Just two years ago, more than 75 percent of our implementation work was done on-site and face-to-face across the globe in places like New York, Sydney and London.  Higher gas prices, increased airline fees and travel hassles have made it far more challenging to fly or to commute long distances to deliver projects. With the cost of travel skyrocketing and with some 800 customers worldwide, our margins were getting squeezed to the point where we could no longer do business as usual.  We needed to re-think and revamp the processes for how we interacted with our customers, and communicate those changes in a way that made the customer feel more valued - not less.  As a result of this company-wide effort our on-site activity has significantly decreased to just 30 percent—at most.  So what changed?  We decided to implement the following programs and services:

1. Onsite versus online services

We started to communicate with our customers about the benefits of online instead of onsite services. Today we go onsite to meet our customers and the project teams --- to get to know one another, and to understand their needs and their business. During the initial one or two face-to-face meetings we work hard to establish trust and build the relationship so that much of the remaining work can be done remotely. Customers love it, more work gets done faster, and we are able to handle a larger number of implementations with less staff since less time is no longer wasted on travel. Our customers win by saving on travel costs and faster service delivery, and we win by having lower turnover rates on highly specialized consultants since less travel creates a more stable and happier career life for our service teams.

2.  More efficient project meetings

Disconnected systems and management spreadsheets lead to organizations that often require more face-to-face meetings to get things done. At Tenrox, we have agreed on and implemented role-based dashboards and key metrics per department. When I arrive at the office, I log into my portal and can see how every team is doing. The information I look at is not coming from the team leaders or their assistants. It is derived from data entered directly from the project contributors; managers simply have to approve or reject the data entries. Therefore the business unit performance, project costs, revenue, issues, and change requests I look at are based on actual data reported by our staff.

These reports and dashboards have virtually eliminated status report meetings. We meet to discuss strategy, to celebrate wins and review losses, and, yes, to review project progress; but at least in any such meetings people are not showing up with manipulated spreadsheets or to repeat verbatim what I could get from the dashboards and reports I already have access to.

Dashboards and project management reports based on live data, online approval workflows, and online collaboration technologies have reduced our G&A travel costs by at least 50% over the last two to three years. Not to mention the reduction of time and energy we wasted going over “design your own” spreadsheets in management and review meetings.

3. Combined events

Like many other companies today, we have a highly dispersed workforce. Our employees and outsourced teams work from various offices and homes across three continents. To make sure all of our teams are aware of the company’s mission and business plan we try and bring everyone together once or twice a year in Montreal, where the company was founded and where most of our R&D staff is located. In the last few years, we have combined all-hands meetings with performance evaluations, training, company parties and picnics into single events.  We do our best to try and make the trips as fun, worthwhile and productive as possible, while at the same time reducing the travel costs we would incur if we organized some of these events separately.

Higher Gas Prices; Greener Project Management

Using the latest, efficient technologies for professional services projects such as offering online support services, remote team and customer meetings and remote implementation processes while also using internal, automated reporting methods, has proven to offer a huge savings for us in time and expenses in addition to the environmental advantages it brings forth.  Customers and employees appreciate that the same amount of work, if not more, can get done using our new project management methods while the client-supplier relationship is still maintained.

Are your recruiting methods keeping pace with rapidly changing needs in human capital management for today’s professional services? 




As has been said many times in many publications, it bears repeating to say, in an ever increasing “knowledge economy,” a company’s human capital represents its biggest asset.  Recruiting new and varied talent is critical to maintaining and refreshing a PS organization’s human capital.  This article defines how you can make your recruiting function more effective by adapting to the changing needs for effective resource management.  Depending on your situation, adaptation may look like business transformation.  For more progressive recruiting organizations, perhaps this article will provide fresh ideas to fine tune your approach. 


Right Person, Right Place, Right Time - As RTM Consulting has grown helping firms with more effective resource management, we have found that in too many companies recruiting functions are not adapting quickly enough to changing needs in the marketplace necessary to support Just-in-Time Resourcing needs.  Traditional start/stop/start/stop processes are still predominant today.  For instance I let recruiting know I need someone with a certain skill by a certain time frame, they initiate a search, screen some candidates, provide a short list of people to interview, and through some mutually agreed process select and hire a candidate.  Job over.  They say let us know when you need someone else.  Sound familiar?


