Funtional Community

Functional Words

Colfax Community Network

Why create a Field Guide?

Simple, I've been doing process and project consulting for a long time and I want to pass on my experiences and advice (as well as a whole lot of tools, templates, and techniques) to others who can benefit from them.

Plenty of "useful information", but we need real examples to refer to...
We have all read a ton of business improvement and productivity books over the years. What I’ve always found lacking was the availability of specific tools and templates that I could achieve results with quickly.

These books did a pretty good job of outlining the importance of applying effective business tools and practices and also referred frequently to popular methodologies such as PMBOK, Six Sigma, Kaizen, TQM, etc…. These are all good methodologies and can yield impressive results in the hands of a properly trained team working within a business culture totally bought into the methodology.

AND I NEED SOMETHING I CAN USE RIGHT NOW… How many times have you accepted a task or project and then started looking for existing road maps, tools, and templates to refer to? Sometimes there really is nothing new under the sun.

I'm writing this book to provide business professionals like us with a reliable set of tools, templates, and techniques that deliver real results and deliver them fast. As a business professional your customer has needs and you provide services and solutions to meet those needs. Sounds simple, right? Customer Talks, You Listen. However, before you can meet your customer’s needs you need to meet your customer.

ENGAGE YOUR CUSTOMER

* Understand them
* Understand their business
* Understand their processes
* Understand their needs

COLLABORATE WITH YOUR CUSTOMER

Once you have met your customer and have a better understanding of their business and their needs you can begin to collaborate with them on potential solutions. The better your tools, templates, and techniques enable this collaboration, the more successful this collaboration will be. At this point in the engagement, the customer is looking to you for guidance and to set the pace for the collaboration effort going forward. You want your customer to be confident they made the right choice by choosing you do to business with. You also want them to feel that the tools, templates, and techniques you (so deftly) employ during this collaboration can work for them in their organization going forward. Your customer should want to use your methods elsewhere in their business because YOU have demonstrated that they WORK.

Tools, templates, and techniques that are properly leveraged during collaboration will ensure that the customer stays engaged and maintains a strong vision of success for the overall engagement. They should also feel that their own team is improving and learning by simply being a part of the engagement.

Your customer's team members should want to be a part of any engagement that involves you as their solution provider.

Customer Talks, You listen, You lead, Customer Follows, You and Customer Collaborate.

DELIVER SOLUTIONS TO YOUR CUSTOMER

MEASURE THE IMPROVEMENT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED

MAINTAIN THE IMPROVEMENT

WHAT MAKES A BOOK LIKE "FUNCTIONAL METHODS" USEFUL?

• It's presented at the right level.
• It includes a large inventory of useful samples.
• It's easy for the reader to navigate (the book is also a tool)

Most client engagements require that consultants play a particular role. Some consultants play the role while others actually become the person the client needs for the job.

Keep an eye out for more updates to this post and for the Functional Methods Field Guide to Successful Business Consulting coming in late 2008.

Deploying Your PS Service Delivery Infrastructure

You don't have to break the bank in order to deploy and manage your Professional Services Delivery Infrastructure effectively. Here's a listing of very good (and very reasonably priced) solutions that work together to help you effectively acquire, service, and collaborate with your customers.

• Ready Talk - Web and Audio Conferencing tools.
  
• CityMax - Online Website and E-Commerce Tools and Solutions.
  
• eFax - Online Fax Sending and Receiving.
  
• OpenAir - Online Proposal, Project, Billing, and Resource Utilization solutions.
  
• DeskAway - Online Project Management and Team/Customer Colloboration Solutions.
  
• Pipeline Deals - Online Sales Pipeline Management and Sales Collaboration Solutions.
  
• Blogger (free) - Online Blogging Solutions (talk about your services, provide help)
  
• MailChimp - Email Marketing and Newsletter Solutions.
  
• Online File Folder - Store and Share Files with your team members as well as distribute large files to your customers when necessary.
• Freefind - Free and low cost search tools and sitemaps for your website
  

All of these solutions can increase the level of overall value to your customer during the engagement process, make it easier for them to engage with you, and help you and your team grow, service, and maintain your customer base.

The Big Picture...

When I sit down and think about it, the primary mission of Functional Methods is to "Help the less fortunate". By this I mean anyone who needs a "leg up".

The "Methods" will will employ to accomplish our mission consist of professional services solutions in the form of resources, expertise, tools, and templates that we provide to our customers and their clients in order to help them successfully accomplish "their" mission, whatever their particular business mission may be.

The services we provide our customers will generate enough revenue to maintain and grow Functional Methods as a provider of professional services solutions and also provide assistance to our fellow human beings needing a "leg up".

The successful delivery Functional Methods services and solutions will have a direct and positive impact on the lives of children, parents, families, and communities.

The lives of children, parents, families, and communities will benefit everytime Functional Methods successfully delivers satisfaction to their customers.

Putting it all together...

You have just been asked to define and launch a project to conduct business acquisition and integration for your company. You will need to define and communicate how you identify, evaluate, select, acquire, on board, integrate, and effectively manage newly acquired businesses.

Before you jump into the effort you will want to ensure that this project is achievable, that you have the necessary resources, and that it aligns properly with the vision of your business. The project selection scorecard system is a great way to get started.

Once you have determined that the project has "merit", you will need to develop and communicate the project mission, members, and milestones so that the rest of the organization knows what your trying to accomplish, who your team is, and your road map to success.

Then you'll want to get to work on a project charter one pager for business leadership to refer to. The project one pager also comes in handy for elevator speeches. Next comes the fully detailed project charter. In order to develop the most complete project charter possible you'll want to refer to the project charter completion checklist. By following this checklist you will ensure that all aspects of the project are addressed in terms of who, what, where, why, when, and how.

With your project charter developed and communicated you will want to go about the task of ensuring stakeholder buy-in for the effort. You will need to engage the primary decision makers in your business as well as other process owners and subject matter experts who will be impacted by your effort.

The next items on your journey include:

• Detailed project plans
• Communication plans
• Brainstorming sessions
• Decision making sessions
• Regular report outs
• Data collection efforts
• Voice of customer efforts
• Process baseline,mapping, analysis, and improvement efforts
• Training efforts
• Agendas
• Project recap
• Monitoring progress