World-Class Professional Services

We've Moved!!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 13:46:00 +0000

The World-Class Professional Services Organizations blog was started by Sophity LLC's
founder and CEO, Andrea Mulligan. Andrea and the Sophity team are still
blogging about all things consulting, but we do it from the Sophity Blog.
We'd love to have you join us there!

Check out the Sophity LLC World-Class Professional Services Blog at http://www.sophity.com/category/blog/

Life is a Bell Curve

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 20:54:00 +0000

Ok, so you know that you are like Indiana Jones and time sheets are your snakes. But are time sheets big, scary boa constrictors for all of us, or do some of us think that time sheets are more like gardner snakes?

I have managed hundreds of consultants in my career, and I can say that we all don't feel the same amount of distain for the treaded time sheet. I haven't talked with anyone who likes time sheets, but some of us hate them less than others. Like most things in life, the level of hate falls along a continuum.

I fall along the far right...I am naturally detail oriented, long to be the A+ student, and pride myself on being thorough. While I don't enjoy time sheets, I see them as a necessary evil, and I have developed systems to help me keep accurate records of where I am spending my time throughout the week. My time sheets are submitted accurately and on time!

I have worked with a few consultants who are the exact opposite of me. They don't get it, they don't care, and they just don't do it. One of my consultants a few years ago had 6 weeks of time sheets outstanding (we didn't bill hourly). When I finally gave him the ultimatum, he had all 6 weeks submitted in 20 minutes...there is no way his time sheets were right. He made it all up.

Then there is everyone else. They get it, and they care, but so many other things take priority. They don't keep up. These folks spend on average, my market research indicates, 3-5 hours per week trying to keep track of their hours, doing the archeological dig through calendars, email, and files to recreate their week. They can't find it all and end up dumping a bunch of hours they know they worked but can't find into non-billable and billable projects without really knowing that the time is right. Its a burden, they hate it, and the data they submit, while better than the guys on the far left, is not accurate.

Where do you fit along this continuum? I'd love to hear from you.

amulligan@sophity.com

@SophityPSA
Sophity on Faebook

The Snake in the Room...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 16:07:00 +0000

Superman has kryptonite, Indiana Jones has snakes, and Consultants have...the dreaded time sheet.

When we left Indiana, he had just jumped into the plane, and Jacques was pulling away from the river's edge. He looks down and sees snakes slithering around the floor of the plane and up his legs. "I HATE SNAKES!" said Indie.

As I said, we consultants have snakes too. As we move through our day and week, we are bombarded with major disruptions from members sales, marketing, product management, other customers, etc. We push "send" on that email with the deliverable that was due today attached. Its 6p, and we are running late for something (dinner, kids soccer game, a flight out), so we hightail it out of the office and to our car, but its not until we are half way home that we remember that time sheets are due and we completely forgot to submit ours. "I HATE TIME SHEETS!" we say to ourselves!

Time sheet data submitted by the consultants is critical to the business owners ability to properly bill customers, evaluate service offerings, and manage resource needs and allocations. Yet, time tracking and submission is often an after thought for most consultants. In the grand scheme of things, tracking time and inputting it into the system is the last thing the consultants want to do.

You commit to getting your time sheet done once you get home, but dinner's ready and the kids need help with their home work. You completely forget. You get to work on Monday morning, and there are a handful of emails in your inbox - some reminding you to get your time sheet in on time; others nagging you because your time sheet is late.

When you open up the time sheet system to complete your time sheet - you are stuck. You don't remember what you did yesterday, let alone last week. You start what I call the archeological dig:

First you dig through your calendar
Next, you look at emails and phone records
Then you search through the various documents on which you worked throughout the week.

You piece together some of the time, but you have to make up the rest. Do you add the missing time to non-billable tasks like "Admin," or do you add time to your billable projects?

We'd love to hear from you? How much time do you spend each week recreating your week for your time sheet? What do you do with all those hours you know you worked but for which you cannot find?

How Much Are You Losing Because of Inaccurate Time Sheets?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 15:51:00 +0000

A recent survey we conducted of IT Consultants indicates that 73% of consultants knowingly submit time sheets that do not accurately reflect the work they did.

Incorrect time sheets affect revenue in 2 ways:

Directly for time-and-materials projects by misrepresenting hours work and, therefore, billed to clients
Indirectly for fixed-fee projects when the data for those projects are used as the basis of estimates for future projects

Do you know how much revenue you are leaving on the table?

Sample:

Number of Billable Consultants on the team: 11
Bill Rate: $200.00
Billable Hours Missed per Time Sheet: 1
Time Sheets Submitted/Year: 48
Revenue Lost for Work Actually Performed: $105,600 (3% of available capacity)

Plug your data into this equation and do the math for yourself:

# of Consultants * Billable Rate/hour * # of hours missed each week * # of billable weeks/consultant

We want to hear from you!

Not a problem for you? What have you done to ensure accurate time sheets each week from your consultants?
If you are still struggling with this? What have you tried? Why have those things not worked?

IT Consultants and Indiana Jones Have A Lot In Common

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 17:40:00 +0000

Remember the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Indiana Jones is in the cave, he has found the Idol for which he has, presumably, been searching for some time. He replaces the Idol with a bag of sand, thinks he is out of the woods, then the drama begins. The stone platform begins to slip down, the walls start caving in, and Indiana, with the Idol in hand and his guide, run as fast as he can past shooting darts, falling stones, and floors that are opening up to get out of the building.

The guide makes if over a large crevasse first. Indiana agrees to throw him the Idol in return for the whip he needs to get across the gaping hole. Only the guide doesn't fulfill his end of the bargain. Indiana is in the cave without the Idol or an obvious way out. This is Indiana Jones, though. He leaps, jumps, runs, and makes his way out of the cave safely, retrieving the Idol from the guide before he makes it out. When he gets out, though, Belloq - his arch nemesis - and a band of native warriors are waiting for him. They take the Idol and threaten to kill Indiana.

Indiana is able to break free, running toward Jacques - his pilot - and the plane. He makes it to the plane, with 10s, if not 100s, of warriors chasing and shooting at him.

So what does this have to do with Consulting? Well, if you have ever been a consultant, you know what I mean.

Consultants are tasks with on-time / on-budget delivery of value added serves for their clients. They are often assigned to 3-5 projects, or more, at one time. Their clients have expectations about what will be delivered to them by when. So, consultants carve out time to work on tasks and deliverables to ensure project objectives are met and clients are happy.

However, like Indiana Jones, consultants rarely get to truly focus on the task at hand. Like most busy professionals, they are over worked and inundated with significant disruptions throughout the day. Each warrior chasing Indiana Jones out of the woods represents a Sales Rep that unexpectedly needs the consultants help to close a deal today, or a Client that needs something earlier or different than planned, or a manager or team member looking for time and help on another project.

Indiana makes it to the plane with Jacques, but as the plane pulls away from the river bank, Indiana is compelled to look down only to find big, ugly snakes at his feet and starting to crawl up his legs. In case you don't remember...Indiana Jones "HATES SNAKES." Consultants have a snake or 2 that we hate, too. We'll talk about them next week.

If you are an IT or Management Consultant and this story resonates with you, I'd love to chat with you, share battle scars, and learn how you reduce the disruption in your day-to-day so you can focus on getting the most important work done on-time and on-budget. Reach out to me at amulligan@sophity.com.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Raiders of the Lost Ark - you should...its awesome! #RaidersoftheLostArk #IndianaJones @SophityPSA

Utilization - Is it a Valuable Metric to Measure?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 14:41:00 +0000

I was talking to a member of the consulting community recently about how best to evaluate a consultant practice. This person provides consulting to consultants, and he indicated that he often tells his customers to stop measuring utilization. It did not become clear in our conversation what he thinks is wrong about the utilization metrics, but I've been giving it a lot of thought since then. So, I wanted to investigate the pros and cons of measuring utilization.

On the cons side, utilization does not reflect the value that has been delivered. It rewards the amount of work done and not the results of the work. This reward system is in conflict with my post "Customers aren't paying you to work hard, they are paying you to add value and drive results" from December 2013.

I am a firm believer that one's compensation plan drives his behavior. Paying consultants a bonus based on utilization drives them to find ways to do as much billable work as possible. While this may drive revenue and ensure that consultants raise their hands for more work when they are rolling off a project, some of the work done to achieve a utilization target may or may not drive value and result in a positive change for the customer. It may also encourage individuals to pad their time sheet by rounding up or adding a few minutes here or an hour there, just to make sure that "this week's utilization target" is met and one stays off the manager's warning list.

On the pros side, the reality is that consultants and consulting teams have a finite amount of time to dedicate to billable work. In addition to delivering billable work, consultants need to conduct business development activities, skills development, thought leadership, and a list of administrative tasks that all must get done for the business to work. Setting utilization and hourly rate targets allow you to assess your capacity to drive revenue:

Billable FTEs: 10
Working Hours per Billable FTE per Year: 2080
Target Utilization: 75%
Target Bill Rate: $250

=((10 * 2080) * 75%) * $250 = $3,900,000

So if you managed a team of 10 billable consultants, each expected to deliver 75% utilization at $250/hour, you could manage a $3,900,000 practice. That equals 15,600 hours of consulting in a year at that hourly rate. If your management set a goal for $5,000,000, what can you do increase revenue.

There are really two ways I can think of to increase your revenue:

Add more consultants (either as full-time employees or as contractors)
Increase your rates.

If you don't have the opportunity to increase rates, you must add people to deliver the additional 4,400 hours of consulting that you will be expected to deliver.

As you track utilization you can learn when you are over burdening your team and likely to have to delay start times on projects because of the lack of availability of your team. Most consulting practices maintain some form of acceptable backlog. (I have found that 4-6 weeks is a reasonable time for me as a manager to have visibility into what my team will be doing and revenue we will generate and still be reasonable for most clients to wait before we start their project. Longer than 6 weeks, though, I risk loosing the contract or frustrating an important customer too much.) As I monitor utilization and my forecast for the coming months, I can advocate for short-term or permanent increased (or decreases) to the size of my team to take on additional work and meet market demands.

