EXECUTIVE BRIEF Do You Know What Your Professional Services Team is Doing? A Manager s Guide to Staying in the Loop
INTRODUCTION 88+12+D 88% STUDIES SHOW THAT NEARLY 9 OUT OF 10 SPREADSHEETS (88%) HAVE ERRORS. 1 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ORGANIZATIONS BEGIN WITH MANUAL OR SPREADSHEET-BASED TOOLS TO RUN THE BUSINESS. TIME AND EXPENSE CAPTURE IS MANUAL, SPORADIC, AND AD HOC. 2 As the manager of a professional services or solution implementation team, you need to keep everything running smoothly. It s important to effectively monitor every customer deployment so when things veer off track, you can take corrective action early enough to ensure a successful outcome. Repeating your success, maintaining profitability, and driving account retention and expansion are key to proving your team s value. But even the best managers can t succeed if they don t have visibility into all the work their team is doing, who is doing it, and whether the work is on track. You simply can t manage what you don t know and can t see. If you re struggling to get the view you need the big picture here are three ways to stay in the loop. You ll know what your team is doing and whether you are on track to meet on-time targets, stakeholder expectations, and your profit margins. network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 2
1 You don t know the status of your team s work You have 13 different implementations, each with more than 300 tasks. You re tracking everything on spreadsheets, but it s almost impossible to keep it all up-to-date. To make matters worse, your stakeholders want frequent status reports, but you can t fulfill those requests because your spreadsheets are never current. It s your job to keep everyone happy, especially the customers. In fact, driving account retention and expansion is as much a measure of your team s value as profitability. To get the updates you need, you run from one person to the next or hold status meetings so you know what s going on and can keep everyone informed. It s a never-ending cycle a waste of your valuable time. And you still don t have the big picture. You don t know which resources are at capacity or which engagements might be more at risk than others. Without this knowledge you can t effectively prioritize work, meet on-time targets, or fully utilize your resources. WITHOUT REAL-TIME VISIBILITY, DECISION-MAKING CAN BE SUBJECTIVE AND REACTIVE WHICH HURTS BUSINESS PERFORMANCE. 6 network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 3
The Fix: Track projects in real time More than 82 percent of companies use Excel to manage projects, 3 but just because everybody s doing it, doesn t mean it s the best way. Spreadsheets are notoriously difficult to keep up-to-date and often require status meetings or emails to find out where the work stands. They are also prone to errors. In fact, studies show that nearly nine out of 10 spreadsheets (88 percent) have errors. 4 IF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW THE STATUS OF YOUR TEAM S WORK, YOU NEED TO DUMP THE SPREADSHEETS AND TRACK WORK IN REAL TIME. 1 Create a central view of all work, and then require team members to make frequent updates. By keeping the work in a location everyone can access and post status updates, you no longer need to run around and gather the information. All you have to do is log in and the data will be there all in one place. 2 Collect data in a way that allows visibility into resource allocation across multiple engagements. Since you need the big picture of how all your customer deployments are trending, make sure you collect data in the right format to get the information you need. For example, to track on-time delivery, assign team members to specific tasks with specific deadlines for each engagement. Then, you can query and see all the tasks that each resource is working on and how on-time targets are trending. If one deployment is behind, but you can see another is well ahead of schedule, you can shift resources accordingly. 3 Use spreadsheets only when it makes sense. Spreadsheets have their place for calculating numbers or tracking small amounts of data but when you need to track a large number of tasks or multiple engagements, they are not an effective tool. In a recent benchmark study by Ventana Research, participants surveyed said they spent approximately 12 hours (one-and-a-half eight-hour workdays) per month updating, consolidating, and correcting the spreadsheets they use frequently. Roughly half of participants said they find errors in data frequently or occasionally, some of which are major. 5 4 Invest in a tool that can track all your engagements and work details in real time. A cloud-based tool with anywhere, anytime access creates a central location that is easy for team members in the office or on the road to access and update in real time. It also allows you to create accurate reports from real-time information and keep your stakeholders updated no matter where you or they happen to be. network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 4