The New Recruiting Paradigm

Both the competitive landscape for recruiting talent and the overall environment in which recruiters operate has changed substantially over the past five years.  Recruiters actively use many new channels for finding people, mostly enabled by new internet based tools, forums, social networks and other services.  More active use of offshore, near-shore, and virtual sources of people have become commonplace as well.  Unfortunately, what has not appeared to keep pace is how recruiting functions operate internally with the organizations they support, nor has the effectiveness of these operations improved appreciably.

While there are many aspects of the new recruiting paradigm, for purposes of the article I will focus on three elements which are fundamental to the new recruiting paradigm.  The three elements include making recruiting an integral part of the resource management process, treating recruiting as a strategic function, and practicing ‘warm pool recruiting’.  Each of the three elements is described below in more detail:

1. Over the past couple of years, I have written many articles and talked to many companies about a new paradigm for managing resources, akin to how manufacturers learned to conduct Just-in-Time Manufacturing and deliver parts and labor in synchrony to produce the right product in the right place at the right time.  For technology professional services providers, the Just-in-Time Resourcing (JITR) methodology enables delivery of the right person to the right place at the right moment in time consistently.  JITR requires a holistic approach to Human Capital Management.  The JITR process requires sales forecasting, human capital acquisition and retention, delivery staffing and project management all to operate as inter-related processes.  Shared services and other x-functional operations become part of a JITR ecosystem aimed at highly effective and efficient resourcing as shown in Figure 1 below.

Professional Services Automation (PSA) systems have many potential benefits to Professional Services (PS) organizations but realizing the full benefit has its challenges. PSA systems are the “ERP” for PS organizations in that they can encompass selling and forecasting business, managing deliverables and resources, time and expense management modules to name a few.  The potential advantages of having better systems with which to manage the PS business are numerous. Seldom can a PS organization digest the implementation of all the modules of a PSA system.  Deciding exactly what features of PSA should be implemented and when they should be implemented is the key to success.

System Conflicts
Challenges arrive when PSA and Corporate systems overlap. Expense management is a classic example. If there is an existing expense management system in place and the PSA system needs to keep track of billable and non-billable expenses for engagements, deciding which system to user (or both) can stop a PSA implementation in its tracks. This is not the only area in PSA where system overlap demands stringent up front thinking about how the system will be used. Other examples include pipeline management, order entry and billing, project management, etc.  Again, for the dedicated professional services firm, this can be a cleaner implementation because all forecasts and orders are solely about services. But in a products company with embedded PS, there are likely to be other systems that will need to be rationalized in or out of the process.

Another challenge revolves around process. PS organizations that are focused on larger, longer term engagements tend to have developed more process around their engagements and as a result adapt more readily to the rigor needed to use PSA systems. Vendors who do quick-hit implementations typically have less existing process and find it harder to fit into PSA because of their culture. That is not to say that this lack of process is good, in fact the contrary is true - repeatability and measurability is critical to PS. But heaping overhead on small projects is often hard to swallow and makes implementing PSA more difficult.

One solution to this challenge of overhead versus control and information is to develop centralized administration functions that can take care of the detailed work involved in keeping the PSA system up to date. With this approach, organizations are more likely to have consistency in their PSA systems since there are fewer people entering information. Additionally, it avoids burdening those delivering the actual services with administrative duties. With this model, product vendors with quick hit install are likely to have one or two centralized PSA administration roles.  For organizations with larger projects, there may be individuals on the project team itself who are tasked with maintaining the administrative side system.  Whichever model is chosen, it is important to have each process accounted for and have clear owners.

Choosing the best system
Choosing the best PSA system for a company’s needs depends heavily on what functions will benefit most from automation. This sounds simplistic, but many organizations make the wrong choices in this regard. For example, if the organization needs to have a tighter relationship with the sales organization then extra weight should be given to integration with the Sales Force Automation system they are dedicated to using. If project management is a major issue, look for systems that integrate well into the existing Project Management tools.

Implementing PSA
In Summary, successful implementation of PSA, like other systems, revolves around the detailed analysis and planning of how the system will be used day in and day out. Start small and initially only implement the pieces that have to be implemented and that you are ready for from a process and resource standpoint. Resist the temptation to implement all the features because it “seems” interesting.
Keep the keystrokes minimal and make sure you know WHO will be entering data - consultants or PSA administrators. There are a lot of lessons learned in the 6-9 months following the first implementation of PSA. Once the base system is in and running well, then an organization can effectively add on the bells and whistles knowing what modules fit in well to the existing flow. 

