Message from the Chair

The question in last month's Connections article asked for your recommendations regarding the "tools" a new consultant should acquire early in his or her consulting career. One C-SIG member observed that she has had an opportunity to coach and mentor many new project managers. As consultants know, advice should be contingent upon the situation. It's not a cookie cutter approach. However, this C-SIG member noted four suggestions that are generic to our profession:

• First, establish expectations with the client at the beginning to help "alleviate client frustration down the road" and create more of a partnership.
• Second, have a similar expectations discussion with the project executive.
• Third, develop an effective relationship with your client. Get to know them.
• Fourth, know your project team, and "challenge and empower" them.

The response from this C-SIG member was longer and had more details. When I summarized it for this article, I again reflected on our previous discussions about the interpersonal "soft" skills that are needed across all of our engagements - communicating effectively, managing relationships horizontally, leading teams, effectively providing feedback, and so on. If there are other C-SIG members who would like to add to this list, please send me your input - even if it's essentially the same thing worded differently.

The last couple of months have had an above average amount of proposal development work for me. I don't know if you are occasionally involved in proposal development in your job assignments. If so, you may also feel it's a different activity than actually doing the work. I'm reminded of a couple of relatively recent conversations. One was actually an article that described the traditional proposal process as designed to allow potential clients to reject them gracefully. This article suggested that the actual proposal be jointly developed by the client and consultant. Read the complete article on RainToday.com.

Drew Marshall, C-SIG Co-chair and Partner, Chief Innovation Officer with Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., had some interesting observations and suggestions around this model. "Most consultants I know would prefer a rabidly-engaged client rather than a client who needs the comfort of an easy exit from the dialogue," Drew wrote. "If I am writing a proposal, it is because I, and the client, have a clear understanding of the presenting need (and more than likely the actual need, too!).

One of the tools to consider in either case below is the use of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming. The use of language appropriate to the recipient to achieve a goal is the primary key in considering this approach. It also brings to mind a quote from Mark Twain: "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

Do we want the client to have a graceful exit, or, would we prefer to know a client's buying pattern before even attempting to send a proposal their way, Drew goes on to ask.

"The other thing I find is when a client asks to see a proposal from me, before we have discussed their issue(s) at some length, the higher the degree of "information shopping" on their part," Drew noted. "In most cases stock marketing collateral gives them more than enough data to make a decision about further dialogue."

The other relatively recent conversation I had was with a colleague who works primarily in business development; i.e., he obtains the work but others in his organization actually perform the work. This colleague tries to avoid the proposal stage altogether by knowing the client's needs and being a trusted advisor whose suggestions are accepted. This is a noble aspiration, particularly for those of us who are in small consulting organizations where we tend to have responsibilities for both getting and doing work. But, I digress. The point I'm trying to make is the soft skills we discussed earlier are at the heart of both of these proposal vignettes.

Maybe last month's question was wrong when I asked which tools to put in the new toolkit. Tools require knowledge and skills to use effectively. So, to restore my question-asking prowess, I changed the question for this month: What should be the curriculum if we had a Consulting Project Manager 101 Class? As always, I'll try to summarize your input for our broader C-SIG membership. Our objective is to improve the skills of those just starting as project management consultants, and thereby improve the overall skills of our profession. We all benefit from that. I look forward to your input. And as always, thanks.

Bill Craddock, PMP
Chair, Consulting SIG
chair@pmiconsultingsig.org

The time has come again for the Professional Development Department to call upon the SIGs/Colleges to nominate 1 or 2 Subject Matter Experts to review the submissions for the 2008 Latin America Congress. Reviewers must be fluent in Portuguese and/or Spanish.

Individuals serving as reviewers will receive a discount to the congress of approximately 20 percent for the congress for which they review submissions, can claim PDUs under category 5, and know that they have had the opportunity to determine the topics presented to the attendees at this event. The number of reviewers chosen and the number of submissions to be reviewed is determined by the total number of submissions made to the congress. Once a reviewer becomes comfortable with the process, experience has shown it takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete each review.

If you would like to have an impact on the selections for the 2008 EMEA Congress, please send an eMail to chair@pmiconsultingsig.org no later than August 15 with the following information:

volunteers name
volunteers email

The Value of Earned Value - The PM Metric that Just Keeps on Giving 2 August 2007 • 1 PM EDT Register Today Free for C-SIG members! Enter the C-SIG member promo code (Please contact the C-SIG Administrator to receive the code). Click on "Update" button and ensure that the total is 0. Click on the "Checkout" button. Complete the required fields* and hit the "Submit" button. A confirmation email with login/dialin info will be sent to you on or before 31 July. Contact our Help Desk at Office@MetSIG.Org if you do not receive the confirmation email by 1 August.

Are you Ready for Earned Value Management?
Lee Lambert, PMP, one of the world's most recognized experts on achieving value added earned value on real world projects, will deliver a live, one-hour webinar on the "Value of Earned Value."

Earned Value Management System (EVMS) - say these words loudly and then watch as fully grown professionals run from the project kickoff meeting screaming as if the end of their project management world was near.

After four decades this incredibly powerful and insightful project management tool (yes it is just a tool like the dozens of others that are stored in the PM professional's tool box) remains viciously maligned and grossly misunderstood by the very people it can help the most-the people who have been charged with the responsibility determining and analyzing the status of the project AND making suggestions for dealing with project variances.

This webinar will confirm for each participant that the secret password to productive use of the Earned Value project metric: COMMONSENSE! Unfortunately, Commonsense doesn't seem to be that Common when it comes to managing projects. But, join in and learn why you should be using Earned Value before it is mandated. Learn how to implement the Earned Value metric in a totally painless way without anyone even knowing you are using it. Learn the techniques that will allow you to "baby step" your way to capitalizing on the real power of the EV process while rendering the problems that face every project powerless.

Once you realize how easy EV application is you will decide that the cost of using Earned Value on your project: PRICELESS.

No one knows the challenges of managing project costs better than the PMO charged with the daunting task of mapping project costs and schedule to calculate EVM. For the Program team mapping planned spend to actual spend on multiple projects requires hours of manual entry and analysis. In this webinar, hear the latest techniques on tools and processes that automate this, taking the guesswork out of project cost & EVM.

Join us as we share insight into best practices for managing costs, calculating EVM and reporting metrics across multiple projects using Microsoft Project. Learn how Aerospace and Defense are using the latest integrated Enterprise Project Management (iEPM) tools to manage schedule and cost. Attendees will learn the best ways to deal with:

• Standardization and automation of EV metrics leveraging existing tools
• The challenges posed by balancing project schedule, budget, and customer requirements
• Maintaining profitability on contracts
• The benefits of automating EVM and other project metrics through iEPM

Sign up for this free, exclusive interactive webinar.

C-SIG to Re-Launch Mentoring Program

We are currently undertaking a review of the C-SIG member mentoring program launched in 2006 in order to strengthen it. The key feedback points from some of the participants (roughly half of the 50 pairs) includes: