Patrick Mosher shares how to outsource work without disaster. A client once handed an outsourced team a 1,700-page manual, causing delays and unhappy customers. His framework covers scope, tools, objectives, process, and service level agreements, with a core rule: every separation requires integration back into your workflow.
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Wisdom for humanity means doing what you do best. And sometimes that means outsourcing so you can focus on the things that use your talent most wisely. Many entrepreneurs talk about hiring a virtual assistant or a VA. When I hear their ambiguous and ill-fated plans, I kind of cringe. From entrepreneurs and executives alike, I hear too many horror stories of outsourcing gone wrong. Hundreds of thousands of dollars wrong, legal actions wrong. So let's avoid those. It's time for a Wisdom For Humanity blog post to share outsourcing wisdom. This blog post may read like a business article, but really, outsourcing isn't just for business. Are you thinking about outsourcing housekeeping or lawn mowing services? Hiring a tutor for your child? Bringing on a new team member, hiring that VA, or outsourcing massive functions for your business. Well, any kinds of things like these, this blog post is for you. So what is outsourcing? Simply, outsourcing is transferring work from one organization to another. I learned a critical outsourcing guiding principle during my PhD work in organization behavior. Every separation requires integration. And I'll say it again: every separation requires integration. Once you gave, give away work, which is a separation, you need to integrate that work back into the flow. Throwing disorganized work over the wall and expecting a quality return just doesn't work. So in this article, I describe my stops Framework for Outsourcing, built from my experiences as a consultant helping organizations outsource functions, as well as my experiences as an entrepreneur using outsourcing entities. I love the extra time and lifestyle that come with effective outsourcing arrangements. Built on hits and misses in my journey, the STOPs Framework for Outsourcing can help you get what you want from your new outsourcing arrangements. But let's begin with an outsourcing disaster story. So I had just landed in my hometown after a week on the road, and walking down the people mover in the airport, my phone rings. I look down and see the name of the global lead for my practice, which was a few skipped levels above my pay grade. "Hey Patrick, it's David." Stumbling off the people mover, I step into a quiet place to talk. So what's up? On Monday morning, I need you to fly to City X. We're outsourcing a sales support function there, and the client is extremely unhappy. Things look bad. I need you to bail us out of a bad spot. Well, I push back saying, well, I, I have a lot going on and it'll be difficult for me to rearrange my schedule. Not an option. I hang up and call my executive assistant to make the travel arrangements. As I walk towards my car, I smile. David feels confident in my ability to bail out a tough project. Fabulous. Then about 10 minutes pass by and a dark cloud drifts in. Bailing an engagement out of a tough situation never results in a favorable performance review. At the end, you have an unhappy client who you just convinced not to take legal action. Great. Just great. To make this long story short, I loved that project. Yes, I still got a bad performance rating, not for my effort or my results, but in the end, the whole consulting management team was evaluated poorly. But I did bail us out of a tough spot, so the mission was accomplished. So here's the basics. The client was outsourcing sales support functions to our organization. and the client's now extremely demotivated sales support organization drafted a huge 1,700-page document which purportedly included all their knowledge of 20+ years of sales support experience. Obviously, they had no incentive to make the outsourced team look any good. They handed that 1,700-page document over to the outsourced team and said, "Have at it," and the outsourced team was doomed to fail. Imagine getting a 1,700-page manual and then one week later answering inbound customer calls to handle complaints, change information in many different systems, providing price inquiries from all over the world, and/or answering ambiguous questions that customers might ask. So while on the phone with customers, there they were paging through 1,700 pages to find answers. Response times doubled, tripled, and more. Customer complaints soared, and our client was not happy. The client outsourced a mess and got back a worse mess. The fix took a couple months, but we got there. We got the client team working more harmoniously with the outsourced team. We taught the outsourced team how to, how to search the 1,700-page manual effectively and efficiently. Client service improved and satisfaction ratings rose. Wow, bullet dodged. Well, from that experience, I captured my biggest outsourcing lessons into what I call the STOPs framework for outsourcing. And STOPs stands for scope, tools, objectives, process, and service. But "STOPPS" isn't the order I would recommend in implementing the framework. But "OSPTS" doesn't sound like anything, so I rearranged the letters and went with "STOPPS." So I'm going to use the term "pulling out the stops." Do you know where that comes from? In the mid-1800s, organ players would pull out stops of all the organ chambers to allow free flow of air through all the chambers, which provided a full range of sound. So pulling out the stops changed to mean do everything possible to make something happen the way you want it to happen. So when you pull out the stops with outsourcing, your business flows better, your team flows better, and you flow better. So here's an introduction to the STOPs framework for outsourcing. In, in the recommended order of implementation. This overview gives high performers a jump start to a more effective outsourcing arrangement. So we'll start with objectives. Draft airtight objectives for what you want to achieve by outsourcing. Typically, you outsource to fill either a capacity gap or a competency gap. Capacity gaps include routine tasks you know how to do, but you want to reallocate time for more valuable things. Outsourcing then gives you more capacity. Competency gaps include tasks you may not have the competency to accomplish with the requisite quality. Outsourcing reduces risk and increases quality. What are you trying to accomplish by outsourcing? More time? Lower risk? Better lifestyle? So that's objectives. Scope. Clearly define the scope of activities to outsource. Listing what the outsourced entity does is half of scope definition. Defining what you do is the other half. I see so many executives pile up mounds of ambiguous tasks to outsource. Then the outsourced entity spends their time and your money defining scope by trial and error. And that's scope. Process. Define a comprehensive step-by-step process including activities and timelines. Focus on tangible things that flow. What documents get passed back and forth? What checkpoints are included? When do quality reviews happen? Include what you do and what they do, which goes a long way in defining the relationship with the outsourced entity. Tools. Provide the exact right tools they need to work effectively and efficiently. What collaboration tools will you use to communicate? Emails is not the best collaboration tool for tracking expectations, commitments, and consequences. Do they need access to systems, passwords? Do you need to buy software packages for them? What templates will you use to define and regulate the work? And so that's tools. And finally, service. Pristinely define service requirements for you and the outsourced entity. Executives and entrepreneurs love to jump to requirements first. It sounds like this: The outsourcer needs to get everything done on time with zero mistakes with minimal direction from me. Can you see how this might go a little wrong? A service level agreement, or SLA, is simply a description of a relationship between two parties. High trust equals fewer pages in the service level agreement or SLA. Low trust equals more pages because expectations, commitments, and consequences for both sides are spelled out in detail. Include metrics and milestones which define requirements for quality and speed. Well, I opened this article with one of the 3 guiding principles for effective outsourcing: every separation requires integration. When you separate work, build bridges. Well-drafted service level agreements can help you do exactly that. So here's, here's 2 more guiding principles. Outsource internally first. Outsourcing a mess just creates more mess, months of heartache, and money down the drain. Consider setting up an internal service of what you intend to outsource. Apply the STOPs framework for outsourcing internally now so you can outsource confidently and effectively later. And finally, Crawl, walk, run. Don't outsource everything at once. Start small, crawl, give a few pieces, expand and start walking, then pile on more and run. Build confidence and trust in the relationship. Grow with confidence. Well, outsourcing works great if you do it consciously and patiently. The STOPs framework for outsourcing can provide a solid foundation to help you avoid an outsourcing disaster. Pull out the stops, flow, and grow.