I also use utilization to evaluate where we are spending our time. I measure utilization at the practice level, individual level, and resource-type level. This gives me another view into the state of my practice and potential changes that may be needed: Are we able to drive revenue and customer value with less experienced and expensive consultants, or do we need to depend more heavily on our more senior and expensive resources?

At the individual level, I look for individuals who consistently miss their utilization target. I don't worry about weekly anomalies, but if I see a consultant who is not meeting the target regularly, I work to determine why:

Is the consultant lacking the skills required to do the work we are selling? Can we provide training to this person?
Is there a behavior or cultural issue that makes it difficult to put this consultant on projects? (I have worked in organizations where the project managers or technical leads can proactively request specific resource to work on projects and even to NOT work on projects.)

Once I know why the individual's utilization is low, I can address it proactively.

I had a chance to attend a lunch and learn session with David A Fields last month. David talked a lot about pricing based on value rather than time. He encouraged the consultants in the room to dig in with their clients to understand their pain and determine the measurable value of addressing the pain, then determine the value of the work you, as a consultant, will do to move the needle in the right direction. Once you understand that value equation, David says, you can price based on that, often times earning significantly hire rates than what you consider "list" price or "target bill rate."

While I agree completely with David's philosophy, the reality still remains that a consultant only has so much time and needs to understand when he (or his team) is taking on too much and won't be able to deliver what is promised. It is also important to measure the time spent on the project after it is completed to ensure that the amount of work required to deliver the value was in line with the practice economics. If, for instance, you determined that the value of the work that you will do is $20,000 but it takes you 200 hours to deliver that value, would you earn enough money to sustain your business? 200 hours delivered against a $20,000 invoice is $100/hour. Is that acceptable for your business? Should you take work like that on? Only you can decide.

Ignoring utilization completely is dangerous and will leave you exposed. However, relying on it too heavily can drive the wrong behavior from your team. Develop compensation plans with a combination of metrics and goals that drive the right behavior - with a focus on value creation, and use utilization as one data point to indicate the health of your practice.

I'd love to hear from you on how you use utilization in your practice.

Stop Hiding Behind PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 17:27:00 +0000

PowerPoint vs. No PowerPoint, that is the question...

I have a number of "Andrea-isms" that I share with my team, colleagues, and on this blog from time to time. One is "Blank Whiteboards Beget Blank Stares." I encourage the folks around me to come prepared to challenging discussions with a "straw man" idea for what is needed, giving the folks engaged in the discussion something to which they can react, critique, and evolve. It works...just this week I shared with a colleague the current wireframes for a new technology I am building. He was able to confirm many of the things I am planning for this technology, but in the process also expanded my thinking with ideas he had that would make the solution more valuable to him. Would I have been able to get such a reaction if I didn't show him anything and illustrate what I was planning. Maybe, but given that I have a hypothesis and proposed solution, of course I will show it to him and ask him to poke holes in it.

I didn't, however, come up with a 25-slide deck to run through with him, asking him to review and read each slide while I spoke to him about what each meant, and then asking him to think creatively as part of a dialog to evolve my thinking. If I had, he would have been sucked into the slides, trying to read each word and understand what I was trying to get across while also trying to the words I was throwing at him. I would have been more focused on presenting and "getting through all my slides" than I would have been in having an open discussion with him about how to make my solution better and more valuable to him.

Unfortunately, I think many of us rely too much on tools like PowerPoint when we feel we have important points we want to get across, limited time to do so, and a large and/or challenging audience that we may or may not know. The end result is a presentation during which you impart all of your wisdom and learn little or nothing from the audience or meeting participants.

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with David A. Fields, a consultant to the consulting community and an expert in connecting the right consultant to his business customers, enabling a higher ROI on services rendered. David hosted a session with the Crimson Consulting Collaborative, of which I am part, and discussed ways consultants fail to properly sell their value and drive revenue. It was great. David reminded many of us of key best practices that are easily forgotten or not trusted when in the field, and he did so without a single PowerPoint.

As a participant, David's session felt very much like an ad hoc discussion with like-minded people, he as the facilitator. The reality is, though, that David had a well-planned and practiced presentation in which he planned to take us through a journey of "ah ha" moments. He's done this session before, and he will do it again - almost the same way each time. The questions may vary from session to session, but they all tie back to the journey he wants to take us on, and he knows how to respond to each and make sure we get the lessons learned he set out to impart on us. Each one of us left the one-and-a-half hour sessions with a key lesson learned and a desire to purchase his book, talk to our colleagues, or hire David for more one-on-one assistance...not a single PowerPoint.

I realized in this session that PowerPoint is a great tool, but I often hide behind it. While I know I can use PowerPoint to build my story boards for the discussion I want or have been asked to facilitated, but I don't have to show them. Although, I almost always to. (David had notes or slides on his iPad, which never far from site.) By choosing to keep the slides to himself, David quickly connected with his audience and invite Q&A a long the way. If you have a deck, you expect and are expected to present the deck. This puts you in the role of "speaker." As a consultant or a consultant who sells, though, the more you are talking, the less you are listening and learning, and less likely you are to assist this customer in asking and answering their own questions (from Peter Block).

David could have shared his slides with us, talked through them, and before moving on to the next slide, asked "are there any questions." Having taken that approach time and time again in my career, I suspect it would have been a much less dynamic conversation and the "ah ha" moments may not have happened so quickly.

Be prepared for the meetings you facilitate, for sure, but try stepping out of your comfort zone, closing your laptop, and have a conversation. If you need to jump up to white board a concept or an example...go for it. (I keep a set of dry erase markers in my work bag for just those occasions.) If you know there are certain topics that warrant a visual, practice your "impromptu" white board often so you can get it right and appear as though you are thinking on your feet (which you are, since you will only jump to the white board when the conversation lends itself to you doing so).

10 Things You Can Do to Be More Effective In Getting What You Need Internally

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:28:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, I wrote about ways in which I have worked with sales to build stronger relationships and effectively protect my business, team, and clients. In so doing, we had fewer projects that we couldn't support and a stronger ability to plan resource needs. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the Wild West scenario that I described toward the end of the post.

As promised (although a week late), I want to share 10 things I have done in the past to ensure I had or was able to get the resources I needed when I needed them. With that said, there is no silver bullet. Your ability to get what you needs is dependent on a lot of outside factors. Things like:

Economic Environment: The Services business may be killing it, but sales overall may be down; Management may impose a hiring freeze across the board, and you have to get it done with less.
Product Development Cycles: You may have a need for a member of the Engineering team, but they have a critical release and can't step away. You have to figure it out on your own or delay your client.
Corporate Philosophy: Let's face it, not all departments are created equal, and if you work in an organization that pays lip service to the value Services provides, you will have a difficult time getting what you need, no matter what you do. (I've been there!)
Perceived Role of Services: If Services is perceived first and foremost as a profit center, almost every decision will be made based on the impact it has on margin, regardless of the impact elsewhere. That is not to say you can't get what you need, but you need to understand this fact and position your business case in this context.

So, here are 10 things I have done in the past to get the resources I need when I need then.

