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Whether you buy your services from your software vendor or from a services company, you are likely trying to get the most from your services. There is more to this than merely finding someone to provide the services.

References and Resumes (or CVs)
Obviously, the first step is finding a vendor to provide the services. Youmight purchase these services from your software vendor, or you might elect to purchase them elsewhere.

While you are planning to purchase these services, ask the potential services vendor for references just as you would ask when purchasing the software. Ask for the following:

• Overall references for their services, as well as references for the specific resource(s) that will be provided to you.
• The resume and/or CV of the resource(s) that will be provided to you.

Companies do not always know which resource(s) you will be sent until fairly close to your project start date, so you might not be able to obtain the documents pertaining to a specific resource much in advance.

Certification
If a person has a certification, by all means obtain it for your records, although it will usually only say that the person was "certified" not what that "certification" means to you.

Many customers make incorrect assumptions about what certification means. The bottom line to certification is this: It is often difficult to determine which resources have the training and/or experience necessary in order to do the work that needs to contracted for. In order to help classify these resources, customers have asked for resources to be "certified" before being sent on a project.

Usually, the certified person has been through at least a basic training class on the software and possibly passed some rudimentary test. In some cases, it is more rigorous than this, in other cases, less rigorous. The same certification might be given to the most junior person or to the most senior person, equally.

Then, how do you know how rigorous the certification is? You don't. Certification does not take the place of checking a person's references and interviewing them, and it does not necessarily have anything to do with experience.

Work Permits
When people work away from home, the occasional work permit is needed. Make sure that you know who will get the work permit for the resource -- you or the services vendor. If you are told that one is not needed, be a little skeptical. Sometimes, only a letter is needed when a person works in very specific situations between very specific areas. Unfortunately, many people assume that a simple letter of introduction from the company will get anyone across any border. This is not necessarily true. Additionally, do not insist the resource continually tell the Immigration Agents that they are on vacation. At the airport, you might have noticed that passports are scanned into a computer where an individual can be "red flagged" if they follow specific patterns. At the least, being caught lying to Immigration can cause a person to be sent back home, wasting their plane ticket and causing chaos on the project, and let's not even think about the more severe penalties.

Interviewing
Make up a list of questions in advance. Include everything that you plan that the resource would do. That includes questions on writing documentation, methodologies, and anything else that is pertinent to your expectations. Even if the resource cannot meet your expectations, you will have a better idea what that resource can and cannot provide for you, and you can then plan accordingly.

While you are interviewing the resource, try to watch for clues that this resource will be able to fit into your way of working, as well, as the ability to "fit in" can sometimes make one resource much preferable over another.

Initial Use of a Resource
Customers assume that if they are paying a great deal of money for a resource that the person will be managed from the company who has sent the resource, and that assumption is not necessarily true. A couple of possibilities:

• The company that sent the resource manages them and you can rest assured that this person will be guided by that company to give you the most for your money.
• The company that sent the resource just sends them out, collects the money, and you get what you get.

Hope for the first, but plan for the second. Complain as much as you want, but it doesn't change the situation. Leaving a failing resource to their own devices will ultimately cost you money, regardless who you believe to be responsible. Monitor every outside resource on your project.

When a customer unexpectedly receives an inexperienced or otherwise poor resource, they sometimes find themselves wondering whether to spend their own money to train that person. Customers will point out that they do not think that this is fair. That's right. It's not fair. Once again, it's a matter of planning, though.

Determine the cost of training that resource and waiting for them to come up-to-speed. Compare that to the cost of not having that resource, at all. Also compare it to the cost of using a more experienced or appropriate resource. Also, consider negotiating with the services vendor to cut the price of the resource if you train them, as well as to promise not to pull that person from the project for some set period of time once you have done so, although the services vendor might not be interested, especially during times when there is a shortage of consultants and they could send that person elsewhere.

In the end, the cost of the services can outrun the cost of the software, depending on the type of project being done, which is what makes it so important to carefully select and manage them as you would with the software purchase.

During this process, keep the following in mind: Be skeptical but not hostile. If you expect the worst from your software vendor, you are almost sure to get what you expect. Treating your potential vendors like possible criminals is the wrong way to start the relationship with them. On the other hand, take the sales pitch with a grain of salt. Most vendors honestly believe their product is the best one for you and selling their systems is their reason for being. Remember the old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

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