Every boater knows the feeling, the queasiness in the stomach that comes the instant you feel you are no longer in control--stretched (literally) between where you have been (the dock) and where you’d like to go (the boat). Docking line in one hand and boat hook in the other, while your feet continue to move in opposite directions, you immediately grasp the meaning of “between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

In this situation, your immediate actions will determine whether you cast-off on your new intended voyage, tie-off back to the firm ground from which you came, or splash-off “down to Davey Jones” (as old sailors would say). Not a pleasant situation.

As a leader of a services organization, you may find yourself with one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat much more often than you’d like. As you work to steer your PSO ahead to accomplish your goals, you may feel a constant current tugging you back to support the different objectives of the product-side of the house. One foot stretched to deliver profitable services projects, the other foot extended (non-billable, of course) supporting product sales or putting out customer fires.

So what do you do to stay on the course of high performance? Our latest study of 157 professional services organizations within product companies provides some guidance to smooth sailing. The high performing PSOs had this in common:

1. They did a better job of communicating the PSO value proposition both outside in the marketplace and inside the organization. Hence, you need to constantly be communicating what your PSO does and the benefit it produces for all stakeholders. This is a big part of your job.

2. They had a clearer understanding of how their PSO differentiated itself from competitors. Therefore, get the market intelligence you need to focus your PSO on areas it can distinguish itself with clients (deliver more value and make more money).

3. They were much better at aligning their professional services strategy with the overall business strategy (this is a best practice). So take the time to meet with senior management on a regular basis to force the question, “How can the PSO best help the business accomplish its mission and achieve its goals?” Sure, there will be times when it is necessary to steer a little off your desired heading, but you can plan for this ahead of time and put contingencies in place.

The natural elements (winds of business change, rising tides of the marketplace, and undertows of competition) are always a danger to pulling your PSO off course. Keep both feet on your boat--plan ahead, anticipate trouble, and steer toward your destination with conviction.

Once upon a time, I imagined that clients would tell me exactly what they wanted. It hasn’t happened yet.

I’ve learned that many people don’t know what they want until they get something else. Then their disappointment reveals what they really wanted.

I used to blame clients for not knowing what they wanted. I don’t do that anymore, because I’ve realized how often I’m not clear about what I want.

I’ve stopped trying to control clients’ expectations. Instead, I focus on being honest and clear about my own expectations.

In the past, I wasn’t always straight with myself about my expectations. I tended to confuse what I wanted to have happen with what I expected to happen. When I wanted something, I would start to expect it.

For example, I like to start meetings on time. I want people to show up a few minutes early, so we can get to work. When people show up late, I used to feel they’d let me down. I used to tell myself they hadn’t lived up to my expectations.

What nonsense! If experience is any guide, I ought to expect people to be late some of the time. I ought to be surprised and delighted if they show up on schedule!

Yet I kept confusing what I wanted with what I expected, and then I felt sorry for myself when I didn’t get what I wanted. Poor me!

Now I take responsibility for distinguishing what I want from what I expect. Here’s how.

I tell clients and team members what I would like to see happen, then I ask them to share their vision of the same situation to see if our expectations are similar or vastly different.

When I want a specific behavior or outcome from someone, I make a clear request. I say “I request that you...” and I invite them to choose whether to accept my request, decline it, or make a counter-offer. The request is mine; the choice is theirs.

If the other person wants a specific behavior or outcome from me, I ask them to clearly state their request. Then it becomes my choice whether to respond by accepting, declining or countering.

It works. When one party makes a clear request, and the other party explicitly accepts, and promises to deliver, then we’ve converted a desire into a shared expectation. We’ve both taken responsibility for our expectations.

I invite you to try an exercise. Think of a current project, and list all your hopes, wishes, and assumptions about what will happen. You may discover that you haven’t been fully conscious of your deepest hopes and wishes.

When you’ve made your list, ask yourself this: “Which of these hopes and wishes have I converted into explicit requests and responses?”
Then ask: “What’s stopping me?”

We can’t always get what we want. But we’re more likely to get it if we ask for it! The simple phrase “I request” has become one of my favorite tools for creating strong teams with shared expectations.

Each time I make a clear request, people hear it for what it is - an invitation for them to choose a response that fits for them. And given freedom to choose, most people like to be generous.