Working with Sales to Manage What Is Sold and Understand Your Pipeline: I discussed this first action in depth in my last post. In the end, you need to be perceived as part of the sales team, helping to close deals, but you also need to clearly articulate your constraints and the impact of bad projects on the clients and the business. Its a relationship play - start now.
Effective Project Estimation to Understand Your Pipeline and Backlog Better: How many of us really feel confident in the estimates we put forth? Do we really have the information we need from the client? Do we understand all the risks, and have we mitigated them effectively through contingency? Have we taken the time to assess past projects "like this one" to ensure that we have historical information that supports this estimate? If you miss the estimate by any significant margin, your capacity planning will be wrong and you may not have the resources you need when you need them. In one role, my team and I developed a five-day "jumpstart" engagement. We sold it for $12,500 as a standard offering. We assumed five days of effort for pre-engagement planning, execution, and post-engagement wrap up. We sold more than I can ever guess in this model. We eventually went back and evaluated the time sheets of these engagements and found that no engagement was actually completed in five days. For every day of client-facing work, there was at least 1/2 day of non-client-facing work we needed to do. Our five-day engagement was really eight days. We adjusted our time estimate and our pricing. In so doing, we increased revenue, improved our margin, and had more effective capacity planning. We had the resources we needed when we needed them.
Using Earned Value Analysis (EVA) to Assess Project Trajectory: I feel like I am aging myself with the EVA reference...does anyone use EVA any more? Well even it if it is not used formally in this agile development world, I think the concept still holds true. At the most basic level, EVA is an assessment of the likelihood a project will complete on time on budget based on what has been completed to date. Are you 50% complete with the work but have consumed 60% of the budget? If yes, your EVA would indicate a cost/time over run. Likewise, if you are 50% complete with the work but have consumed 40% of the budget, the EVA would indicate on-time, on-budget (or ahead of schedule) delivery. Now, we all know that past performance is not a promise of future performance, but it is an indicator you can use to determine if resources are likely rolling off projects when initially planned. You can then start to think about whether you have a scheduling conflict with another project for which you need the same resources or if you will be able to start a future project sooner or crash a schedule by adding additional resources since they may be available.
Setting Project Managers' Expectations on the Importance of Project Plan Updates for Effective Backlog Burn Rates: I have seen too many times a PM running to a resource manager in a panic because he didn't communicate that he needed "this" resources for two more weeks, and the resource just casually mentioned that she will be in Tuscan next week starting her next gig. Like it or not, the PMs hold the keys to ensure that the right information is communicated early and often so that adjustments can be made earlier to avoid strain in the system. As project managers (PM) are assessing a project's status, using EVA and other tools, they should be expected to make updates to project and resource plans in what every system you use (PSA, Spreadsheets, Staff Meetings, etc.) to effectively communicate to management capacity needs on a project. Without the input from the PMs, resource managers will be in the dark about what resources are needed when. Setting PMs expectations on what happens when they do or don't communicate schedule changes is key to making it happen.
Use Monthly Capacity Planning Reports and Meetings with Finance: Similarly to the post on working with Sales, Finance holds a big key as to whether you get what you need or not. The more they understand your business and trust your models, the more confidence they will have in the business cases you put forth and, barring any external factors, the more likely they will be to go to bat for you if you need something out of plan. I have found that providing regular reports to finance on revenue, margin, and capacity (existing vs. planned) ensures that the right level of regular communication is happening and provides a forum when you need it to ask for more. Again, there is no silver bullet, but if you have a regular mode of communication and a relationship with Finance, they are more willing to listen when you need their help.
Managing "Product Quality Issues" Internally: Embedded Services Organizations often find themselves doing work to overcome a bug in the product they support rather than doing the consulting work they were hired to do. In some cases, the level of product quality issues (PQI) is fairly benign. In other cases, services is working with a difficult product with a lot of bugs and issues. In one organization that I managed, the amount of time we were spending addressing product issues in our projects was having a dramatic impact on our ability to complete work on time, which affected customer satisfaction, practice revenues and margins, and our ability to manage our resources and project schedules. The solution? We added a "PQI" task to all projects, set some ground rules for how/when to use it (including some governance to avoid abuse), and reported this time regularly to our Product Management and Engineering partners, as well as to Finance. This allowed us to 1) more easily get the engineering resources we needed on projects where PQI was an issue, 2) include enough contingency on projects where we expected to have significant PQI time based on historical projects - allowing better resource planning, and 3) improve employee satisfaction since we gave utilization credit to the consultants for this time. Product management also had more visibility into the issues that were causing the most pain for Services, our partners, and our customers and could prioritize their sustaining efforts accordingly.
Measuring and Managing Goodwill Work: Similar to PQI, Services is often called upon by Sales or Executive Leadership to deliver what I call Goodwill Work (free consulting or significantly discounted consulting) to make up for a misstep by sales, support, marketing, or a product issue or to ensure we get that "big deal we really need to make our number this quarter." These requests are often unplanned and urgent, which is a huge problem when we are fully utilized with a 6-8 backlog of work to get done. It is important to track the amount of Goodwill Work you and your team are delivering and reporting that back to management. I have even gone so far as to use historical numbers to budget a certain percent of my teams billable time to Goodwill Work and to develop a model with Sales and Executive Leadership on how it can/should be used, what approvals are needed, and what happens where the budget is fully consumed. Reporting on Goodwill Work gives you a leg to stand on when you need more resources to support a project. Planning and budgeting for it makes the issue transparent and forces the organization to make difficult decisions about when to use it and when not.
Mantra: Services Can't Outpace Product: In some cases, I believe that custom services can be used as "paid R&D" where a customer wants a new product feature, it is not on the roadmap, and services has the capability to build it for a fee for the customer. The conversation can go like this, "That feature is scheduled for Q2 next year. You can either wait until then, or we can develop a custom SOW and have our Services organization build it for you now. It will cost you $500,000 (or what ever), and will be made available to all customers as soon as it is fully tested." Some customers will feel it is worth the money to get the feature now. Others will simply decide to wait. In some organizations, the Services team does not have the skills to take on such an effort, and the mantra must be "Services cannot outpace product." In other words, sales cannot sell custom development of any kind without knowing that Product Management and Engineering, not Services, is prepared to support the effort - for a fee or not. (Please see last week's post on working with Sales to get what you need.) Assuming this mantra is communicated and well understood, and the right Services Engagement processes have been defined and are followed, surprise custom engagements should be few and far between.
Marketing and Sales Can Influence But Cannot Define What Services Will Deliver: Years ago, I worked for a small, but fast growing product company. We came out with a new product and Marketing, in a vacuum, developed a "packaged offering" that includes five days of Professional Services. Every time a sales rep sold this new product, Services was attached. Awesome...? On one hand, I was very pleased that Marketing and Sales understood the need and value of Services and included us in the package. On the other hand, I was scared to death when the Sales team was educated on this new package and I had never been brought into the discussion - what exactly are we expected to do in five days? As I dug in, my biggest fear was confirmed. Marketing designed a five-day engagement that could never, ever be delivered in five days. Their number one concern was developing a packaged offering that met a price point that Sales could sell, but they built something that could not be delivered in the time they committed. My margin would be impacted, I'd need to adjust my pipeline/backlog model to include a multiplier to ensure we captured the right resource needs for scheduling and capacity planning, and customers would be very disappointed when the work took 10-15 days and their deadlines were missed. A few failed projects and unhappy customers later, and Marketing learned why they needed to engage with Services when defining new offerings. From then on out, no Services offerings were defined without input and approval from Services.
The Role of Services Must Be Understood Across the Organization: Are we a profit center? If yes, no PQI, no Goodwill, no discounts...period. Every decision is made based on our ability to drive revenue and margin. Alternatively, Are we an engine to drive product adoption and satisfaction? If yes, we need ground rules for all the items listed above, but we focus less on driving margin and more on the overall contribution Services makes to the corporation. The challenge comes in when Finance sees Services as margin business first, and Sales/Marketing wants and needs us to drive adoption and growth within our customer base. My philosophy is that Services Organizations in product companies have to understand that we are a product company and everything we do should be to drive adoption of the product. I believe that Services should be profitable, don't get me wrong, but you won't get 40-60% profit margins AND address PQI and Goodwill on a regular basis. 15-25% is much more likely.

At the end of the day, and as I mentioned above, there is no silver bullet, you can do all this and more and still not get what you need if the value of Services is not understood or appreciated or if the overall health of the business is failing. Regular communication on items such as those above put you in a better position, for sure. You will often need to create strong business cases based on actual data to ultimately get what you need, but if you find that getting what you need is not typical, you should strive to understand if there is a disconnect between what you think the team's role is and what others think it is.

You should also find allies across the company to help you make your case. Will Sales, Marketing, Product Management, and/or Engineering go to bat for you? If you strive to build the right relationships across the organization, I believe, you will find allies. Sales will want you to be able to deliver what they sell. Product Management and Engineering will want you to be able to take care of issues without the use of their team members. If you don't have strong relationships with the leaders of those groups, you will have a harder time getting what you need.

Its not going to be easy...good luck!

Getting What You Need Internally - Start with Partnering with Sales

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 13:46:00 +0000

In a lot of ways, it is harder to get what you need internally than to manage a client effectively, particularly in a growth business with a separate sales team. First, with a separate sales team, you have less control over what is sold. It is not unheard of to be handed an SOW with a custom scope that is not supported by your product (in an embedded services organization) or your domain experience and consulting expertise (in either an embedded services organization or stand-alone services business). Even when the situation isn’t that egregious, you still may end up with a project budget that will not cover your margin needs or, potentially, even your costs, or commitments to the client for start dates you are not prepared to support. Worst case - all of the above!

Second, I have often said that the better problem to have is one when I have more work than I have people compared to more people than I have work. Neither feels good, but at least in the former, I can make an argument to expand my team and not be pressured to reduce the size of my team. The reality is, though, that not having the resources when you need them can cause a lot of stress in the system. Clients typically want to start when they are ready to start - not when you are. Sales professionals feel a strong commitment to the clients and will push for things that feel unnatural to you to ensure they can save face and be the hero. In some cases, the client may decide that waiting isn’t an option and go with another provider. Still, the argument to get more resources or get access to those you need is not easily made leaving you holding the bag.

So, how do you ensure that you have what you need when you need it. Man, that’s a hard question. Let’s start with the sales side of the equation this week. We will talk about other internal pressures next week.

There will always be some kind of tension between sales and services. Sales wants to sell as much as they can as quickly as they can. Its how they are compensated; its what’s expected of them. Services, on the other hand, needs to control scope and expectations, deliver on-time and on-budget, and ensure the client realizes the value they expected when they signed the contract. While it is possible to meet the needs of sales and services (and the client), tension will always be there.

In my attempt to reduce that tension, I have started with forging strong relationships with the sales executives and directors. It is important that they know that you support their mission to close business, but it is also important that they understand the implications to them, their clients, and the business overall if they don’t work in partnership with you to ensure that what is being sold can be delivered. It helps to give a little, but I firmly believe that there needs to be a “give get.” “I can give in on this point for you to help you close the deal, but it is really critical that I get this other point to go my way if we are to have a happy client in the end.”

Individual sales reps will push the boundary set by you and your sales-leadership counterparts, for sure. One Sales VP with whom I recently worked referred to Sales Reps as “children” and the Sales and Services Leadership as the “adults.” As children, sales reps will behave badly: They will exclude you from key calls, they will agree to things they do not have authority to agree, and they will leave you to work miracles to hide the challenges from the client.

Now, I am not saying I agree with the “Sales as Children” philosophy. I have worked with some amazing sales people who, while driven to close business quickly, do not want to close bad business and know it takes a team to satisfy the needs of the client. With that said, even the best sales reps will push the boundaries from time to time. Having relationships with Sales Leadership will be key to having the right checks and balances when it occurs.

Once I have formed the right partnership with sales leadership, I do all that I can to have strong relationships with the reps themselves. This happens in a variety of ways:

All those “dumb sales meetings” you have to attend - use them to your advantage. Don’t run off between sessions to call home, check emails, or schedule meetings with your own team. Use that time to meet each and every sales rep. Show an interest in what they are doing. Ask about their business (what’s working and not working). Ask about their families and interests - make it personal. Find out what you can specifically do to help them meet quota faster and then go do that.
Educate the sales team on the offerings: The value they provide and the best way for them to engage with services. A few years ago, I was building a services practice from scratch within a software company. Initially, there were two of us - I worked with sales to sell services and co-delivered those services with my one and only consultant. For the first two years, as I built the practice and hired the team, I touched every services sales deal. It was not scalable, and it caused a lot of frustration when people had to wait a couple of days to get on my calendar. As I grew the team, the offerings, and the tools that supported the offerings, I educated the sales team to, first and foremost, carry the ball down the field on their own a little farther. I gave them the case studies and anecdotes they needed to position the value. I gave them the questionnaires and checklists they needed to qualify the customer. Giving them more information about success and failures and the tools to optimize the former and minimize the latter helped to both build deeper relationships, but also empower them to do the right thing.
Next, I worked with Sales and Finance leadership to ensure that only I, or someone on my team, could write an SOW, and that I had signing authority, which meant no contract was signed without my review and approval. As my team grew, more were trained to work with sales to scope an engagement, write the proposal, and draft the SOW. I was no longer tied to every deal. We had scale, and I had the confidence that my team was properly trained and would address the needs of the client, services, and sales. I also had a check point before the proposal and/or SOW went to the client to be sure that nothing really difficult would fall through the cracks.
Standardize offerings, with standard proposals, SOWs, and other sales and marketing tools also help. Sales knows what they can sell; we know what we need to deliver. Clients will certainly ask for something different, something tailored or custom, from time to time. When a salesperson can recognize these custom requests and has been trained on how to deal with them (call your regional services manager for help), things start to come together.

