The Consultant’s Calendar Conundrum (Just Saying…)

 The Consultant’s Calendar Conundrum (Just Saying…)

Ever look at your calendar and realize your week is 80% dedicated to Project Management Office (PMO) reporting and 20% dedicated to actual delivery? The PM’s job is crucial: they need those status updates, the risk logs, the RAID reports, and the assurance that everything is "Green." So, they schedule the daily stand-up, the weekly steerco prep, the mid-week deep-dive, and the bi-weekly status review. The PM is doing their job well by managing the flow of information. But who is doing the actual flow of work?

Every hour a senior consultant spends time in a meeting, documenting a decision that has already been made, is an hour taken away from configuration, code, or testing. The most expensive resource on the project is often the most time-rich resource in meetings. If the consultant isn't delivering, the PM has nothing to report. Just saying…

The doers vs the doer watchers (Just Saying…)

Have you ever been on a project where you just felt the hierarchy level was a tad bit too much than what was actually required? This often tends to happen with big projects in large companies that have deep pockets. This leads to a situation where a very vertical reporting structure forms, and then before you know you end up with a structure, where the client is now paying more people to watch a few people who are actually delivering output, and when working with tight deadlines, you need more people doing actual work than factual work, just saying….

The user who cried wolf (Just Saying…)

The best part of working in a Business transformation ERP implementation project is the gratification you get knowing that your work is going to help the organization and its users move to the next level. However, the hunger to move to the next level is something that should be come from within the organization too,  if the users don’t have the hunger to change, then there is a problem. The insecure users are the ones who generally resist the move to change and would raise a fuss about every new thing done in their area. This resistance to change does get noticed by the wider organization over time. The real problem is that any future genuine concerns raised by the same individual might get treated as “noise” and this oversight might hit the entire organization where it hurts most, all because of that one individual who cried wolf too many times, just saying….

13. Training vs educating (Just Saying…)

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that training a user is different to educating a user. Most often in an ERP implementation, a training on how to do stuff in the new system takes precedence over educating the user on why they’ve got to do that, this, in turn, leads to (in most cases) the users not understanding the overall process and they’ll not bother about what happens elsewhere, its human mentality after all. So, when training make sure you educate the users on the entire process rather than just showing them what to do in their area, give them a sense of ownership of the entire process, however there will always be those users who don’t want to do more, well that’s where a good consultant can make a world of difference. Remember, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, if its weakest link breaks the whole purpose of the chain is lost, just saying….

12 - Are you more productive working from home ? (Just Saying…)

So, this is a question that’s always discussed, working from home tends to be very productive if the task involved is something that needs absolute focus, because you can work in a quieter environment. You can start early using your commuting time, and more often than not while working from home people tend to work until the end of the day. Studies suggests that taking short breaks at home in your own environment helps the mind relax and energizes your brain, this is because when you are home you are the most comfortable which in turn fuels your ability to be more efficient simply because you are in your own zone. Studies also suggests that working from home can be more productive, however not everybody is disciplined enough to do this, but if they can be it’s a win-win situation for both employers and employees, some of the best ideas started off in a garage, that is home right!!  Just saying……

"11 – The Acronym Consultant also known as “TAC” (Just Saying…)

Very recently I met a consultant who definitely knew what she was talking about but found it very hard to accept the fact that others in the room didn’t all know all of the acronyms, that to her, seemed pretty basic. 

One thing I found out after a quick survey of the other consultants around in the room was that the “TAC” was difficult to understand, and if these consultants who are in the same industry found it hard to understand just spare a thought for consultant's clients. A wise man once told me, no matter how knowledgeable you are, if you don’t know how to articulate what you want to say without using much jargons or acronyms, then the sole point of being a consultant is lost, just saying…… 

10 - Cloudy future ??? (Just saying...)