Every boater knows the feeling, the queasiness in the stomach that comes the instant you feel you are no longer in control--stretched (literally) between where you have been (the dock) and where you’d like to go (the boat). Docking line in one hand and boat hook in the other, while your feet continue to move in opposite directions, you immediately grasp the meaning of “between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

In this situation, your immediate actions will determine whether you cast-off on your new intended voyage, tie-off back to the firm ground from which you came, or splash-off “down to Davey Jones” (as old sailors would say). Not a pleasant situation.

As a leader of a services organization, you may find yourself with one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat much more often than you’d like. As you work to steer your PSO ahead to accomplish your goals, you may feel a constant current tugging you back to support the different objectives of the product-side of the house. One foot stretched to deliver profitable services projects, the other foot extended (non-billable, of course) supporting product sales or putting out customer fires.

So what do you do to stay on the course of high performance? Our latest study of 157 professional services organizations within product companies provides some guidance to smooth sailing. The high performing PSOs had this in common:

1. They did a better job of communicating the PSO value proposition both outside in the marketplace and inside the organization. Hence, you need to constantly be communicating what your PSO does and the benefit it produces for all stakeholders. This is a big part of your job.

2. They had a clearer understanding of how their PSO differentiated itself from competitors. Therefore, get the market intelligence you need to focus your PSO on areas it can distinguish itself with clients (deliver more value and make more money).

3. They were much better at aligning their professional services strategy with the overall business strategy (this is a best practice). So take the time to meet with senior management on a regular basis to force the question, “How can the PSO best help the business accomplish its mission and achieve its goals?” Sure, there will be times when it is necessary to steer a little off your desired heading, but you can plan for this ahead of time and put contingencies in place.

The natural elements (winds of business change, rising tides of the marketplace, and undertows of competition) are always a danger to pulling your PSO off course. Keep both feet on your boat--plan ahead, anticipate trouble, and steer toward your destination with conviction.

As leaders of large groups of people, it is all too easy to get caught up in the tales of the charming few - The Can’ts.  This can be time consuming and costly not only to you, but your organization - because if you are caught up in it, you can bet a lot of others are too.  Can you say unproductive?

We all know them, see them daily and have them on our teams - the Can’ts .... you know the group - ‘Can’t do that’..., ‘Can’t be done’...., ‘Can’t we do this instead’..., and my all time favorite ‘can’t we just do it the way we use to?’.  Would you like a little whine with that cheese?  So let’s look at a few ways to turn the Can’ts into Cans.  The best place to start is with you.

In a role with enormous responsibilities, we sometimes forget we don’t know everything - ok, maybe some of you do know everything, but I seriously doubt it.  Because we fear looking ‘unknowing’ or dare I say ‘stupid’ we sometimes charge forward with an idea that is not feasible.  So the best thing to do is make sure all the really smart people that work for you give you the feasible answers.  But if you don’t ask, you will just get the Can’ts chanting the doom of the notion.  And the Can’ts will quickly drown out the Cans.

During a sales presentation, doing the up sell dog and pony, we decided to include some field personnel that typically NEVER get to go on sales calls.  As we are trying to broaden their experiences by getting them out of their offices, basements, backrooms and dark enclaves, we broadened our own.  The client is explaining some issue that has been plaguing the organization for months with how to.... (Insert latest customer technical nightmare here).  They had already heard ‘can’t do that’, ‘can’t be done’, ‘can’t you do this instead or the way you use to?’.  This went on for ... oh - 30 minutes tops.  All the time, I am wondering what the guy from the field is working on so intently, his face illuminate only by the glow of his laptop.  At a pause in the verbal spewing, he turns his laptop around and says, ‘you mean you want to do this?’ In 30 minutes or possibly less, the whole issue was resolved.

As important as a channel for communication is FROM the field resources to other organizations, there is the same need for a channel INTO the field.  These are the people who MAKE it work.  If you are not regularly soliciting input from them on the long drawn out issues plaguing your clients or your engineering staff, you are standing in your own way - caught up in the tales of doom The Can’ts have spun - because they just don’t know.  And because they don’t want to look ... uh ... unknowing - they never ask.  They just crawl back into the Can’ts camp dragging everyone with them.  Start asking around, what can we do and you begin finding the Cans ... and with them, think of the success everyone will enjoy.  You are sure to even convert a few Can’ts.

Teamwork among individuals is a fascinating dynamic in the consulting world.  Webster defines Teamwork as:  “work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole.”

Likewise, Consulting is defined as:  “providing professional or expert advice.”