I once worked at a software company that didn’t believe in SOWs and believed that minimal project description was the way to sell services: Reduce the barriers in the conversation, shorten the sale cycle, get the deal, and services will figure it out later. There was a lack of partnerships between sales and services resulting, in some cases, in significant animosity between individuals and teams. It also resulted in an unmanageable services organization in which every project was different, there were high switching costs for consultants between projects, we had to significantly over investment in delivery (we did everything the client asked us to do, regardless of what they were paying us, because the client and we had no boundaries), and we had high turnover within the consulting team, which lead to customer satisfaction issues and more animosity with sales. That example is the perfect example of what not to do. We lacked strong relationships at the VP and Director levels between sales and services, no expectations or time to work one-on-one with sales (getting to know them and working in partnership for the best alternative), and no meaningful offering definition and sales training to ensure consistency in sales and, in turn, delivery.

Fortunately for me, other than that one example, I find that most sales teams truly want to do the right thing. They do not want to sell the wrong engagement to the client, and while they have little tolerance for anyone slowing down their deal, once you get a few successes under your belt, they will trust the system and work with you.

The Best Consultants are The Pied Piper - They Lead and Pull, and Don’t Push

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 12:45:00 +0000

In my last role before starting Sophity, I managed a team of program managers who are responsible for working with clients to evolve and mature their programs that leveraged our companies products. While my team of program managers were not sales people in the traditional sense, they were in a role, that if executed effectively, would likely lead to an increase in our company’s product sales. They were aware of this impact and were compensated for it. Needless to say, there was a lot of pressure on the team to contribute and to ensure all of their clients renewed their SaaS subscription (product) and even grew their spend on the SaaS product year after year.

As their manager, I would often probe to understand what risks they saw and how they were going to mitigate those risks. I’d also looked to understand how each program manager was going to ensure renewals and drive growth within the account.

Unfortunately, many of the program managers didn’t quite understand their role as the Pied Piper in this dynamic. Many thought they needed to push their customers to take certain actions: “I know what they need to do, and I have told them, but they just aren’t doing it. I am pushing as hard as I can.”

What’s wrong with this approach? I can see a few issues:

First, power begets power. If you push someone, they are going to push you back. Our clients, as inexperienced or ignorant on the subject they may be, don’t always see themselves that way (and, frankly, many of them are not - they know as much or more than you), and will take offense when you push them to do something before they feel you really understand their world, their constraints, the political environment, or anything else that will affect the path forward.
Second, the best way to get someone to do something is to have them come up with it on their own and buy into it as the right thing to do. Pushing your ideas and agenda on your client flies directly in the face of that philosophy, and it is rare that it will succeed. You need to, in the words of Peter Block (I use this quote often), “help your customer ask and answer their own questions,” not give them the answer to the question you just asked or think they should be asking.
Third, you run the risk of alienating your client because “you don’t understand our situation; we aren’t like all of your other clients.” Let’s face it, as consultants, we often see different clients making the same mistakes as others with whom we have worked. Its easy to assume that “this client” is “just like the last client” and simply prescribe the same solution. Could you imagine your doctor doing that? The thing is, though, there is always something different with this client than the last. It maybe a subtle nuance that, ultimately, has very little to do with your recommended solution, or it could be quite significant and game changing. Its your job to figure that out in the process of consulting. (Patrick Lencioni wrote Getting Naked on this very topic, and it is worth the read.)

So what do you do? You start by understanding as much as you can about your client. The first things you are likely to learn are the symptoms of the problem (framed as the problem) from the customer’s perspective. Dig deeper to learn the root cause of the problem and anything else you can.

As you learn more about the client’s situation, you can draw on previous experiences and offer up potential solutions. You should not simply share the one you think is best, share those that you think are the most viable and talk with your client about the pros and cons of each - which will succeed and which will fail at this organization and why. (Knowing “why” is critical as you work with your client to find the best solution.) Use your powers of influence to help the client see the value and risks associated with each option you presented, and be open to the client suggesting other options based on what they have learned from you. At the end of the day, your job is to facilitate a solution and help the client commit to solving it. As Patrick Lencioni says in Getting Naked, “don’t fall in love with your work and ideas and push your clients to do it your way.” Be the Pied Piper - lead them through a process and help them buy in to a solution that will work best for them. You will win their respect and credibility in the process, allowing you to expand your relationship with them over time.

Effective Consulting and Project Management Requires a Strong Sense of Urgency

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 19:27:00 +0000

I recently had the “pleasure,” for the first time in my career, to be the customer rather than the vendor. It was an interesting role for me, and a challenging one for my service provider. Why? Because I hold myself and my team to a certain standard when it comes to communications, project management, and consulting. One of the hardest thing to do when you are a service provider is to “out service the service provider” you are servicing, and I have to say, I was not out serviced at all.

I hired the PS team of a leading PSA provider to assist me in configuring their solution. The project was to take 8 weeks - end to end from requirements to go live. It required a one-person team from the vendor’s side and 5 people on my side, including me. In reality, it took 6 months of painful interactions with their project manager (PM) and multiple calls into the account manager and PS director raising concerns that, ultimately, were never addressed.

So where did my service provider go wrong? First of all, the PSO’s delivery model is fundamentally flawed and shows a lack of knowledge and awareness of how to effectively roll out a software solution. Requirements were gathered but not documented, meeting notes were never captured or distributed, and UAT was scheduled to begin before any stub or real data was in the system - there was nothing to test. Additionally, the solution had no documentation to train us on how to use it, and the sample UAT test plan we were provided was based on an older version of the user interface and couldn’t be followed.

I have worked for enough early-staged software companies to know that documentation is always an after thought, but this company has been around since the 1990s. They aren’t “early-stage.” And the product team can't be blamed for the sample test plan.

That said, one thing a PS team can do is “prop up” the product and hide some of the worts. Let’s face it, no product is perfect and even later-stage companies are trying to change the tires on the car as they drive 75 MPH down the highway, The PS team we were working with, however, only made things worse.

We should be talking, however, about the importance of displaying a strong sense of urgency on your projects. While not all of my complaints about the experience I had with this specific customer are the fault of the PSO, I expected a stronger PS presence to help us through our issues, keep us on track, and assist us in dealing with some pretty obvious product constraints that they knew all to well.

I will be the first to admit that we were not a model customer. My company had a very meeting intensive culture, and finding time on all stakeholders’ calendars for important meetings with our vendor was very difficult. Additionally, many of the stakeholders, myself included, had intense travel schedules (I was physically in the office for 3 out of 12 weeks in the middle of the project), and we never named an “administrator” for deeper product training before we started requirements and implementation.

With that said, the PM downplayed the need for the administrator when I explained that we had to hire for the role. He said we could easily get started...it wouldn’t be a problem. However, when I started to complain about progress, he pulled out the “you haven’t assigned an administrator yet” card as the reason for the delays. He was right, actually, but my response to him was that he should have pushed me harder and made me perfectly clear of the risk I was taking on without assigning the administrator upfront. He showed no sense of urgency on the need for the administrator, so I did not address it urgently.

Additionally, he would send email that wouldn’t be seen due to travel schedules and conduct no follow up. Weeks would go by, and I would become aware of lack of progress. I would reach out to him, and he would simply send me the email he had sent to me 3 weeks earlier.

When I questioned him, he would simply say that he was waiting for my response. When I questioned his boss, his boss pointed the finger back at me for not replying. In my organization, the program and project managers knew not to sit back and wait. If you need something from the client and you aren’t getting the response you need, try other communication channels, stakeholders, and/or escalation paths. Don’t sit around and wait.

While it feels good to vent about the mess that was our PSA configuration, I am not writing about it to make me feel better. Rather, I am writing about it to illustrate the effect the PM and consulting team’s sense of urgency, or lack there of can have on a project. As you start your next project, keep these points in mind:

Your job is to help customers get value, not the other way around. If the client isn’t doing what is needed, you need to call them out and make them aware of the implications.
You need to recognize that if the client could do it themselves, they wouldn’t need you. The inability to “DIY” depends on a lot of factors. Some customers will have the skills and expertise, but lack the time. Others will have the time, but lack the skills and expertise, and still others will lack skills, expertise, and time. Understanding which constraints exist is important to your ability to understand how to approach your customer.
The worst thing you can do is sit back and wait for your customer. if you don’t get the response you need in a reasonable amount of time, reach out again. Try a different method: If you sent an email, reach out via the phone; if you called, follow up with an email. If all else fails, escalate. Reach out to your boss or your client’s boss to get the attention you need.
Find out up front the best methods of communication for each person and what constraints they see coming that will impact the project. Develop plans to mitigate the impact of these issues.
Send regular status reports and notes to ensure everyone understands where you are in the plan, where you are falling behind, what is on the critical path, and what is needed to get back or stay on track.

I can assure you that if our vendor’s PM did any of these things on our project, it would have been more successful. Instead, the cost overruns for them and the lack of value for us equalled a number I certainly don’t want to calculate, but I am sure it is significant, and I, for one, am not likely to look at their solution in the future.

