In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, If no one else can help and if you can find them. Maybe you can hire, The A-Team.

Forty years ago, if you had a problem, you could hire the A-Team, and get a solution. They did what they were supposed to. That’s because there were only a few solutions; developers, implementors, and consultants worked under the same roof on the same team; and, due to the high price tag, the vendors worked hard on delivering enough value to keep their clients and get referrals for new clients.

But then the World Wide Web was invented in 1989 and by 1999, corporations were starting to embrace it not only for online business but for app delivery. SaaS startups burst onto the scene and we went from a few options to a few dozen to a few hundred options for standard office applications within a decade. At the same time, many doubled down on development, not implementation or integration, and implementation shops sprung up. Then consultancies decided that, no matter where they started (strategy, finance, operations management, etc.) they were all going to be technology advisory experts and opened big technology consulting and implementation shops, because they had the size, and the cash, to hire lots of warm bodies fresh out of university desperate to work for a renowned firm.

This is where and when solution selection and advisory began to break down. First of all, the consultants had no deep knowledge of the solution. Second, they had no deep knowledge of the domain. Third, the selection and advisory consultants had little understanding of the implementation requirements. And, due to a lack of deep economic and supply chain knowledge, they all ignored the increasing complexity of global business, the increasing complexity of the software solutions designed to support global business, and the increasing complexity of interaction across platforms and systems.

That’s why you need … The A-Team!

THE BRAINS

First and foremost you need someone who understands the big picture. The domain, the core processes that power the business functions, the levels of operational maturity and how to assess them. Someone who knows how to get to the core of the problem and what is needed in a solution and can lead the team to successful execution. This person ensures the focus is on what’s needed, which is often different than what you might think you want. That the inputs to each successive phase of the selection process are the right one. That the requirement strands flow from initial collaborative root problem identification all they way through final solution implementation and integrations. Someone who ensures every step of the process is designed to maximize your chance of success while being as efficient as possible. Someone who’s always thinking about you.

THE SMOOTH TALKING FACE MAN

Secondly, you need someone who can converse with all of the stakeholders in their language, put their fears at ease, and foster the necessary collaboration between themselves and the solution selection A-Team to help ensure a successful project. Someone who can is capable of securing the data and resources that are needed when they are needed and navigating the tough scenarios when vendors who don’t want a fair and unbiased selection process decide to get down and dirty and bypass the CPO and go straight to the CFO or CEO with fear tactics or unreasonable ROI promises. Someone who’s always there when the client needs someone to be there.

THE HOWLING MAD CRAZY TECHIE
(WHO CAN BUILD AND OPERATE ANYTHING)

You need someone who has a deep understanding of the technology to identify vendors that supply tech that match your should haves, to help you script the demos, to rip apart the RFX responses and demo claims, and give you real, unbiased, solution — and not marketing — based advice. Understanding that goes well beyond the limited knowledge you get as a solution implementor where all you do is set configuration options. You need someone who was trained in tech (not operations, or psychology, or “business” or whatever else gets them into consulting), who built tech from the bottom up, who understands not only what stacks can deliver but what algorithms can deliver, and can assess not only what the tech does now but what it will actually be capable of with further development (as many vendors will claim anything you need is on the roadmap, even though they know that they are not capable of building some of the promised technology as their architecture just wasn’t built to support it).
In addition, this is someone who has spent a large amount of time reviewing and studying every solution they can get their eyes and hands on, not just a small set of clients or the big vendors that dominate every big firm analyst map. Some who loves tech and has lived tech their entire career from even before they entered university/college and through at least a decade of hands on experience (and at least five years of broad space review and experience).

THE TOUGH ONE

When the going gets tough, you need someone who can do the heavy lifting and brute force the project to conclusion. The critical support person who helps the brains with all the stakeholder interviews, ensures the crazy techie has everything he needs, makes sure the vendors get their responses in on time, and runs the project, through fear and intimidation if it comes to that, but usually with a strong, silent, honest-to-goodness resolve to get the project done right, no matter what. Someone who pities the fools not wise enough to engage the services of a team who’s only goal is solving your solution selection problem and moving on to the next engagement after a job well done (and not trying to find ways to hold you hostage and add endless billable hours to the project). Someone who alone has more heart then you will find in entire implementation teams.

But if you don’t believe me, go ahead and keep hiring The F Team. You might be part of the 12% they succeed for (or 6% if its a Gen-AI project). That’s at least a one in ten chance of success for a regular technology selection and implementation and one in twenty chance of success for a Gen-AI technology selection and implementation. Still better odds than the lottery, right?

Myself, I’d prefer odds of success of at least 4 in 5. But, as they say, you do you.