Services

We are flexible! We can work with you on projects ranging from single events such as holding an online conference, to establishing entirely new systems in your organisation. If you want our involvement in a single step within a larger project, we can provide a perspective that is vendor neutral and objective with regard to your own circumstances without fear or favour.

Project Management

If you would like a full project management approach, we can provide. Our methodology includes:

  • Needs Analysis
  • Business Process Analysis - including Financials and Human Resources
  • Solution Specification
  • Design and Development
  • Implementation - including Change Management and Training
  • Evaluation
A consistent approach across all of these steps is GROUP INVOLVEMENT. We don't impose anything, we engage you and your staff in deciding your future based on the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM). We guide the process through each step so that you and your people own the solution and will be able to live with it into the future. This is your organisation, your project, not ours.

If you would like to pick and choose amongst these steps, we are happy to complete individual process steps as described below.

Needs Analysis

We will spend time with you and your staff identifying a clear description of what you are trying to achieve, your goals and objectives, and the outcomes you are working toward. If there are gaps, we will identify them and begin to explore alternative solutions to fill them.

If you don't know where you're going, you may end up somewhere else!

Business Process Analysis

We will work with you to describe your current processes and possibly eliminate inefficiencies that could boost your bottom line. How do people do the work? What work is absolutely necessary to achieve your outcomes? How much is this costing you? Are you spending enough in the right areas? And, if you implement a new solution, will you be able to live with it in your organisational culture?

If you don't know what is going on, you may not be doing the best you could.

Solution Specification

Now we know what you want to achieve, what may be stopping you, and how your business operates. This is the time to talk about specifying what will fill the gaps: writing the specs. This may be exact or still fuzzy, but we will need to start with some framework and basic outline. This documentation will be used to guide us to the next process step: Selection, Design, and/or Development.

Selection, Design and/or Development

Once your problems and needs have been identified, and your processes understood, we will work with your group to identify the right solution(s) that meet the initial specifications. This may include

  • modifying existing systems to fit the new spec - Fix
  • identifying suppliers of solutions and reviewing them against the specs, as well as assisting with the bidding process itself - Find
  • designing them and outsourcing creation - Build, or
  • working with your staff to develop the solution, Build.
Rule of thumb: Fix it, find it, or build it - lowest cost, middle cost, highest cost

Implementation

Your needs have been identified; your solutions selected or created. Now it's time to roll them into your operation. We can assist in change management and training.

Our change management strategy is based on CBAM processes. We have found that identification of issues early in the process and working with the people who will live with the change reduces the chance of unforeseen problems and even potential sabotage of success. It's human nature to resist change. The key is to involve those being asked to change to influence it to their own, as well as the organisation's, benefit.

Training is mostly a technique concern: How will things work? What do I need to do in the new environment? How will this fit in the overall scheme of things? Do I need any new skills and will you teach me? Help me understand and perform well!

Rational Employee or Client: If I don't know what is different and you don't tell me what I need to do now, I'll be very frustrated.

Group Processes

Team building and involvement requires getting people together as a group. Approaches that we employ to build teams include: focus group discussion, alignment of personnel with the work divisions, cross-functional and vertical-integration of team representatives, and LOTS of feedback and exchange. Trust and reduction of fear are two key values that will get your people and your organisation along the road to successful outcomes, a committed workforce, and more profits.


Program Evaluation

We believe that setting clear objectives and then determining how well you've met them are the 'book ends' of any good project. If you've taken steps to fill a gap or meet a new need, it's now time to see if that has been accomplished, and how well. Evaluation can involve many measures, some quantifiable, and some based more on opinion and insight, both valuable indicators of how well things have gone. Any gaps that still exist (and there will be as nothing changes perfectly the first time out of the gate) will provide direction for modifications of the change, and may also point toward new opportunities that had not been anticipated - "happy accidents". Evaluation allows you to look again and take stock


Research Services

Sometimes organisations only want to learn more about the world. There is no need to go through major changes or fix anything. This outward look is good practice and something that keeps organisations fresh and alive. If you would like us to undertake any level of research, from simple environmental scans to more involved projects, ask and we'll work with you to design an approach suitable to your needs.

Products

Pointables - def. solid objects that are evidence of real work being done and often employed to justify activity to government officials and funding bodies.

We can write things.

Custom Training Manuals

Have a new skill set to be rolled out and need training materials or workshops? We can do that.

Research Reports

Got a question or area that you just want to know more about before deciding to embark on a new process or product?  We can do that.

Research Databases

Want to categorise and manipulate data from other sources to make decisions in the future or share among your people? We can do that, too.



Updated: September 2008