Using S.M.A.R.T Goals to Add Value Every Day

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 13:31:00 +0000

In an earlier post, I discussed the importance of not just working hard but adding value. The lesson of the roofing contractor mistaking hard work with value and assuming he earned the right to his fee simply because he worked hard is one with revisiting. As I mentioned in that post, work every day to ensure you are adding value to yourself, your firm, and your customers. Otherwise, you will fall short of your goals and have a hard time extending your relationships with your customers over time.

So how do you do that? In my experience, a good place to start is to set measurable goals for the initiatives on your plate. As a consultant, it is your job to ensure you know what the goals are for “this” project. It is also my experience, though, that many people struggle to set truly measurable goals that meet the need and deliver value. You need to develop your goal setting skills so that you can drive that discussion and assist your clients in defining measurable goals you can all get behind.

So what is a measurable goal? Personally, I like the S.M.A.R.T model for goal definition:

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Achievable
R = Realistic
T = Timely

If you do a Google Search for the term “SMART Goals”, you will see that there are approximately 35 million items returned in the search results. So I suspect I am not alone in my preference to use the S.M.A.R.T. Goals model.

So what does this mean? Well, the worst example if a goal I have seen lately was a goal that a Sales Rep defined with a client. The client was working to build an application security program, and we were working with individual contributors and managers who knew the importance of application security. They needed executive support to truly build and evolve a program, though, since doing so required access to human and capital resources.

The goal that was presented to me in my first meeting with this client was “CIO Awareness.” That’s it...nothing more. In reaction to this, I somewhat apologetically asked, “How do I know when I am done?” The folks in the room, including the Sales Rep who worked with the client to define the goal, all just sat there staring blankly at me. So I cut to the chase. “Guys, with all due respect,” I said, “this isn’t a goal, its a theme. I agree that making your executives aware is important for the success of the program, but aware of what? How will we do that, and by when. Really, how do we know we have successfully informed the CIO of what we need to inform him to drive the desired results of getting more headcount and budget for the program? Also, how do we know how much headcount and budget we need so that we can make the right business case to the CIO. This goal needs work.”

Fortunately for me, everyone in the room agreed, and we set out to craft truly S.M.A.R.T. goals.

So what does a S.M.A.R.T. goal look like? In the example above, do you think that “CIO Awareness” is specific? Measurable? Achievable? Realistic? Timely? I think not. What if the goal was something like this:

“Deliver Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) to our CIO starting next quarter in which we focus on educating the CIO on the outcomes of the current program in terms of risk identified through scanning our applications, risk reduction through educating the development teams, and remaining risk to be addressed. Provide estimates of headcount and budget to further reduce risk to meet with corporate Application Security Policy, and gain approval of additional headcount and budget spending by the end of the year.”

In this example, we have clearly indicated what information we need to share with the CIO to make him aware of the current program, risk inherent in the corporation, and what is needed to reduce risk to an acceptable level. We have specified the forum in which we will communicate this information, and we have also defined the specific outcome (gaining approval for more headcount and funding) that we are striving to achieve and a timeline (by the end of the year) in which we must achieve the approval.

I think we have covered S-Specific, M-Measurable, and T-Timely.

What about A-Achievable and R-Realistic? Well, that is up to the team defining the goal to determine. One approach to assessing whether the goal is achievable is to brainstorm on all the things that could go wrong that would affect your ability to achieve the goal. Then assess the likelihood of those things happening. For instance, you may realize that the CIO is known for not showing up for meetings called by his subordinates' subordinates. So, can you increase the chances of the CIO showing up by having your boss set up and attend the meetings? Is there a better forum other than a meeting to communicate what is needed and get his feedback? Can his assistant help ensure he shows up? What can you do to ensure the goal is achievable?

Likewise, look that the time component - is it realistic to gain the CIOs approval for additional headcount and budget by the end of the year, or is more time needed? How many QBRs will you hold with the CIO before the end of the year? Will you have collected enough data to present a sound business case in that timeframe? Will you have enough touch points with the CIO to make your case effectively? When are budgets approved - what are the chances you have missed your opportunity if you wait until that end of the year? It may very well be that the goal is achievable but not realistic in the time you have given yourself...so be realistic about what you can really do.

Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals and developing a plan to achieve the goal allows you to evaluate each day if you have taken steps that bring you closer to achieving the goals that deliver the value necessary. You can take this step with your customers (as described above), with your manager (setting a goal around a promotion and knowing what you need to do to get there), and with yourself (developing a new skill, finding work/life balance, losing weight, etc.)

Focus on developing goal setting skills and significantly increase your ability to deliver value.

Top Consulting Skills: Ability to Understand, in Detail, the Current State

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 14 May 2014 17:33:00 +0000

Things are not always what they seem, and the best consultants assume that many things are not at all as they seem. The current state is often a matter of perception. To complicate things further, each stakeholder often has a completely different perception from one another.

Often times, a consultant is brought on board by a senior manager or executive who has determined that there is a challenge that needs to be addressed that can’t be addressed internally. The business may lack the time, the expertise, or both, to solve the issue. So here you are.

The first thing most consultants will do is to speak with the executive to understand why they were brought on board. What is the problem from the executive’s perspective? What has she done to try to address the problem? What has work? Has not worked? Why?

While the executive may be a wealth of information and she will often speak with authority on the problem, simply listening to the executive and then driving to a solution would be a mistake. In all relationships, somewhere between “my truth” and “your truth” is “the truth.” This means that the consultant needs to talk to many stakeholders to get different perspectives. He must learn where there is alignment and misalignment. Where is there agreement and disagreement?

So, first, the consultant must find out who the most affected stakeholders are and talk to each of them in detail. As he speaks with each stakeholder, he should ask “who else will be affected by whatever decision we make on this matter?” The answer will present an additional list of stakeholders with whom the consultant should speak. In other words, don’t get a list of interview candidates from your sponsor, meet them, and call it a day. Look for additional perceptions that may be critical to formulating the right assessment of the current state.

The consultant needs to learn from multiple stakeholders at different levels in the organization:

What are the motivations of each stakeholder? How do those motivations shape the stakeholder’s point of view?
What is believed to be the problem? How is each affected by the problem?
What symptoms are presenting themselves in support of the problem statement?
What have they tried to solve the problem? What has worked? Not worked?

Individuals can be motivated in a lot of different ways. Some will be motivated by a successful outcome - finding the best way to resolve the issue and drive forward successfully. Others are motivated by fear. “If I talk to these guys, will I loose my job or sense of autonomy or ownership of the solution?” Knowing how one is motivated allows you to frame questions in a way that allows the stakeholder to be the most receptive and to apply judgement to the information you are gathering.

Additionally, many of us will often confuse the symptom with the problem. Is the problem that we have too many meetings making it hard to get work done, or is the crazy meeting schedule a symptom of some other problem, such as a lack of clear direction, lack of clear decision making ground rules, or lack of sufficient resources.

Getting to the heart of the current state is a critical first step in the consultative process. Do not get consumed with solving the problem at this point. Just stay focused on understanding what’s going on. You will get to problem resolution later.

Consultants ARE sales people

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 May 2014 16:17:00 +0000

While I did work in a stand-alone, boutique consulting firm for a time, most of my career has been in embedded services organizations within software companies. In these organizations, the companies typically have a dedicated, product sales team who is also expected and compensated to sell professional services (PS). The Services Practice Manager and some senior consultants often support the Product Salesperson to sell PS. Let’s face it, selling product and selling services are different, even for a “consultative” salesperson. Products have features and functionality that can be more easily compared to competitive solutions. Products can be demonstrated, they can be touched, and the value can be illustrated visually in the sale process. OK, its not quite that simple, but the fact is, when you buy PS, you are buying access to people. You can’t illustrate the value of PS by demoing a person. Or can you?

I believe that while consultants are not salespeople in the traditional manner - they don’t carry a bag and are not paid on a commission basis, they are salespeople. (I am not speaking about partners in stand-alone consulting practices, by the way.) The way we sell as consultants is through being a solid consultant and demonstrating what we know and our approach to the consultative process..

Whether its in a pre-sales capacity, supporting the product sales team, or in post-sales delivery, consultants need to sell the prospect or customer on the fact that she knows the space and has the expertise needed by the customer to meet their needs and objectives. One way we do this is by joining the product sales team in pre-sales meetings to understand the customer’s pain, learn about their success criteria, and start discussing a model that can be used to ease that customer’s pain and drive to full attainment of their success criteria. We build credibility during pre-sales that should drive the deal and set up a successful engagement. What we do in pre-sales is very similar to what we do in post sales: We ask insightful questions, listening (a lot), and provide some amount of consulting throughout the conversations, giving the customer a strong impression that we can help.

We, essentially, provide a demonstration of our model and approach as well as highlighting the specific skills of our consultants through this process. The customer is most likely speaking to multiple organizations and will determine which consulting team is best equipped to help them meet their objectives through their people, process, and technology.

Inevitably, potential customers do not view the consultant who sells as a salesperson. This works to our favor, of course. For right or wrong, there are often negative connotations of “salespeople” and, even though the consultant is on the call to help scope and close a deal, we are viewed as subject matter experts, not salespeople. If we play our cards right, we will foster a strong, trusting relationship with the the customer, and the customer will be willing to share concerns, pain, and needs with us in a way they won’t with someone in a traditional selling role.

“Selling” doesn’t end when the ink is dry on the contract, though. Once we start a project, we will get introduced to new stakeholders - folks who were not part of the pre-sales process, who don’t know us. We need to convince them that we can do the job, that we can help them meet their objectives - we are back to "selling." Then the consulting begins. Throughout the engagement, we learn, we listen, and we advise. In the words of Peter Block, we “help our customers ask and answer their own questions,” and we show the customer a vision for a better and less painful future. Throughout the engagement you will, at a minimum, be selling your ideas and your vision for their future.

As a consultant becomes more senior, she is expected to help drive follow-on PS and product sales. Again, we are not “the” salesperson, but we are trusted advisors who work with our customers more closely than a salesperson ever really could. We have the ability to not only ensure “this pain” is addressed, we have the ability to learn about other pain the customer has that “we are able to address” through our products or services.

