To the uninitiated, call center outsourcing projects can appear quite complex, as they involve a wide variety of interrelated tasks and require participants from nearly all areas of an organization. The first implementation is a significant learning experience to all involved, as few internal projects have the same scope, with the added variables of an external vendor and an international destination.

Despite their apparent scope and complexity, successful call center implementations are within the reach of most organizations, despite their level of sophistication in project management and international operations. The key to managing an outsourcing project is to divide the project into a sequence of discrete and manageable groups of tasks – project phases – that can be handled by the available resources. This approach allows the project team to become acclimated to outsourcing during the implementation process. If planned correctly, the project team will progress in knowledge and confidence in parallel with the progression of the project timeline – by the time a task is underway, the team will understand the task and how it relates to the overall project. At the same time, this approach reduces the length of time that resources must be allocated to a project, as specific resources are allocated for specific phases only.

A simple example of this phased approach to outsourcing projects uses four discrete and sequential project phases to group all project work:

1. Initiation – In this phase project goals, timelines and expectations are defined, normally at the executive level. The initiation phase addresses the broader questions associated with outsourcing and establishes the guidelines and principles for the project planning and execution phases. Topics addressed during the project initiation phase include outsourcing goals (risk mitigation, quality, timing, and cost savings), timelines, internal and external communications strategies and legal and political considerations.

2. Planning – The project planning phase leverages the decisions and guidelines established in project initiation to create a detailed roadmap for the project execution. During the project planning phase, the detailed strategy for the project execution is defined. Typical outputs from this phase include the project financial model and the detailed project, risk, communications and resource plans. Like most projects, the effort expended in the project planning phase is always indirectly proportional to the effort required for the project execution phase – the more effort expended in planning, the better prepared the project team for handling the project execution tasks and managing the risks.

3. Execution – Most of the work in the sourcing project is performed during the project execution phase. The project execution phase includes all the analysis, design and development tasks required to implement the remote call center. At the completion of the project execution phase, the remote call center will be fully operational.

4. Control – Once the remote call center is implemented, the operations must be monitored against the performance goals established in the project initiation phase. This phase of the project is often overlooked, as most projects ‘end’ with implementation. The control phase, at a minimum, should establish a vendor management and oversight structure that will be used throughout the life of the call center.

The project phases and descriptions provided in this example are guidelines – specific project phases and goals can vary significantly depending on the organization.  The specific project organization and phase structure will depend on the organization’s project management style and capabilities. The goals, however, should remain the same: to reduce the overall project complexity while effectively managing the project with the organization’s available resources.