“Subordinating Personal Prominence"to provide “expert advice” is achieved by understanding your unique role and the client’s “efficiency of the whole”. 

Sounds like a handful, huh? And how easy is it in consulting? 

Let’s explore ...

Consultants often find themselves in two basic scenarios while consulting:

1. Selling:  positioning the ability to bring solutions to a client’s business
2. Delivery:  solving a client’s problems through business process change/advice which is often enhanced by a technology tool.

Selling generally involves a team approach and requires tight collaboration in order to comprehend the client’s pain.  By leveraging this knowledge, we learn how to win the deal by positioning the right solution. In a tight, cohesive selling team, the sales team recognizes who the QB is based on the key activity occurring during a sales cycle. For example, during a product demo, the Sales Rep facilitates the conversation and the Sales Engineer will drive/QB the product demonstration.  For a consulting scoping session, Consulting will lead/QB and Sales will act as an observer and relationship builder.  When role definition breaks down, the client is left with mixed messages and the “wrong” experts may be providing misguided or incomplete information.

For example, if you have a Sales Rep quoting duration or pricing for a project when Consulting normally performs that role, you have a breakdown in the process.  You have the wrong “expert advice” as he/she lacks the necessary background and skill to convey this information.

Managing Team Dynamics of Consulting Delivery

During Consulting Delivery, a client expects the consultants to be laser-focused on delivering to the business objectives without any external or internal distractions. The consultant team must be trained and experienced to deliver client success.  Since these 2 dependencies (properly trained and sufficiently experienced) are often not aligned, a consultant relies on his/her organization and ecosystems to ensure client success.  The consultant is not alone and the team with them and beyond them will be the keys to client success.

Let’s look at a typical project of 5 team members:

1. a partner or engagement manager (EM)
2. a project manager (PM)
3. a functional subject matter expert (SME)
4. a technical architect (TA)
5. a developer

Because of the varied experiences of these team members, sometimes the expertise crosses from role to role.  For example, the TA may have experience in working with clients in a certain business area that the PM or SME may not. The client’s confidence in the team members can be heightened or diminished depending on how issues are handled with the client. Like any project, issues will occur.

When the first project issues arise, the team should focus strictly on the issue and how to solve it.  Understanding the root cause is important to ensure it is mitigated in the future.  The “blame game” is dangerous when problem solving and can injure any tight teaming that has occurred. How the EM and PM coach their team and client will be a strong dynamic in effective teaming. At times, an aggressive communicative approach is needed if the situation goes unresolved and lingers over the project.  Over time, a client will be more accepting of the various personalities and experiences of the consulting team and issues may be handled more expediently. In most cases, to continue to ensure effective teaming, the focus should be on the issue.

How does one protect against breakdowns on a team so the right experts are providing expert advice for the efficiency of the whole whether selling or delivering?

Communication, Communication, Communication!

It’s critical that all team members understand their role and how to make sure each individual is successful while making a customer successful.  Prior to any major meeting with a client, the team holds an internal preparation call where objectives, roles, and a client’s background are discussed.  Everyone is prepared and they understand what they need to do. Openness is vital enabling team members to bring up issues proactively and solving the issues collaboratively.

Consulting is not easy.  It if were, we would all be paid fast-food rates.  The industry attracts people of highly variable characteristics and backgrounds requiring a creative approach for effective teaming.

In conclusion, selling and delivering consulting services to a client creates many challenges.  Effective teamwork will instill confidence in both areas.  The consultant is driving toward achieving the client’s business objectives.  The consulting team is “providing professional or expert advice” by “subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole.” When all facets of the organization execute seamlessly when selling and delivering consulting services, clients perceive the consulting organization as one invaluable, cohesive team.

It is my belief that the saying “minding your P’s and Q’s” did not come from a bar owner’s tally of the pints and quarts for a bar patron, as often is believed.  Instead, I heard it is how owners of such establishments looked after their enterprise utilizing this statement, and help them remember and keep track of its various components.  What is interesting to see is how running your Professional Services organization is a lot like owning and running your own bar - you have to mind your P’’s & Q’s.

Let’s start with an introduction to our P’s.  There are six P’s that are looked after in both these businesses; People, Process, Plans, Partners, Preparedness, and Patrons. Our Q’s are Quality and Quantity.  We will observe how this all fits together by spending a little time with each of these P’s.