A colleague of mine, who once worked for a Big 4 consultancy, shared with me that his previous firm offered a training program they called something like, “Helping Your Customers Buy.” Notice that the word “sell” is no where in the title of this class. This is because, for many consultants, being perceived as a salesperson is seen as a negative. The message of this training, though, is that if you knew your customer has pain that you can address, why would you not talk with them about that, even if it means they have to sign another Product Order Form or Statement of Work?

Think about it, when you are not feeling well, and you go to see your doctor, the doctor works to diagnose the source of the pain you are feeling. If he identifies another health issue while investigating the pain you had when you came in, he doesn’t refrain from saying something simply because the new issue is not the pain you came in to discuss and/or because it could cost more money to get the health issue resolved. Rather your doctor speaks with you about what he found, the concern and/or risk, and what next steps he recommends. You, of course, have the right to a second opinion, or to ignore the problem, but knowledge is power - the doctor knows this - and you now have new information to help you improve your overall health.

So how do you “sell” without “selling”? It is actually easier than it seems in my opinion and experience. Years ago, one of my company’s customers was struggling. They were using all aspects of the product they purchased - 100% utilization, but they did not feel like they were really getting value from their spend with us. They were questioning whether they should renew the contract. (Think of the guy at the gym who goes faithfully but is not losing the weight he wants to lose.)

The Account Manager (salesperson) suggested that they meet with Professional Services to see if there was anything we could do to help them get value. They knew they should be getting value, and they were open to talking with us. The Rep asked me to join a call with the customer. We had a preliminary conversation about what they were doing and why they thought they weren’t able to get value. I asked a lot of questions and learned a lot. I felt strongly that if one of my consultants could work with them for 2-3 weeks, we could develop a "path to value" for them. They agreed, and we got started with a three-week, billable services engagement designed to find that path.

In the first few days, the consultant realized that many of the things they were doing with our product were redundant and not adding value. Her first recommendation was to turn off a slew of things they were doing with us - a scary thought for a SaaS company that makes money on consumption of the product. Still, she knew it was the right thing to do. The customer complied, consumption went down, and the customer instantly trusted the consultant to do right by them.

Over the next week or two, the consultant identified a number of things they weren’t doing with our product that they really should do. She made recommendations and help them set up those things. Unfortunately, they didn’t buy enough of our stuff to do everything that she was recommending. The end result was that the customer called their Rep and bought more of our stuff - more than doubling their spend with us. The consultant was not in “selling” mode at any point in her work. She was acting as a highly-skilled consultant, understanding what they needed, and advising them of how to meet their needs. Success!!

So, worry less about whether you are “selling” and worry more about listening to your customers, understand where they have pain you can address, and help them buy when that is the right thing for them to reduce their pain.

Reminder: So, Why Do You Hate Submitting Your Time Sheets - A Survey

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 15:07:00 +0000

World-Class PSO is an organization that is passionate about building World-Class Professional Services Organizations. We believe that time tracking and professional services automation (PSA) are critical components of building such organizations, but we recognize that the current tools on the market fall short of meeting the needs of busy, often traveling, consultants and hourly contractors. This impacts the quality of data and the ability for practice managers to make data driven business decisions.

We are conducting a survey to better understand why consultants and hourly contractors struggle to get their time sheets submitted on time and/or accurately. If you are one who is required to submit time sheets as part of your job, your response would be appreciated.

This 21-question survey will take less than 10 minutes to complete (it took us 4), and all respondents who complete the survey will receive a $10 iTunes Gift Certificate through email.

Click here to take survey

Thanks in advance for your participation!
The Team at World-Class PSO

So, Why Do You Hate to Submit Your Time Sheets?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 17:02:00 +0000

Click here to take survey

Thanks in advance for your participation!
The Team at World-Class PSO

Answering the “So What” Question

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 00:52:00 +0000

I have read and reviewed countless consulting reports and sat in on way more consulting sessions than I can count, and I think the biggest issue I have seen in them, besides the poor grammar, is the level of information assumed by the author (the consultant) on behalf of the reader (the client). We assume the reader knows what the chart on page 2 is telling them. We assume the reader knows what the “obvious” next step is based on the information provided. In the end, we produce documents that are often well-written but don’t actually say anything actionable.

Years ago I took over a small consulting group at a software company. The consultants on the team were tasked with analyzing large quantities of data to help their clients understand the current state and, presumably, how to address problems. The first iterations of these reports were often full of beautiful pie charts, bar charts, and line graphs meant to articulate the current state of a series of key performance indicators (KPIs). I was new to the space and just learning myself. So I was actually the perfect reviewer of these docs. Why? Because I had almost as much knowledge on the subject as our average consumer of the report on the client’s side. If I couldn't understand what was being said, chances are they could not either. So, when I reviewed these docs with their beautiful graphs and charts and no description by the author of what the charts represented (is it good or bad and what steps could the team take to improve the resulrs), I broke out my red pen (or turned on Track Changes in Word). The most common comment I made was a simple “So What?” around the words or images that seemed to me to say nothing on which I could truly act, because I really didn’t know what the author was saying, or more often, why she was saying it at that time.

As a consultant, you are also an educator. Your customers often hire you because you have a breadth of knowledge that they don’t have. Maybe they have their own corporate perspective, but they are looking for you to shed light on the industry perspective, the competitive landscape. Maybe the challenge at hand is brand new to them - they are greenfield and need some serious hand-holding. Maybe, still, your day-to-day contacts are just as knowledgeable as you, but they need an “independent third-party perspective” on the subject, and the ultimate consumer - their boss or their boss’ boss - knows very little on the subject.

In any case, you need to provide the proper context on the problem:

What is the problem?
Is this problem unique to your customer or something you’ve seen before (some how it is comforting to know you are not alone in this, after all)?
If it is something you’ve seen before, what aspects of the problem and/or solution are unique to your client?
What evidence exists that supports the existence of the problem?

As you provide evidence that support your thesis, explain what you are seeing (or showing) and why it is relevant, but don’t stop there. Make clear and actionable recommendations to your client with regard to what they should consider doing next. Where possible, cater your recommendations to what you believe will work in their organization. (I prefer to see the recommendations in line with the problem statements and evidence, and I tend to highlight the main recommendation statement in bold to make all recommendations easy to find. I always summarize all recommendations in the conclusion of the document for those interested just in the Cliff Notes version of your report.)

Before you ship your deliverable off for an internal review or to the client, especially the client, read every line and review every chart, graph, table, picture, icon...you get the point. Ask yourself, “So What?” but ask from the reader’s perspective: Given what I know about the ultimate consumer of this material, have I made it clear to her/him why I made this statement or have presented this chart? If not, you have more work to do. Do not leave the information in your report to interpretation. Make it clear what you are saying and why you are saying it. Your client can certainly debate your theories and recommendations, and they should, but first they need to understand them.

Using the “So What?” litmus test consistently on every report, slide deck, and even in all of your conversations with the client will ensure you are truly being clear with your intentions, ideas, understanding, and perspective. Only then can your client think intelligently about and challenge your perspective and, ultimately, make the best possible decision about next steps.

Tell Them What They Need to Hear, Not What They Want to Hear...Diplomatically

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 18:21:00 +0000

I don’t espouse the concept “the customer is always right.” Let’s face it, customers are humans and no human is always right. Additionally, customers hire us because they know they are not the experts in the area where they need help. You, the consultant, are the expert. By design, you know more about the subject matter than they, have seen numerous situations similar to what they are experiencing, and have the battle scars to help them through this challenging time.

With that said, it is not your job to tell them what to do or to push them to do what you want them to do. As Peter Block wrote in his book, Flawless Consulting, your job as a consultant is to help the customer “ask and answer” his own questions. So, first, you need to work very hard to understand this customer’s political, economic, technical, and environmental situation. You then need to understand the current state of the challenge at hand, including what they have already tried to do to resolve the issue. You also need to determine their desired future state...what does success look like for them?

This isn’t easy to do. Often times, the customer has a vision for how they want to solve the problem. They may want to rely on you to implement the solution and worry less about whether you have a perspective to bring to the table that may present a better solution.

In the past, I have had to discuss risky decisions that put my company or my customer’s company in unacceptable levels of risk, concerns with scope changes that may affect project timelines and budgets, and process and standard operating procedures (SOPs) that are making the work harder to complete than it should be. In most cases, when I have approached the customer, making it clear why I could not do what they asked but provided alternatives that either solved the same problem or came close, I ended up with a happy customer. Sure, I may have caused some amount of grief initially when I explained the concerns and challenges with their request, but they soon forgot that when I delivered on my promise of what I could do.

A few years ago, I was managing a consulting team that worked on ongoing projects for our customers. We had a project manager (PM) change on our side. The project was well underway, certain SOPs were in place, and the customer had well engrained expectations for how things would work. They had extremely high expectations with regard to turn around times on certain pieces of work, and timeliness and quality could not be sacrificed.

My new PM identified a serious policy violation in one of the SOPs employed by our team and the customer. He knew we were handling a key aspect of the project in a dangerous way, but he felt the customer’s PM had provided instruction and we had to “trust” that their PM new what he was doing.

It didn’t take long for our customer’s management team to learn about the SOP, and when they did, their PM and we were in a lot of trouble. The management team felt exactly as my PM did – this is wrong and we have to stop now. The only difference was that they said something. Additionally, while both parties, their PM and our team can share the blame for letting this SOP stand, our customer’s management team held us MORE accountable. Why? We are the experts. They hired us to do this right, and we let a poor practice stand. They were right. We should have had the courage to discuss our concerns about the practice with the customer’s PM and, if he didn’t agree to a change, let that PM know that we had to escalate because of the seriousness of the risk we saw in the practice.

