[Sigia-l] RE: Beyond Chargeback: Accountable Consulting

[alex wright]

Peter wrote:

> Lou's model of Chargeback Consulting addresses this in part, making
sure
> that the Lines of Business (LOB) utilizing the UX resource are serious

> about it, because it's going to cost them money.

The major drawback with the chargeback model is that it tends to cast UX
teams in the Creative Services mold, creating the perception of an
internal "job shop" rather than of a corporate leadership function with
a strategic mandate.

A better model may be "internal taxation."  This is how most large
companies fund their central operations like marketing, legal or IT.  In
this model, core functions are funded by an annual levy exacted on each
business unit, based on a formula involving revenue, utilization of
services, etc.

This model isn't too far off from the way marketing organizations
usually work.  Most corporate marketing teams would be aghast at the
prospect of charging themselves back to business units; they view their
role not as serving at the behest of business units, but rather as
exerting leadership and providing direction to their business unit
counterparts, who then rely on approved vendors and internal Creative
Services teams for campaign-level execution.  

In this model, the corporate entity usually owns measurements as well.
Typically, a corporate entity measures business unit performance (rather
than the other way around).  Similarly, it seems to me that corporate UX
teams should be tasked with measuring business unit UX performance
(rather than just measuring themselves).

regards,
alex
---------------
alex wright
alex at agwright.com | www.agwright.com