2 You don t know who is working on what Communication and collaboration are complicated because your team is never in the office at the same time, making it hard to keep track of what they are working on and how close they are to meeting deployment targets. Consequently, some resources are chronically overbooked while others are at 75 percent capacity. Another challenge is keeping track of consultants and other team members skills and experience. You knew what skills and expertise they had when they started, but after five years on the job, some have acquired new expertise or client relationships you could leverage if you only knew they had it. Often, you feel like you re picking names out of a hat when you assign one resource over another to a project. You lack real knowledge about who is best for the job in terms of skill, customer relationship, and capacity. 40+60+D 40% 40 PERCENT OF ALL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES WORK IS NOW DELIVERED VIRTUALLY FROM AN OFF-SITE LOCATION, MAKING RESOURCE PLANNING EVEN MORE DIFFICULT. 7 BY TRACKING PERFORMANCE, SKILLS AND CAREER PROGRESSION...COMPANIES CREATE AND MAINTAIN A HIGH PERFORMANCE WORKFORCE. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark 8 network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 5
The Fix: Do a deep dive into your resources In a recent benchmark study on resource management, only 5 percent of all organizations were identified as having optimal resource and capacity planning. 9 Getting a clear picture of resources is a challenge for almost all organizations, but in your line of business, optimizing your resources is crucial to your team s overall success, profitability, and business value. FORTUNATELY, THERE ARE SOME SIMPLE WAYS TO GAIN VISIBILITY INTO YOUR RESOURCES SO YOU CAN MAKE SURE THEY RE AS PRODUCTIVE AND EFFECTIVE AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT BECOMING BURNED OUT. 1 Perform a resource inventory. Get a detailed picture of your resources skill sets including capabilities, specialties, experience, and technical skills so that you know who the right person is for the job. 2 Allocate resources to tasks within each implementation. Implementation engagements are complex with multiple people or teams involved. In addition, tracking hours by engagement isn t as helpful for resource planning as tracking by tasks. When employees are assigned specific tasks, you can better see what they are working on, when it needs to be done, and how long it will take. Assigning tasks allows you to make sure everyone has enough work, but not too much, and that timelines are being met. 3 Collaborate with your team in real time, in the context of the work they are doing. Email is not an effective collaboration tool. According to a McKinsey report, office productivity could be improved by up to 14 percent just by moving emails to a searchable, central discussion thread, message board, or wiki. 10 Why? Because with email, people frequently get forgotten on chain replies, and overflowing inboxes make it a challenge to find the right email about a specific piece of work. These kinds of communication difficulties zap your team s productivity and lead to information gaps. Instead, you need a tool that allows your team to comment and collaborate in the context of work similar to how social media sites attach comments to a specific post. 4 Invest in a tool that lets your team collaborate in a central location with anytime, anywhere access. With team members dispersed on-site all over the country, you need an effective way to communicate with each other in real time in a manner that can easily be seen and accessed by the entire team. This investment will also make it easier to keep executives and customers in the loop. IMPLEMENTING A SOCIAL APPROACH TO PROJECT COMMUNICATION CAN REDUCE THE TIME EMPLOYEES SPEND SEARCHING FOR CONTENT BY 35% AND IMPROVE OVERALL PRODUCTIVITY BY 20-25%. 11 network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 6
3 You don t know if your projects will meet profit margin expectations Whether your team provides services through a fixed-price model or is simply trying to meet tight profit margins, your bottom line is affected when projects exceed scope, customers are indecisive, or an unanticipated glitch occurs. To deliver services within acceptable profit margins, you need to know how much time your team spends on a project, whether they re going to be profitable within those parameters, and if the investment they re making is commensurate with a client s value and size. Without this information, your team is driving in the dark without headlights. Many professional services teams would prefer to abandon the billable utilization metric (and all the accompanying time tracking it entails). However, according to the Professional Services Maturity TM Benchmark, there is no other metric that provides as good a picture of workforce productivity. 13 To maximize the dollar value of every opportunity, you first need to know what it will cost you to deliver what you say you will. If you can feel confident about your costs and the number of billable hours it will take to meet expectations, it s much easier to keep your promises and meet your profit goals. 50+50+D 50% 50 PERCENT OF ORGANIZATIONS SURVEYED REPORT THAT THEIR TOP RISK IS LOST PRODUCTIVITY BECAUSE RESOURCES ARE NOT OPTIMIZED. Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study 2013 12 network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 7