It’s first all about the People! 
Whether you own a bar or are running a consulting business, success will not be found unless you employ the right people.  However, what constitutes the right people might very well change over time. This is why we are constantly thinking about our Q’s.  When we have just established a new tavern business in that small little corner of the local strip mall, our employees will probably be those a bit more entrepreneur.

You are going to want people with the qualities of being able to overcome the unknown, who can play multiple roles, who are great to be around others, and typically you are going to want people with who you are familiar.  I mean I am looking for an individual who is okay with working long hours and any shift, and someone who can be mixing up drinks one day and mopping out the bathroom the next.  If I have a history with this person, even the better!

Sounds a lot like a new consulting practice too now doesn’t it?  Quantity in itself seems pretty simple at this time - do you have enough people to do what is needed to be done?  Too many people and the bar can’t pay them, while too few leaves our patrons thirsty for more and tiptoeing on sticky floors. 

As our business grows, we must keep watch on our people by tracking its Q’s.  So our establishment is doing well and we are knocking down a wall and growing the business. Our quality of people might now also be changing.  It is likely that we will be serving patrons who are expecting a bit extra.  Our bartenders might have to know more about mixology, and I am going to need help in managing added people.  The quantity changes too, but it is more than just about numbers.

People in this business are not interchangeable.  While a waiter is capable of ordering drinks at the bar, they might not know a thing about how to make them, and a Requirements expert probably doesn’t have the skills of Software Architect. The quantity question is more of, do you have the right number of the right skilled people.  This isn’t always easy and we use another “P”, Plan, to assist in this task.  As we open our second location in the next town, once again we will need to look at the “P” of people and its Q’s.

Plan is Our second “P”.
We have the right quantity and quality of people, now we need to make sure everyone is heading in the same direction - we need a plan!  One type of plan is our resourcing plan that we previously brought to attention. Here we will need to understand and model our business.  For this, I am sure that back in the “ye ole days” our brethren used charts on paper lying under the bar, but I prefer something like Excel.  With a good model, I can look at a pipeline and see what roles are in demand and where I might be pushing my sales team to cover an upcoming bench. 

The second component of plan is associated with what you want to sell, and how much you charge. Learn your market space.  Know what your competitors are selling and for what rates.  It is hard to sell a $4 beer when the guy across the street has his at $3.  But since you throw in free pretzels at your bar you might be able to get $3.50, and an additional drink because of the extra salt.  The point is to know what you want to sell, how much of it you need to sell, and how much you get for it.  You also have to remember to define your wares so that people know what they are getting.  Let people know what is in your famous Flaming Almond Surprise.

A third component of plan is that associated with goals.  Do you want to have the best beer bar in the neighborhood, or are you looking to establish a more upscale franchise?  Are all of your employees familiar with your goals?  Do they all agree?  Like every other P’s , this one too has the Q’s to keep track of.  As your organization matures, so will your plans. You might be able to get away with a simple goal of serving cold drinks with a smile at first, but eventually this is going to have to become a bit more robust.  Your simple mental note of needing to hire two more skilled consultants when the next opportunity hits 90% certainty will have to change when you are finally starting to close a few more sales.  Your quantity of published goals will likely change too.

Let’s next explore our third “P”, Process. Both the bar and your Professional Services business have internal and external (or client-facing) processes.  Many of the internal processes with both businesses are the same; time and expense reporting, resource management, and recruiting/hiring.  While the external process of following the right recipe for your bar’s signature drink is indeed enjoyable, your professional services organization’s deployment methodology can also delight your patrons.

Make sure that your deployment methodology comes with bookends.  Too often professional services deployment methodologies start with the first day at the client and end the day your team leaves the client.  By doing this, you will miss key components of your business’s success and our organizational growth.  What these bookends will look like will probably be different if you are in a services-focused or a product-focused company.  In a product-focused company, you need to see that your professional services group is smack in the center of everything.  Your bookends should include processes that have connections to product development, product management, legal, and sales.  One bookend will have all the presales activities defined, and the other will ensure feedback back into the product as well as back into your organization.  Don’t forget to have a process around getting your legal paperwork taken care of in that first bookend.  For a services-focused company, your bookends will be similar but will contain fewer connection points.

Again, a process that works for five people might not work for ten, and the process for ten probably isn’t going to work for thirty.  You are going to need to track your Q’s often with this P, always asking yourself, “Do I have enough process in place, and are the processes in place documented and understood by all?”