Back when I was a PM implementing software solutions, it was not uncommon for a customer to request a change that was difficult or costly to implement. It was my job to ensure we understood the need, why the customer was asking for the change, and the specifics of the change. It was also my job to work with my project team to understand the implications of the change: What is the technical solution? Do we have all of the information we need? Does the requirement conflict with any other requirements already in play? What is the level of effort required? Will we stay within the customer’s budget or meet their launch date if we move forward with the change? If the answers to these questions are negative, it was then my job to have a heart-to-heart with the customer. If, for instance, this new request conflicts with the project charter or other requirements to which we have already agreed, we need to discuss the impact on the overall project and whether this change will fundamentally change the objective and outcomes? We may need to call on our executive sponsors to make the ultimate decision as to how to move forward, and for some stakeholders, our suggestion to call in the sponsor may not be seen as “working with” them as a team. It can get sticky pretty quickly…”You want to go over my head?” Well, yes, as a matter of fact we do. How you do it requires tact and probably support from senior members of your team.

If the new requirement does not create a conflict with the charter, but does introduce significant rework, many man hours of new development, and/or put the project budget or schedule at risk, you need to have that conversation, too. Notice, in neither scenario am I suggesting you say “no” to your customer. Rather, you must be clear what the implications of the change is and let them decide. If this change is critical and getting it in is more important that the budget or schedule, they will sign your Change Request (CR) and you will get what you need to move forward.

In another example, I worked with a customer a few years back who insist in implementing a custom process to manage the workflow for a key part of the program managed by my services teams. While there are times when a custom workflow is necessary, this custom request not only added no additional value, it created significantly more work to implement and maintain than our standard process used by countless other customers. The custom process introduced too many opportunities for human error that caused us and the customer pain. We struggled to identify a way to illustrate to the customer why this process was flawed. We were not able to be clear with regard to the pros and cons of the process. We needed to do a better job to help the customer understand and acknowledge the risk he is introducing. I often wonder if the team has ever been able to tell the customer what they needed to hear and implemented a solution that recognized the clients situation as well as what we knew to be best practices.

Customers aren’t paying you to work hard, they are paying to to add value and drive results

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:19:00 +0000

My husband and I hired a contractor about 18 months ago to install new siding and a new roof on our home. I wanted the siding done because I hated the original color, and I wanted something that looked more like shingles. So, the work was a “want,” not a “need.” The roof wasn’t urgent - it wasn't leaking, we didn’t have any issues with it, but we knew we only had a year or two left on it. So we decided to do it all at once.

We interviewed 3-4 contractors, checked references, and even did drive-bys on past work before we hired anyone. We felt we had done our homework and made a good choice.

Before the work was done, our new roof starting leaking into the bathroom. Every major rainstorm resulted in water in my linen closet. This problem was never solved by the contractor. About 2-3 months after the project was completed (less the leak in the bathroom that was still unresolved), a new leak formed in the den. This was a tough one since the den is on the first floor..there is another floor above it. My husband and I, not the contractor, identified the problem, but he did fix it.

Then about 18 months after the work was done (again, the leak in the bathroom still persisted), another, third leak formed in the kitchen. Again, my husband and I did some digging, pulling down sheet rock in the upstairs closet to expose the underside of the roof, and found the leak.

At this point we had had enough! We called the contractor and asked him to come out to the house, which he did. He was rightfully frustrated, but he wanted to get on the roof to take a look. We had other plans. We were fed up and concerned that there was a real possibility that there were all kinds of smaller leaks that had made it through the new roof that we had not seen yet. We were afraid that hiring this guy had increased our risk for things like mold and rot that would cost us thousands of dollars down the road. We simply wanted him to pay us our money back and let us hire a roofer to put on a new roof.

Strangely enough, he agreed to do so on the spot...no arguments. We were surprised but happy. There was a hitch, though...he didn't have the money. He had to pay us in installments. Knowing you can’t get blood from a stone, we agreed, but I was afraid that we could not start the work on the new roof until we had all the money, not because we needed the money, but because he would pull a fast one and stop paying us saying we violated the warranty or something once the new contractor started his work. So I called our attorney. On her advise, I wrote up a letter that spelled out the agreement. The letter would be signed by both parties and be certified by a Notary. The contractor agreed to go forward with the letter.

In the meantime, my husband was collecting bids from other contractors. Each stated that to do the work, part of the new siding had to come down. Fine...no problem, except that the siding is under warranty by the original contractor. The new contractors with whom we were talking are not siding guys, and I did not want to give the original guy any reason to not honor our warranty on the siding. So, I added a clause to the letter stipulating that the original contractor had to remove the siding temporarily and put it back up properly before and after the new roofer did his work.

Well, this new clause put the original guy over the edge. We met at the Notary to sign the letter, and I explained the new information I had and why I changed the letter. I asked him to read it before signing so that we could discuss any questions he had before we both signed. He reviewed the letter, but I’d be stretching the truth if I said we “discussed” anything. Instead, we stood on the sidewalk outside the Notary’s office making our cases “with raised voices” as to why the letter should or should not be signed as is. Ultimately, the letter did get signed just as I wrote it. What pushed this guy to my side, you ask? Easy, his closing argument for not signing went something like this:

“Andrea, do you not understand how hard my team and I worked. We are giving you back $6500 of hard earned money, and you want me to come back and help the other contractor do his job. He should hire someone to deal with the siding. We worked really hard.” said the contractor. (I’ll call him Joe.)

To which, I said, “Joe, first of all, if the other contractor hires a siding guy to handle it, that cost will get passed on to me. We are only in this situation because of the work you and your guys did. I understand you and your guys all 'worked hard,' but my husband and I did not pay you to work hard. We paid you to put on a roof that does not leak, and that did not happen. This is not about how hard you worked. Its about whether we got what we paid for, and we didn't.”

“Joe” looked stunned, frankly, but he quickly changed gears and agreed to sign. (We have a new, non-leaky roof, including in the bathroom issue, and we have received all of our money back from the first guy.)

I didn't share that story with you for therapeutic reasons, although that did feel very good. Thanks!! Rather, I share it with you because it is an appropriate story for any service provider, including consultants, to keep in mind. Our customers do not hire us to work hard. They hire us to make something happen, get something done, and, generally, add value. If you can work less hard and still meet their value needs, they see that as a win. Assuming a time and materials relationship, they get the value faster and at a lower cost.

As you work with your clients, it is important that you first understand what “value” means to the customer. This can be expressed as “success criteria” or “goals” as well. Then, you have to work with your client to define a plan to achieve those goals and deliver that value. Let’s face it, some of your ability to deliver is dependent on them, so they need to be part of the plan. Then, you need to work tirelessly to ensure that you are delivering that value...assuming it is in scope, of course.

Don’t fall in love with your ideas, don’t mistake hard work for value, and be sure wrap up every day knowing what value you added to your clients, to your firm, and to yourself.

If You Assume, You Don’t Know

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 11:27:00 +0000

When I was a kid, I watched an episode of The Odd Couple, the quirky sitcom about two divorced men living together in NYC. Felix is the neurotic neat-freak; Oscar is the lackadaisical slob. ("Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?”) There was an episode in which Felix was arrested for ticket scalping, when in fact, he was trying to give away the tickets. Felix decided to represent himself in court. He challenged the police officer who had arrested him and during the interrogation on the stand, the officer said something to the effect that he “assumed” that Felix was trying to sell the ticket. Felix proceeded to walk over to a flip chart and right the word “ASSUME” on the board. As he did so, he replied, to the officer, “Do you know what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of you and me.” Circling “Ass”, “U”, and “Me” as he spoke. Classic 1970s American TV moment!

How many times have you started to answer a question with, “Well, I assume…?” How many times have your assumptions been wrong? And when your assumptions have been wrong, what have been the implications been?

A lot is left unsaid, and it is those unsaid words, requirements, needs, etc. that are most likely to cause problems on your project. I try to remind myself, and my team, that if I am assuming, then I don’t know. If I don’t know...I need to ask.

Consulting and Consulting managers often times find themselves having to make assumptions in order to proceed with a scope of work or estimate. In many cases, the best you can do is provide the estimate based on a set of assumptions, and that is OK, so long as those assumptions are clearly documented and agreed upon with the customer. Clarity will come during the early stages of the engagement (requirements gathering), and if any assumptions are proven to be untrue at any point in the project, then the project manager will issue a change request (CR) to address the new assumptions, changes in scope, and, potentially, impact on cost and timelines. (The CR is any project manager's best friend, at least between normal business hours.) If you don’t have the assumptions documented and shared across teams, the “agreement” is left to interpretation, and scope creep, missed expectations, and customer dis-satisfaction are sure to ensue.

So what do you do when you realize that you are assuming and don’t know? Simple...you ask. It is important that you don’t delay. Challenging situations need to be addressed early and often, and it is best to not wait. The longer you delay, the harder it is to address. If you realize you are assuming an important detail (and those that may not seem so important right now) or don’t know for sure what is need, and you don’t tell your customer straight away, they may think that you are well on your way to addressing the pain, when in fact, you are not. When you come back to them days or weeks later for clarity, they will quickly realize (or assume) the lack of progress and get frustrated. Now you have two problems: You don’t have all the information you need to make progress, and your customer has lost some amount of trust that you will do what you say you are going to do.

Don’t assume, don’t delay, get the information you need...Now. You should have plenty of opportunity to do so if you are running your project correctly. All project details should be captured in a requirements document, including agreed upon assumptions, you should have a periodic (weekly) status report that documents progress, action items and dependencies, and issues and challenges (great place to capture a gap in your knowledge or apparent difference of understanding), as well as periodic (weekly) status meetings during which such details can be brought to the attention of all.

You will find some will be frustrated that “this is coming up now,” but the amount of frustration will be significantly less than the frustration that comes with a project missing a deadline, a budget, or the intended need.

Don’t Say “Yes”...Yet (or “No” for That Matter)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 19:06:00 +0000

One of the hardest things to do with a customer is to deliver bad news, and saying that you can’t do something for which they have asked, at least not in the current scope of work, is often viewed as a form of delivering bad news.

The pressure to be seen as working on behalf of the customer, to recognize their needs and help them address them quickly and with precision, often sends consultants down a path of scope creep that, in the end, causes more harm than good. Learning how to strike the right balance takes experience, and a few missteps, to get right.

