanism for risk sharing
 Despite the partnering ethos, the intent is not to dilute the
responsibilities as defined by respective contracts with the
customer
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5. Benefits of the Collaboration Charter
 Maximizes specialist knowledge and encourages innovation
 Provides huge flexibility for the project and the team
 Promotes team work and integrates resource supply chains of the
partners
 Enables better participation by individual partners in establishing
choices
 Creates a higher chance of complex projects completing on time and
on budget
 Avoids recursive change control situations
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6. Collaboration Prerequisites in Specific Areas
 Some of the collaboration prerequisites in the following areas have
been described in subsequent slides:
- Program Management
- Communication Management
- Common Visibility
- Integrated Change Control
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7. Program Management under the
Collaboration Charter
 Program Manager as a partnering advisor
 Program Management Office:
- Constituting of the partner representatives
- Mandated with monitoring and controlling all aspects of the program
 Integrated Planning:
- High-level program plan with milestones defined for individual project
plans
- Dependencies across project plans are agreed in advance
- Elaboration of individual plans by respective partner
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8. Communication Management under the
Collaboration Charter
 Implement lean escalation: what can be clarified by one team
member talking to another must not be escalated
 Enable partner teams to interact for engineering clarifications at all
levels
 Project Leads and PMO to manage work performance information;
not to route engineering information for the teams
 Flexibility for co-locating resources in selective areas
- Client resources in offshore locations
- Partner resources in other partner’s locations
 Daily standup meetings between project leads
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9. Common Visibility under the Collaboration
Charter
 Common visibility to:
- All deliverable/object tracking
- Resource risks
- Resource deployment and availability
 Joint identification of risks and definition of mitigation plans at all
levels
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10. Change Control under the Collaboration
Charter
 Change requests discussed and evaluated by partners before
presenting for change control
 Global unconditional visibility of change requests to all partners
 Flexibility to deliver a change request by multiple partners
 Change Requests to detail scope, schedule, effort, resource
deployment, responsibilities etc; not commercials
- Separate commercial change requests depending on the partners
involved in delivering a change request
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11. Do You Have
Any Questions?
Reach Subodh Jambhekar at:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/subodhj/
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