The Fix: Do a deep dive into your resources In one survey on excellence in professional services, 20 percent of respondents cited an inability to determine profit potential of new projects and price accordingly. 15 Right now you may be part of this group, but there s a way out. Develop fixed processes where it counts and you ll have a better view of your costs and can price your services accordingly. 1 Create standardized templates. Your team does a lot of complex but repeatable work. Clients change, but the steps don t. Map out what those steps are so that each time you start a new engagement you know right off the bat what tasks are involved, in what order, and how many billable hours it will take to get the job done. 2 Track your team s time. To understand how much a customer engagement will cost, you first need to know how long it will take. Track each task and the time it takes to complete. Then, use the data you collect from past projects to more accurately forecast costs for the next project. You can also better forecast resource capacity because you ll have accurate estimates of how many resource hours each task will take. 3 Communicate and collaborate effectively with your sales team. Your sales team is on the front line with one goal to make money. But if they re selling something you can t deliver, offering a price that will blow your profit margins, or only half-heartedly selling the value of add-ons, then it will be difficult for your team to satisfy customers and stakeholders or to meet profit margins. Effective communication and collaboration allows your sales team to understand what they can offer at what price. (Your standardized templates and your time tracking data will be useful here.) Including them in the conversation around how you can all increase your success will ensure they are selling the right solution implementation scenario to customers at the right price. network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 8
Gain total visibility and you ll always know what your team is doing The root of all your visibility problems is lack of a central command center where you can see all of your team s work processes in one place. To really know what your team is doing, you need a single tool that can: 1 Consolidate your scattered tools. With one tool that can track work requests, resources, communications, tasks, timelines, and deadlines, it will be faster and easier to get the global view you need. 2 Track and generate historical data. Gathering historical data is critical for gaining the insight you need to accurately forecast resources and estimate costs for new engagements. 3 Provide robust, real-time reports. With the right tool, it should take minutes, not hours, to generate dashboard reports that provide accurate status updates for executives and customers. In addition, you can use the tool s reporting capabilities to easily measure resource capacity, billable hours, and on-time delivery rates improving your bottom line, the team s morale, and your business value. PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TEAMS WOULD LIKE TO ABANDON THE BILLABLE UTILIZATION METRIC (AND ALL THE ACCOMPANYING TIME TRACKING IT ENTAILS). UNFORTUNATELY, THERE IS NO OTHER METRIC WHICH PROVIDES AS GOOD A PICTURE OF WORKFORCE PRODUCTIVITY. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark 16 network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 9
Conquer Work Chaos with Workfront Get real-time visibility into all of your professional services work with an Enterprise Work Management solution like Workfront. Your team will enjoy: collaboration in the context of work real-time visibility into all types of work customized reports and dashboards workfront.com/services network workfront.com/services telephone2 + 1.866.441.0001 telephone2 +44 (0)1256 807352 10
Endnotes 1. Leung, Stuart. Sorry Your Spreadsheet Has Errors (Almost 90% Do). Forbes. Sept. 13, 2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ salesforce/2014/09/13/sorry-spreadsheet-errors/. 2. Hofferberth, David R., Urich, Jeanne. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark. Service Performance Insight, LLC. February 2014. pg. 47. http://www.netsuite.com/portal/pdf/wp-2014-psmm-letter.pdf. 3. Feldman, Jonathan. Project Management Is Finally Getting Real Respect. Information Week. Oct. 14, 2010. http:// www.informationweek.com/team-building-and-staffing/ project-management-is-finally-getting-real-respect/d/d-id/1093342?. 8. Ibid. pg. 40. 9. Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study 2013. Conducted by Appleseed Partners and OpenSky Research. 2013. 10. Holmes, Ryan. Email is the New Pony Express and It s Time to Put It Down. Fast Company. October, 16 2012. http://www.fastcompany. com/3002170/email-new-pony-express-and-its-time-put-it-down. 11. The Social Economy: Unlocking Value and Productivity Through Social Technologies. McKinsey & Company. July 2012. http ://www.mckinsey. com/ insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/the social_economy. 4. Sorry Your Spreadsheet Has Errors. 12. Ibid. 5. Ventana Research Releases New Benchmark Research on Spreadsheets for the Twenty-First Century. Ventana Research. January 2, 2013. http://www.ventanaresearch.com/resources/resources. aspx?id=3614. 6. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark. pg. 117. 7. Ibid. pg. 89. 13. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark. pg. 101. 14. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark. pg. 100. 15. It Takes More Than Just the Project Team. 16. 2014 Professional Services MaturityTM Benchmark. pg. 101. network workfront.com/services telephon + 1.866.441.0001 telephon +44 (0)1256 807352 11