Our forth “P” is Partners. Back in our bar, when we started out we had our employees running to the store for a few more limes and pretzels.  As we grow, we want our employees to focus more on running the bar instead of running trips to the store.  Also, people are asking for some new music.  It is now time to work in a few partners.  Partners in a product-focused company allow us to focus on our core strengths.  With partners enabled on our product, focusing on basic installation and assisting in pre-sales activities, your staff can develop higher-level service offerings around your product solution and its related subject matter.  In a service-focused company, partners widen your sales domain, assist in covering for skills you don’t possess, and can help in filling small bench holes (yours and theirs).

The key to partnerships is that they need to be created around real needs.  Putting paperwork around the thought of having a company supply a jukebox for the bar doesn’t do anyone any good if I don’t really need to have it, or because it is something I might need six months from now.  Partnerships established around a new or existing client situation, where a specific problem can be addressed, are those that get off in a good step and become a value to a company.

The thinking around the quantity and quality of the partners tends to be more strategic than tactical in nature.  Your organization needs to plan when and how to best bring in partners.  Also, everyone involved in such arrangements will need to know why the partnership exists and its goals.  Keep partnerships in the right “Q” range by having only those you need, and where you need them.

The Fifth “P” is Preparedness.
You know what happens when your bar hires a new bartender and throws them out to work on day one without the knowledge of how to make your famous Flaming Almond Surprise drink, or how to run the cash register?  Your patrons get annoyed and your new bartender gets frustrated.  What happens when your brand new consultant shows up on day one and doesn’t know your processes or where to find details about the engagement?  The same thing.  Preparedness is more than spending time with someone before their first engagement; it is a systematic method of adding value into your organization.  While a bar might have a corkboard with announcements on it, and the book of drink recipes always next to the cash register, your professional services organization should have a defined knowledge base.

The key to a successful knowledge store is of course, having your knowledge found there and continuously updated.  Keeping your quality and quantity in this “P” is a key component to not only happy patrons, but happy consultants.  One might incorporate contribution of your consultants to this effort with their appraisals, or a compensation or bonus plan.  When you see an email that holds information that others would like to see, ensure it finds its proper home where it can be shared.  And, make sure your second bookend to your process has artifacts delivered back into the consulting or company knowledge base.

The Final “P”
Although not the least important as without it none of the others have much value, the final “P” is Patrons. Neither your bar or consulting business will survive without patrons willing to spend more with your establishment then you spend to have it.  What you have to be mindful of is that not all patrons are equal.  Just as you know that some nights various people might think that got a watered down drink, or it took too long to get serviced, some of your consulting clients are going to find something that makes them less than thrilled.  On a busy night at our drinking establishment, it is nearly impossible to make everyone happy all night long.  But are you going to be more concerned with the regular who comes in a couple nights a week for a couple of cold ones, the bachelor party looking to spend money for a night of debauchery, or the person no one has seen before who orders an ice tea?  Of course the goal is to make them all happy, and on most nights this might not ever be a problem, but problems do occur in both the bar business and the consulting business.

Just as I am going to talk to my regulars at the bar, talk to your long standing clients.  They will be honest as to how they think you are doing.  I love to keep a little Stop Light chart with red, yellow, and green coloring to my patrons and engagements.  Those in the green tell me my managers are doing okay managing.  When an engagement hits yellow, I am working with the manager in determining the issue and a mitigation plan.  A red engagement means I am leading the charge and the organization is working to remedy the situation.  Just like a manager in the bar, you can’t be everywhere.  Use your management team to keep you up to speed and then you can better address those two or three patrons’ issues that really need to be watched over.

The review of quantity and quality of our patrons is a bit different than the others.  Here, too many might kill you as quickly (although more painfully) as too few.  Letting too many people into our small new bar is going to upset our regulars, strain our employees, and might present a bad image to those stopping in the first time.  Be honest, how often do you go back to a new place if your first experience was painful?  Think of those trendy new bars in the city.  They check people at the door and control how many people are inside.  They seem fine with a backlog for their services.  There is nothing better for your services organization than a backlog!  For the quality of this P, remember that not all patrons are equal in what they bring you.  Sometimes it is better to finish up with a client and then move on, and sometimes you place them on the VIP list and send them right in.

