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This is the first fundamental tool set. It’s a principle I call the six levels of service. We’re going to start low. Down low is this word. Could you read it for me? Basic. Turn to your partner. Ten seconds. What is your definition of the word basic? Basic means what? Tell your partner. Good, good, good. Basic means what? The..? The foundation. The base. The beginning. The minimum. Pfft. The person behind says basic means basic. That is an example of basic.

Basic to me is the bare minimum. The bare minimum. I mean, the example that everybody here has suffered with at some moment in time is a taxi that smells bad with a driver who’s in a bad mood, who’s a bad driver who smells bad. Have you been in that taxi? Did you like it? Did he get you home? Yes. So what level did he perform at? Basic. And at work, that’s like a project that runs late. It’s a project that runs over budget, but eventually does deliver what it was supposed to do. It’s a project that’s incomplete. It’s a report that has to be assembled because it didn’t come already. Right? The way to say this gives you the emotional impact. It goes like this…Basic. Together. One, two, three. Here we go. Basic. How do you feel? Yeah.

[imitates phone ringing] “Hello. Project management office.” “Hi. I’m over here with the customer. I’m trying to answer some questions they’ve got.” “Listen, we’re really busy right now.” “Yeah, I know you’re busy, but I got the customer I need to talk to you.” “Okay, okay. What do you want?” Right now, they might ultimately get “what they want”. Like the answer. But if you deliver in that kind of a spirit, what level is it at? Right. And now they got to go serve somebody else. So is that where you guys want to be? Project manager, is that what you want to be? Do you want to move? Good. You want to go down? Where you want to go?

Let’s take one step up. Average. Normal. Usual. Expected. Tell the taxi driver where you want to go. Do you expect that he knows how to get there? Yeah. Have you ever had that happen? Says, “Where do you want to go?” You tell him and he says, “Where’s that?” The moment he says, “Where’s that?”, does your mood go up or down? Because he might go the long way. He might go the wrong way. Now eventually he gets you where you want to go. So he does meet the basic, but it’s not what you expected. Now, the way to say this one is crossing your arms. Please, everyone cross your arms. Take the sound of your voice and move it up into your nose. So it goes like this. Expected. One, two, three. Here we go. Expected. Very good. Sounds like the finance department. That’s okay. People in finance would say it sounds like the project management office. Now I want to point out something. What is the traditional definition of customer satisfaction? Meeting customer expectations. But look at how low that is on the scale. Your organization’s not going to win big points any longer for only meeting expectations.

We need to keep stepping up and one step up at a higher level is when you serve someone or do something for someone the way they like it, the way they hope for, the way they prefer. The word I use here is desired. Desired. It’s the clean taxi with the friendly taxi driver who asks you what kind of music you would like to listen to. Woo! The way to say this one is as follows. Please move your shoulders. This is the morning exercise. Here we go, here we go. What’s the matter? Are your shoulders broken? Come on, come on, come on, everybody. Here we go. Shoulders, shoulders. Now we add the sound. It goes, desired. One, two, three. Go. Desired. Good. Tell your partner how well he did that. Go right ahead. Deep breath. [takes in deep breath] Help me get from low to top. Right. Down low is basic. Cross your arms. Expected. Shoulders. Desired.

What’s higher than desired? It’s when you do something for someone, unexpected. But they like it. So it’s like getting a gift and they go, “Oh, what a nice surprise.” By the way, do you want surprises to come from your projects? Well, well, it depends on, in your own mind, how you can figure out what your role is as a project manager. If you really understand very well what the other party values that the purpose of the project is for, to serve, then you might, during the project actually come up with ideas that have not been specified in the RFQ, the SLA or the KPIs. But what you say that you could do, implement wouldn’t add more cost. We’re right there, anyway. We came up with the idea and create a very nice Surprise. Some additional value. But you’ve got to understand what the other party values.

Anybody ever bought you a gift that you really liked? And you went, “Woo!” Anybody ever bought you a gift? And when you opened it and saw it, you went, “Eheh.” So what was the difference there? No, really, what was the difference? Because they meant to surprise you. In one case, “Woo”, in the other case, “Eheh”. Talk to your partner. What was the difference between those two cases? Go. Good, good, good. Good, good, good, good. The first case worked because they knew what you v-v-v-v-value, and they put some creative thought and came up with something that surprised you. In the second case, maybe they got you something they value. “I love it, you will too. Hahaha” Or worse, from a project management perspective, maybe they got you something that you used to value, but they haven’t stayed current with what it is that you need and value today. And so there they are, still running along thinking that that’s the way.