From Mike J Walker
Did you know you can schedule an appointment with me to obtain research surrounding an issue you are facing right now? Inquiry is a subscription benefit that goes largely unexploited at many Gartner clients. Follow these tips and you’ll get your money’s worth.
Some of you already know me but for those that don’t here are the areas in which I will be providing advise:
- Enterprise Information Architecture
- Business Architecture
- Advancing an Enterprise Architecture Practice
- Business Outcome Driven Enterprise Architecture
- Establishing an Enterprise Architecture Practice
It’s really easy to setup an appointment with me to discuss these issues. You can either request an inquiry by:
sending an email: inquiry@gartner.com
-OR-
online here: http://www.gartner.com/it/about/contact_gartner.jsp#analysts
What are Inquiries Anyways?
There is a great post from Randy Rhodes that talks about this. Here it is:
An “Inquiry” is the Gartner term for your opportunity to get inside the head of any analyst – subject of course to your licensing arrangement.
How do you get the maximum benefit from inquiry? Here are some thoughts from my own experience.
- File a clear request. Good analysts will spend some time preparing for the call (when possible). Having at least a couple paragraphs explaining the issue will help launch the call effectively. Attaching a document or referring to a URL can help as well.
- Remember that some questions may require both vertical industry and horizontal technology savvy. (For example: the intersection of BI and GIS for the utility industry.) If you know the analysts that have what you need, request a two-analyst call. This type of call is not a frequent occurrence for me, but the ones I’ve participated in have been very effective.
- Tie your request into published research. When reading research for the first time, jot down your questions. If there are subject areas left untouched, point out to the analyst how more elaboration is needed. I’ve heard that at most 20% of what an analyst knows on a topic makes it into a research note. I think it’s true. Most analysts have more facts to share, that never made it through the editing process.
- Remember, analysts are human. It’s not unusual for analysts to have only 5-10 minutes between calls and if you’re 3rd or 4th in a series of inquiries, results may vary. Help the analyst launch well and steer the call to a satisfactory touchdown. If the inquiry call is not opened appropriately, gently remind the analyst to frame up the call. Brief introductions may be in order, so that everyone can know how much background detail is appropriate for the audience. Gartner account execs often join the calls and they can help; if not, have someone on your end help keep an eye on the clock and give signals as needed.
- Give feedback. Gartner launched a Quick Value Rating (QVR) tool to all Gartner clients on July 29. QVR gathers client-provided feedback on inquiry with our research analysts. After an inquiry, clients can rate the inquiry from a 1 (low value) to a 5 (extremely valuable). Clients can also add any comments they may have regarding their experience with the inquiry. Use this tool regularly, and your analyst will get the feedback he/she needs to improve over time.
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