CHEERS!
I am sure that now you can see and appreciate the similarities of operating a bar with overseeing your professional services organization.  If nothing more, it might make things a bit more fun as you think of your patrons as Norm, Cliffy, Frasier, or Paul from Cheers.  The hope is that you will find this an easier way to remember all the moving parts of your growing organization.  You might want to utilize a whiteboard or an excel spreadsheet with the 6 P’s as columns and have note buckets for the Q’s.  This would constantly be updated after both formal and informal meetings with various notes and to-dos, and would allow you a simple way of keeping track. 

Right now it’s time to lock the door, finish washing down the bar, and clean up the cherries that a consultant dropped.  We’re open again in just a few hours.

in·te·grat·ed [in-ti-grey-tid]

-adjective

1. combining or coordinating separate elements so as to provide a harmonious, interrelated whole.
2. organized or structured so that constituent units function cooperatively. 

Services today are a more important part of the revenue and profit mix of technology companies than ever before.  As a result, we are tasked with constantly improving the bottom line on projects.  And since human capital is almost always the greatest cost associated with projects, this means finding new and better ways to better manage people and projects.

The Challenge

We talk with companies of all sizes every day that are struggling to overcome the challenges associated with disparate project and resource management activities.

In the SMB space, many organizations simply don’t have the right tools in place.  They are running their businesses on spreadsheets - typically for one of two main reasons:  Either they don’t believe that their size merits a better solution, or they don’t believe they can afford one.  Furthermore, the roles of Project and Resource Manager are often combined in these organizations which means time-consuming, redundant efforts for the single person tasked with making key staffing and scheduling decisions.

Larger companies face similar challenges, but for different reasons.  Many of these companies have already made significant investments to acquire Project Management tools and/or develop custom Excel spreadsheets, but fragmented departmental structures and the lack of integration between these systems mean that there is no central view of critical resources, such as System Architects, Project Managers, and other subject matter experts who must be shared across multiple projects and geographies.

Strengthening the relationship between project and resource management can simplify the scheduling of resources, enable increased collaboration, and deliver new efficiencies across projects.

Sounds good, right?  So why isn’t everyone doing it?

To make matters worse, these siloed departments most often have siloed reporting making it extremely difficult for management to get a clear, timely view of overall organizational performance.

As a result, these companies spend an enormous amount of time and effort rolling up data for Project and Resource metrics in an attempt to realign resources and focus on profitable projects.  To make matters worse, the job of slicing and dicing data is often done on weekends - meaning even more time away from the family and all-day Sunday sessions for some of your most valuable resources.

In both cases, revenue forecasts are often inaccurate; managers don’t know which projects are most profitable; resource utilization lags; subject matter experts are at constant risk of burnout from over-utilization; and executives are forced to manage their services business based on lagging indicators rather than reliable forecasts.

To make matters worse, the environment is constantly changing and the fast-paced organizations you work with only want to do business with other fast-paced companies.  This means that optimizing these manual efforts to make real time decisions is mission critical. 

So where do you start...?

The Solution

Entering information about People and Projects one time in one system is the first step toward optimizing Resource and Project Planning and forecasting.  The more information you input to the system up front, the better, since more upfront information equals less downstream maintenance.

The key here is setting Project and Resource information at the project level, so that the management of projects and their associated resources can happen within the same system - and with far fewer manual inputs than would be required otherwise.  This not only provides for a far more efficient and manageable process, but a much higher rate of accuracy as well.

Furthermore, visibility can now be achieved not only on a project by project basis, but information can also be easily rolled up by region, department, office, product line, etc… to provide real time information on how your overall business is performing.

To achieve even greater visibility, many organizations also leverage an integrated approach to improve their forecasting abilities.  In this approach, more accurate, timely visibility into the demand side of the project/resource equation - what’s going on next week, next month, next quarter, and beyond - translates to a better understanding of future needs, and ultimately, more effective staffing of all your current, future, and even backlogged projects.

For these companies, utilization and capacity are very significant drivers for top and bottom line growth, so capturing an accurate view of future business is absolutely essential to their success. 

A good automation tool will also support additional advanced capabilities such as automatic synchronization of resource schedules and project dates, and scheduling options that include fixed-percent allocation or leveled hourly distribution over time on projects.  This marriage of project and resource management facilitates better cross-functional information flow and smarter scheduling practices - all of which lead to more savvy business decisions.

Conclusion

As the Services Economy continues to evolve, so must the practice of Resource Management.  For today’s PSO’s, this means automating manual processes and creating an integrated framework for managing People and Projects.

To model and better understand the impact of an integrated framework for managing People and Projects, check out our Impact Calculator at http://www.quickarrow.com/impact.