It is natural to want to be viewed as helpful and as an expert who can ease the pain. All too often, though, we say "yes" before we really understand the need or requirements. The result is a premature commitment and the customer may have one view of what was committed, whhile we have another. We may, for instance think that what is needed is a few minutes of work that we can simply slip in. After we jump in - already having made the commitment, we find out that this commitment is a major engineering effort that will take months and multiple resources and teams to pull off. While pushing back initially may have been a little painful, pushing back now is virtually impossible.

Years ago, I was working for a SaaS company running consulting services. By design, the Services team did not implement software and we did not have developers on staff. We had technical consultants and analysts, but not developers. While visiting one of our largest clients, our CEO agreed to having Services build a “custom report” at no cost to the customer. His motivation was logical - we had a large expansion contract on the table, and he wanted them to sign quickly. He felt he could use this custom report request as a “give/get” - give them their custom report, get the large contracted we needed to make our numbers.

The problem was, as smart as our CEO was - one of the best with whom I have ever had the chance to work - he did not really understand the requirements. As services dug in, we quickly learned that the request was not a customer report (think 2 dimensional), it was a custom application (think 3 dimensional). As an experience project manager in the software development world, it took me one, one-hour meeting with the client to know that the customer was not looking for a report that we could implement in a couple of days, but rather an application that would require months to develop and that we did not have a team with the skills to do the work.

At that point, though, the train had left the station, and we had to figure it out. It took us 4 months with 1.5 FTEs. Since the customer was promised something in a couple of weeks, they were not at all happy with the delays, and in the end, what we delivered was only a portion of what they needed.

We can’t always protect ourselves against situations where sales or executives make ill-informed promises on our behalf, and we have to pick up the pieces. It happens and will happen in every organization. We can, however, protect ourselves against doing the very same thing to ourselves. So what do you do when a customer asks for something that is not in scope or is otherwise unique, big, hard, unclear, or has never been done before?

First, you make sure that you understand in detail the pain the customer is trying to solve. Without knowing the pain - the problem - you are not going to be able to assess the requirements’ ability to meet the customer need and, potentially, provide alternative solutions. You won’t be able to look, for instance, at the long list of existing requests for enhancements (RFEs) in the product management/engineering queue to see if there is something similar that will address the pain, even if it is not precisely what the customer is requesting.

I don’t at all mean to be disrespectful to my clients, but sometimes what they ask for initially and what they really want or need are not the same. Understanding the "why" behind the request is a critical first step.

Next, capture as much of the requirements (the what) as you can. This allows you to 1) understand how the client thinks about solving the problem and 2) ensure that your client feels listened to. Document the requirements and send to the client for review and confirmation...include the problem statement in the requirements.

Lastly, avoid brainstorming on options at this time and do not, and I mean not ever, commit to doing the work in the initial discussions. Don’t say no either. Its too soon. Brainstorming too soon can lead to a perceived commitment without intention or may set expectations that you have to change - painfully - down the road. At the end of the day, anything is possible. It depends on how much time and money you have, but anything is possible. Your job initially is to collect information and confirm with the client that you understand both in terms of the request and the reason behind the request.

Now what - the client needs help and wants an answer now, right?

Its simple, let the customer know that there are a few folks with whom you need to review the requirements to understand what options we have, what is feasible, and how to proceed. Don’t commit to anything (yeah or nah) other than when you will get back to them and with what. Once you are off the call or out of the meeting, you then need to engage with the right people and departments to assess the request, determine what is feasible, and develop options for the client to consider. For instance:

Is there an existing RFE that meets most of the highest priority requirements? Is the client willing to go with that solution knowing they may have to wait a bit, it may not address all of their requirements, but it won’t cost them any additional money?
Is there a smaller custom solution that we can implement now at little or no cost, maybe to earn back some good will, that they can accept?
Is there a larger, custom piece of services work required that will cost them some additional money but meets all of their requirements?

Remember, your job is not to be a “yes man” (or woman) and you don’t want to be perceived as simply saying “no.” Your job is to understand the pain/need and present a number of options for the customer for them to consider, involving them in the final decision but helping them see the pros and cons of each option. Digging into options before you know what is feasible can create pain, so focus first on understanding the problem, then come back to them a few hours or days later to discuss alternatives.

I'm Back!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 18:47:00 +0000

I have been feeling a little less than inspired in the last couple of years. Well, that isn't really a true statement. In reality, I took on a new role with a new company in the fall of 2012. So, as you can imagine, I have been drinking by the fire hydrant getting familiar with a new company, team, industry, and customer base.

I have been in the role for about 15-16 months, and I am feeling inspired now. My focus is a bit different than my previous focus. I wrote a lot about building and running an effective PSO in 2011 and 2012. While that is still a very interesting topic for me, one about which I am passionate, my current focus is helping those around me to be the best consultants they can be. So over the coming months, I plan to post some "Andrea-isms," what they mean to me and how an up-and-coming consultant should think about developing as a world-class consultant.

I hope you will find this series helpful, and I look forward to your comments. My first post in this serious is on its way.

World-class PSO: Governance

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:56:00 +0000

PSO governance is a hot topic in my world these days. As more reps are getting involved in selling PS and we build out packages and offerings designed to give the sales reps the ability to sell PS without direct involvement from a consultant who sells, how do we ensure that expectations are set properly and that projects can be delivered to ensure a high-level of customer satisfaction AND on-time/on-budget deliver (ie, a profitable PS practice)?

The evolution of a PSO in this direction means implementing standards and processes for governing the practice and ensuring that goals are met, projects are consistently sold and delivered, and customers are getting what they need . This is "PSO Governance."

So what does governance mean for a PSO, anyway? A quick Google search produced a number of results with regard to "IT Governance", but little was found on governance for a World-class PSO. In a lot of ways, its not that different. A PSO, like any business or business unit, needs:

A defined set of KPIs and SLAs that are measured regularly and on an ongoing basis
A clear set of goals toward which to work
A set of processes, tools, and templates to use to ensure success

While the leadership team is responsible for defining the strategy and the requirements for governance, all members must provide input, and be held accountable to the KPIs, goals, and their roles in achieving a successful outcome.

In the coming weeks, I will investigate PSO Governance throughout all components of a PSO (sales, marketing, delivery, etc.). As always, I welcome our stories, ideas, and experiences.

World Class PSO: Daily Thought

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:23:00 +0000

I'm back!!!! I hope you had a great week. I sure did. The skiiing at Squaw Valley was great. Visits with family and friends were also great.

While I was away, I was able to watch the movie "Waiting for Superman." (Thanks American Airlines for showing it on the flight!!) This movie was very eye-opening for me. I don't have children in the public school system, and, therefore, don't have current, first-hand experiences. This documentary had very strong views on why our public schools are failing. If 1/2 of what they said are true...we should all be outraged!!

You may be wondering why I am bringing this up...it doesn't really have anything do to with World-class PSO stuff...You're right. (If I had my laptop with me on this trip (yes, I go on vacation without my laptop most of the time), I would have blogged on the subject last week.). Since I have a bit of a captive audience, I wanted a chance to encourage all of you to watch this film and get involved in what is happening in our public schools. Here are a few piece of data that were shared:

According to the film, there are schools in CA with 75% drop-out rates - teachers and administrators know that only 25% of all incoming freshman will graduate. There are schools all over the US just like these schools; they are a called "drop out factories."
The city of New York spends $100 million per year on a "rubber room" program for suspended teachers. Teachers under investigate show up to "work" each day, reading the newspaper, books, playing cards, sleeping, and surfing the web, getting paid full salaries and collecting full benefits...even earning pension vesting. It takes 3.5 years for a teacher to complete the process.
Philadelphia (or was it Pittsburg) spends more per capita on a 4 year prison sentence than for four years of schooling for a student.
One school system (can't remember which) in the Mid-Atlantic states spends enough time moving bad teachers from school to school that they have given the process a name: The Dance of The Lemons. The hope is that the principle of school A will replace his worst teacher with some "less worst" since he knows he is getting someone else's worst teacher.
The US is ranked 28th out of the top 30 developed nations in the world for public education. We are following behind!!

Now the tie back to what we do...for a PSO to be truly World-class, it needs to put the needs and interest of its customers first. (This is the first statement in our PS Values or Gomez PS.) That does not mean ignoring the needs of the practice, by any stretch...its a balancing act for sure. I firmly believe that, while the best and even the good teachers work tirelessly for their students, aka their customers, there are all too many bad, or not so good, teachers, bureaucrats, and politicians who put the objectives of the unions and the individual teachers ahead of our students and, therefore, the future of our country. The United States cannot have world-class students, schools, or workforce if we continue to de-prioritize the needs of the students over the needs. We will not have a world-class future.

I am officially stepping off my sandbox and will return to regularly scheduled World-class PSO programming tomorrow. As always, I look forward to your comments.

World Class PSO: Daily Thought

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:06:00 +0000

We've started to move to a "Packaged Offering" model, which is designed to allow the Sales team to sell PS - at least to some degree - without the help of the PS team. This means that we on the PS team will have less control of expectation setting both in terms of the offering and schedules. The PS team will need to work harder at the beginning and throughout each project to ensure that the customer is aware of the details of the project, what is expected of them, and what they can expect from us.

Additionally, the PS team needs to be prepared for those occasions when the packaged offering doesn't truly meet all of the needs the client has. The consultants will have to have confidence in the scope of work and the Change Request process to manage through those potentially difficult situations.

I am heading out on vacation..."see" you the week of February 28!!

World-Class Professional Services

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The World-Class Professional Services Organizations blog was started by Sophity LLC's founder and CEO, Andrea Mulligan. Andrea and the Sophity team are still blogging about all things consulting, but we do it from the Sophity Blog. We'd love to have you join us there!

Check out the Sophity LLC World-Class Professional Services Blog at http://www.sophity.com/category/blog/

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The World-Class Professional Services Organizations blog was started by Sophity LLC's
founder and CEO, Andrea Mulligan. Andrea and the Sophity team are still
blogging about all things consulting, but we do it from the Sophity Blog.
We'd love to have you join us there!