Our Disciplines

Our disciplines are all pieces of the "deliver business value" puzzle.  Delivering value is about achieving your strategic results.  That begins with a clear vision of what those results need to be and the leadership to guide your organization to those results.  The work to achieve those results is actually accomplished through processes and projects.  Driving change requires careful planning and execution.  And, implementing changes begins with a clear understanding of the business needs.

Which pieces are you missing?  We can help you put your puzzle together. 

It all begins here. To be successful, an organization needs a clear vision and sense of direction. It also needs a set of leadership skills to make the vision a reality. Our training and consulting services are aimed at providing you the support you need to:   

• Use environmental and operational analysis to develop a strategic plan that is linked and aligned, and charts the course to move your organization forward toward fulfillment of its vision and mission. 
• Develop a Balanced Scorecard, a performance management protocol that will enable you to monitor your progress throughout the year, implement initiatives that strengthen your performance and identify course correction needs long before the end of the year. 
• Define your customers’ ideal customer experience and the steps needed to transform your organization to deliver that experience. 
• Lead teams in creative thinking workshops to solve problems, identify opportunities and collaborate to achieve better business value.  

Processes are how we get work done. Most organizations have hundreds, if not thousands, of business processes. John Cotter wrote, “An ideal process produces what’s needed, when it’s needed in the shortest time with the least work at the lowest cost.” 

Can you say that is the case for all of your processes?    If not, our consulting and training services can help you improve your processes through:   

• Documentation of your processes. 
• Development, capture and analysis of key performance metrics. 
• Definition of gaps. 
• Identification of root causes.
• Solution development. 
• Preparing your organization for successful change. 
• Successful implementation and validation.    

We all work on projects. Some are very small, narrow in scope and done in a matter of days. Others may take months, or even years, and consume resources all across your organization. Sadly, nearly 50% of all projects finish late or over budget or fail to deliver the expected results.    

If you would like to improve your project outcomes, or you want to strengthen project management skill sets, we can help you! Our training and consulting services can help you:   

• Better define the expected project outcomes and scope. 
• Create realistic task plans and schedules. 
• Plan for and manage project risks. 
• Improve project communication. 
• Lead effective teams. 
• Monitor project performance and proactively address issues. 
• Prepare for successful implementation. 
• Monitor and sustain project results. 
• Establish value-adding portfolio management and governance practices    

Change is all around us. Perhaps you need to add new products or services, or you want to change your business processes or you want to implement some new technology. Or, you want to do all of those! All too often, change is implemented without considering the implications on employees, customers and operational impacts.    

Change Management is the discipline of thoughtful planning and implementation of change. Our training and consulting services can help you navigate through successful change by focusing on five closely connected change dimensions:   

• Strategy – Have a clear vision of the change and why it is important. 
• People – Understand how employees, customers and other stakeholders will be impacted and how to prepare them for successful change. 
• Process – Evaluate all aspects of your business processes to ensure readiness for change throughout the organization. 
• Technology – Clearly understand the requirements and make sure the technology solutions fit those requirements and your technology environment. 
• Performance Management – Define the baseline, determine how you will gauge progress and outcomes, and then measure and manage the results.  

Business Analysis is the discipline that enables organizations to identify and define business needs, translate those needs into a set of requirements that a provider can use to offer solutions, and then validate and optimize the solution to ensure the original business needs are fulfilled. Visually, think of business analysis as being the bridge between operations and solution providers, such as information technology.    

Our training and consulting services strengthen the “bridge” through:   

• Creating a clear business case and expected results. 
• Building strong elicitation and collaboration practices to ensure clear understanding of the business needs and to strengthen business ownership of the results. 
• Identifying and building personas.
• Developing and managing rich user stories.
• Writing clear requirements. 
• Collaborating with solution providers to design, build and deploy the “best” solution. 
• Preparing for successful implementation. 
• Monitoring and optimizing solution results.