If you are organization is contemplating going to the cloud, first and foremost a good idea would be to draw up a “Cloud Road-map” for the various systems currently on premise. Once this done, make sure you cross check this with the existing “Strategic System Road-map” you had in place for the existing on-premise systems. Then it’s the process of doing some analysis and putting it all together, a catchier term for this process is “Cloud Choreography “this will help make a good call on which of the systems are cloud extendable & cloud ready and which are not, just saying….

9 - Analyzing too much for the sake of it (Just saying...)

When made responsible to analyses a process and come up with solution, keep in mind the final key deliverable of what needs to be done to make the solution work. Don’t get too bogged down on the intrinsic details of the connecting systems that do not have any direct impact on the final outcome. There are too many consultants out there who like to analyze for the sake of it and don’t deliver the final outcome, with all the connecting systems these days it’s not “attention to detail” that matters but it’s more about “attention to the details that matter”.  Don’t become subject to “paralysis by analysis”!!

8 - Solution first, pollution later (Just saying...)

There will always be instances in a project or tasks, where things go wrong, when it does, the PM or the consultant need to first work on a solution to the issue rather than getting bogged down with the details on who, what and why it occurred, the time and negativity arising out of such a discussion without focusing on a solution, just leads to "pollution" in a project. This in turn might also have an impact on the quality of solution put forward because people become nervous and might mess up again. No one wants to make a mistake, but if and when it happens, first thing on everyone's mind should be to solve it, just saying....

7 - Fishing Solution (Just saying....)

There are always those situations when the business might require  a solution to cater to one of their short-term goals, but as a consultant you need to make a call to analyze this requirement and make sure it's not going to be solution which is going to be in place for a short-time only and has to be completely redesigned later on again once new technology or business requirement changes, I call these "Fishing solutions" because it more or less like "Catch & Release fishing" , it's not as much fun in a business context.

6 - Best time for meetings (Just saying...)

Studies show that the more productive meetings are the ones which are held in the morning  simply because the participants can be done with the meeting and can go ahead with working on their daily tasks, rather than having to think about a meeting  later in the day and having to schedule other tasks around that meeting.

Some people say they want to focus on the key tasks that come up in the morning of the work day and hence prefer to do meetings later in the day. Well,  if they are key tasks shouldn't it require more focus, wouldn't it be wiser to get the meeting out of the way and then turn your absolute focus to those key tasks without having to break for a meeting later,  just saying...

5 - Own Agenda (Just saying...)

Don't get too stressed out when you know the client is acting is a way that doesn't seem quite right to what the project wants them to do, everyone have their own agenda that they are working towards, sooner or later they will get back on board because they will have to once they realize that the business's agenda is more important than theirs.  However just make sure that the project doesn't get completely derail off , because that's not going to help the project agenda,  just saying.....

4 - Good enough Users (Just saying...)

Those end-users who are happy with "good enough" to get the job done are the ones who move on much faster to other tasks which in turn makes them more productive and better "cost-per-task valuable employees" in the organization, just saying....

3 - Clean sheet consulting (Just saying...)

Sometimes when inheriting half-completed tasks from someone else who has left the office, it's easier to start off from scratch where you know it wouldn't take long to build the same thing from scratch. Simply because in the long-run it'll save you more time & effort from having to dig up the design to explain how & why the initial solution was done that way and in a worst case scenario if the solution falls over it's much more effort to rectify something you didn't put together, just saying.

2 - Just talking about data (Just saying...)

Have you been in those discussions where everyone is talking about how to capture data using various methods but not really about  the actual business decisions that the data can be used for ? Would have helped to also discuss the final outcome, just saying...

Just saying...

Here we go, my kick off  of a "Just saying... series", where I'll like to share my thoughts on a few things, for e.g. common sense, which is not very common these day not with all the educated pundits around, just saying...

1 - Information Cemetery (Just saying...)

Every time I come across stacks of paper and files on senior management desk, I feel that the load of information in which the next great business idea could be in, but unfortunately it's not laid out in a format that will help with a decision being made. Thats like a little "information cemetery" on a desk, just saying...