TalentOnTarget » Professional Services Automation

Why Your Project Management Sucks

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:35:47 +0000

Here is an article I wrote for PS Village explaining why companies have to very carefully assess how they select and manage projects in their business.

http://psvillage.com/pulse/why-your-project-management-sucks

Certified Professional Caulker

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:00:51 +0000

I got a hands-on reminder to the subtle differences between a pro and a beginner. How often we forget and the dear price we pay when we assume “it’s easy”, “anyone can do this”, “let’s go with the cheapest solution” …

http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Project-Workforce/2594/

Ten Major Trends for 2011 and How They Impact Professional Services and Project Delivery

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:45:05 +0000

As the year end approaches we all become prognosticator of all prognosticators. I ran into Jim Carroll, a bonafide futurist, in one of my trips and he inspired me to write this article for PS Village. He got me thinking about what are the trends for 2011 and how they will affect enterprise software, project and service delivery and cloud-based technologies, all of the stuff we work and live with everyday. I started with Jim Carroll’s 2011 trends and wondered how these trends will impact our world.

A CEO’s Perspective on Professional Services Management – Part 2

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 00:39:48 +0000

This is Part 2 of an article I wrote for PSVillage about the challenges of running an embedded services team, what a CEO expects from those who manage the service organization and some suggested best practices based on all the feedback I have received on this topic.

Top Professional Services Management Challenges – Part 1

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:48:05 +0000

We discussed this topic in a meeting I had with a few senior people from various high tech companies. It was good to exchanges notes and see that many mid-sized high tech/software companies have experienced similar challenges with their service teams.

Please share your experiences with the management of your professional services teams. I will collect your feedback and report back to everyone with some comments and recomemndations in a part 2 of this post.

You can read the entire article at this PSVillage link.

We’re going SaaS‚ no exceptions

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:44:58 +0000

I attended a PS Village meeting last week. PS Village is a pretty interesting, fun and educational breakfast meeting that takes place in various cities all across the United States and Canada. The attendees are primarily professional service executives, project management and software professionals. The sponsors are Professional Services Automation and project management software solution providers like Tenrox and others. The breakfast meeting lasts about two hours, is pretty informal, and the attendees simply sit around the table and discuss a few topics together.

One of the people at my table (name and company will not be disclosed of course) was the leader of a professional services team in a large multi-national organization, let’s call him PS-man for short. He was complaining about a meeting he attended where the division’s CEO articulated his strategy for the division’s product and service offerings. The CEO said, and I quote: “We’re going SaaS, no exceptions”.

PS-man was quite frustrated and unhappy with this sudden shift. To him, the CEO had not articulated a believable vision and a clear path to achieve that vision. According to PS-man, it seemed like the CEO, being sort of new to the job, had heard of the industry buzzwords and decided the industry trends are the way to go. However, PS-man felt that neither the company’s products nor his team were ready for the shift to the SaaS (software as a service) model. They did not believe that SaaS was the answer to their challenges or that it could drive new growth. PS-man’s reaction was “Yeah right, we’re going SaaS until a sales guy comes with the next big order for an in-house implementation”.

Our table spent the breakfast talking about SaaS, its benefits, how to transition a traditional product and service offering towards the SaaS model and the roadblocks one can face on this journey. At the end of the meeting, PS-man seemed more sold on the opportunity that SaaS could represent for him and his team, but he was still unsure as to whether his company’s leadership truly is willing to make the investment, has the sponsorship and the expertise to navigate the company towards this change. I tried to highlight a roadmap to SaaS from our experience, and how to take some steps towards this goal without completely abandoning what works for them now.

This meeting reminded me of how executives can so quickly get out of touch with their teams. While our “visions” and ambitions may sound great and exciting to some, many out in the field will react exactly as PS-man did. Your team has to see and feel that you have really done your homework, you have thought it through in great detail, and that you are truly in it to win it. If you are unsure, unprepared or it looks like you are simply following the crowd then even a good strategic initiative and good intentions can actually hurt instead of help the organization.

A Primer on Just-in-Time Resourcing

Rudolf Melik - Project Management Software Blog — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:56:30 +0000

A Primer on Just-in-Time Resourcing^SM, Enabling the Concept of Just-in-Time Resourcing (JITR) with Project Workforce Management is a white paper I co-wrote with Randy Mysliviec CEO of RTM Consulting. Just-in-Time Resourcing (JITR) can offer significant advantages and immediate benefits to professional services agencies, consulting companies and other expanding technology firms needing improved resource planning. “Stop gap” and other measures can compound the problems in handling large scale fluctuations in labor sourcing and management. Find out how JITR addresses the need for optimal resource supply for growing businesses, and how to enable JITR through project workforce management software.

You can register and download it here.