Management Consulting posterous

Management Consulting posterous

Steve Shu  //  Steve Shu is a management consultant and business development professional. He is also an Assistant Professor in the business school at Irvine University.

Steve holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and both an ME and BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Steve currently has a primary professional blog at http://steveshuconsulting.com and can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/steveshu

 
Jul 24 / 10:45am

Additional Notes On Taproot Foundation Training For Account Directors

Yesterday, I had Account Director training as a follow-up to the Taproot consulting orientation I had (where I posted notes and impressions here: http://managementconsulting.posterous.com/key-impressions-and-notes-from-taproot-founda ).

As backdrop, an Account Director position plays a functionally similar role to that a partner in a traditional consulting firm plays with respect to client account ownership and oversight of engagements. Process-wise there were a couple points that either differ from commercial consulting or were notable:

  • Site Visit - in the Taproot process, because the nonprofit clients are essentially receiving a grant for services, the Account Director attends a pre-project meeting to get "pitched" by the client organization (e.g., including executive sponsor, Board members, day-to-day client specialists) to weigh final approval of grants. The Account Director is essentially doing some final due diligence on the client organization to determine whether the client is able to make use of Taproot consultant services effectively (this also helps to make sure that Taproot resources are used appropriately).
  • Staffing - given the economic climate, there are many more consultants (at all levels) compared to qualified projects. As the Account Directors are interviewing consultants for projects, sensitivity and professionalism are required. For example, there are some people that are either unemployed or underemployed. There are fully understandable anecdotes of consultants that get discouraged not only because they can't find work or jobs but also because they get declined for pro-bono work. Getting declined does not necessarily reflect on the consultant declined. First of all, there many more consultants than projects. Secondly, the Account Directors are putting together teams serving a difficult geography. Getting a team to gel isn't about a single individual, his/her credentials, and track record. It's about how the ingredients fit together for the specific situation.
 
Jul 21 / 10:29pm

Key Impressions And Notes From Taproot Foundation Orientation In Los Angeles

These notes are off the top of my head and a bit scattered, so accuracy should be taken with a grain of salt.

Overall I was very impressed by the Taproot Foundation orientation in terms of defining service areas and services modules; processes and templates for scope of work finalization, award grants, service delivery; and position definition and resource planning for pro-bono engagements to nonprofits. Although the prersentaion was only 1.5 hours, one clearly got the impression that things were very well-thought out in terms of how one can scale the delivery of high-quality, pro-bono projects across a diverse customer base while using diverse, skilled resources.

I'll have to review the service areas, but they were approximately in the four areas of HR, marketing communications & copy, strategic planning, and donations-related. Two of the service areas are sponsored by American Express and Wells Fargo.

As for consultant positions, account directors cut across all of the service areas, review client needs, award the service grant, work with the client executive, ensure engagement delivery & quality, and select & interview the project team. Beyond the account director, example roles on the project teams include the project manager and specialists (usually 3), such as brand strategist, marketing manager, and copywriter. Account directors need to have at least 15 years of experience. Consultants can only be assigned to one role it seems, e.g., one can either be a project manager or an account director but not both. That was a little surprising to me given my history with somewhat smaller consulting firms (<500 consultants) and having to wear multiple hats, but the Taproot model makes sense given the need to scale.

Another key aspect about staffing seems to be that there are many more pro-bono consultants than suitable projects. Not only are there more account directors than projects but also account directors need to interview at least 3 Taproot consultants per position on a project, so on average 66% of Taproot consultants will be declined per project staffing interview.

Other stats I recall include that only 1 in 5 make it past the initial screening to be a Taproot consultant.

Geographical staffing in Los Angeles (given road traffic) will be quite challenging compared to other cities it seems. Most projects right now are downtown. (Did I mention that traffic stinks and took me 1 hr and 30 minutes to get to the Taproot location?)

I will attend the training for account directors and will likely provide an update on my thoughts then.

Parting annecdotal thought: The program manager mentioned learning some things about people that you wouldn't learn outside of the nonprofit space. One that touched me was that he related how when homeless people beg for money, the thing they want most is to be looked at and acknowledged as people. The money is secondary.
Additional Edit (7/24/09): My indication that "on average 66% of Taproot consultants will be declined per project staffing interview" may be too low. Three interviews per position (there could be 5-10, say) is the minimum and managed by the resource planning internal systems, so it may be safer to say that "on average at least 2/3 of consultants will be declined per project staffing interview."
Filed under  //  Nonprofit Consulting  
 
Jul 15 / 9:25pm

Whitepaper on Interim Executives (from a U.S. Angle)

I like the part in the paper that calls out concrete examples of assignments:

 "As to what kinds of assignments interim executives take on, these might include:
• Opening a division in a new region or country
• Launching a product or service
• Guiding a start-up business through initial hurdles
• Managing operations through a merger, acquisition or succession
• Turning around and restructuring troubled companies or divisions

 The white paper also contains insights about the dynamics of C-suite interim work."

 Get the paper here (PDF) ... http://www.interimceo.com/downloads/interimwhitepaper.pdf

Filed under  //  Interim Management   Management Consulting