Best practices. Our work with Electronic Solutions.

No, not really. The company operates within the media and publishing sector, so there are a lot of designers and creative people to deal with, which results in a communication challenge for technical people. Besides, Electronic Solutions does not have a formal technical communications structure, which means that even simple decisions often take a long time to make. To sign a simple package of change requests, for example, it was often necessary to consult with up to three people. This meant that a lot of my time was used for negotiating with multiple stakeholders.

First we completed some small projects for them, and then two larger projects with plenty of additions and features. It somehow happened that all Electronic Solutions projects were always handled by the three same people - Yuri Kabrits - the eternal project leader, Vasily Malinov - the eternal QA leader, and me - the eternal coordinator.

As Yuri is a very competent person and always keeps up with everything that occurs technically in the project, and Vasily can easily support interaction with the customer (he has advanced communication skills), both of them are completely irreplaceable. I'm the only replaceable participant of the projects. At some moment in time it became clear that contact with the client had adjusted itself. They understood that we did not simply want to get their money, but that we wanted to try and understand their problems, to solve their problems, and they started to believe in our words and accept our estimates.

Can you please tell something about the development plans for the UK account? What are the prospects and expectations?

I won't talk in detail because of superstitious reasons, so as not to spoil karma. And as a whole … it is not yet possible to tell, for example, about work with our new client, Cancer Research. Working with the London Borough of Newham gave us the required experience of public sector organizations, how they worked, the management required and the processes they follow. This experience gave us credibility and helped us land a big project from a new client, another public organization.

In general I have a feeling that the UK account has revived after a slow summer.

Why are you so involved with the UK account? Whence such love?

This is irrational. : And speaking seriously first, the UK account is all in the English language, and I really like to speak English, really love it in fact… Second, contact with Peter Atalla and other people from DataArtUK is very stimulating for me. We differ in many opinions, but it is always possible to negotiate with them and have a good talk. Thirdly, the flight time and time difference between England and Russia is only 3 hours, instead of 8.

That does not prevent you from working late nights?

Well, thank God, it hasn't become a rule, more an exception lately, because I have very seriously considered the words of Mikhail Zavileyskiy, that if a person does not rest he eventually stops working in general.

What do clients say about you? How do they feel about you, in the UK?

They love me!! (I hope.) Personally, we have a very good relationship; I perceive them as DataArt colleagues as well as friends, as I do with Miller, Goland, and Malinov.

Is there a balance in your work between UK and non-UK projects?

Over the last two years, in fact, I have only been involved with UK-projects. They took 200 % of my work time! (I don't want to experience that again. When taking on such volumes of work one gets tired quickly and makes absolutely foolish mistakes.) My projects included:

• Electronic Solutions - finished in March, this year
• Lynx - finished in May, this year
• Newham - I don't interfere much with this project because it's been successfully managed by Anton Luht and Alexey Filippov from the very beginning.

In June and July I've got time for those things I didn't have time for earlier, such as writing the new templates for proposals, pre-sales and etc. I was only once asked to hold a consultation on some project in the US. Instead of holding a consultation I became thoroughly involved with the project.

At present I spend about 10 - 15 % of my time on Electronic Solutions. Besides that I keep on the consulting activity for the US project.

Moreover, the Cancer Research project is going to be started up. If it happens, then again 100% of my time will be directed to the work on the UK accounts.

You've recently met with a US company. Did they come in order to explore us? Is it interesting for you to be engaged in sales activity?

Well, yes. It is both important and interesting. The fact is that I didn't have time for it before because I was fully devoted to project management. But now there are some extremely talented project managers in the company, and it has become possible to switch to other kinds of activity whilst managing all projects.

Then the question is - how much time do you spare for sales activity? Is it more interesting than project management? Do you want to occupy yourself with account management in a greater extent than with independent projects?

When I managed to sell something during my first phone call, the consequence turned into a funny story - I was told off by Goland. He wondered why I couldn't sell like that every day from the first time and on continuing basis. The last thing I expected was to be told off ;).

Account management supports my lazy soul because here it's more important to apply intellectual energies concerning communication issues than to go deeply into details. Correspondingly, the communication skills are more necessary and that is what I do best. That's how account management differs from project management for me.