You’re starting a small practice. What project management tools do you need?

It is important to think about potential future opportunities as well as current circumstances. Stakeholder management, team distribution (do the teams locate in different sites or is it one side) and how complex the systems you use.

Any organisation selling product(s) and / or service(s) has 3 core areas: 1) Build: a (set of) product(s) and / or portfolio of service offerings 2) Sell: whatever has been defined in 1 above 3) Deliver (aka implement): whatever has been sold in 2) above. From this trio of Build-Sell-Deliver areas it critical to define what The Practice will cover. Sell is mostly a separate team hence The (small) Practice can cover Build & Deliver initially and upon growth split into two. This addressed scope. Objectives of all these areas can be simple to begin like revenue, industry focus and technology consideration. Later on additions to scope like Partners, new technologies can have more objectives like Partner offerings, new skills inclusion etc.

It is also important to think about below criterias as well as budget: -Team size, scalability, technical expertise: how big is the team, do they need onboarding/coaching, does the tool have a user friendly interface etc. - Integration with existing tools, customization & flexibility, support and maintenance: can this tool be integrated with the existing tools (document management systems, communication platforms etc); does it allow customization based on the needs (it is a rapidly changing environment and flexibility is important); does the supplier provide support and maintenance on time (timely technical assistance, troubleshooting resources etc).

If Build & Deliver are the core areas to be covered by The Practice, a broad top down structure could be: 1) The Practice: a) Practice Head 2) Build Team: a) Portfolio / Offerings Head b) PreSales Manager / Executive c) Solution Architect d) Proposal Manager / Executive e) Delivery coordination Managers / Executives. 3) Delivery team: a) Delivery Head(s) b) Program / Project Managers(s) c) Pool of technical delivery team at various experience levels. Simplistic integrated tools (on the likes of Microsoft Office) can be a good start which can cater to all the requirements of The Practice. Upon growth, more sophisticated tools for complicated activities can be added. The single most important factor to consider is to Collaborate as a Team.

Keep in mind: -Team size, scalability, technical expertise: how big is the team, do they need onboarding/coaching, does the tool have a user friendly interface etc. - Integration with existing tools, customization & flexibility, support and maintenance: can this tool be integrated with the existing tools (document management systems, communication platforms etc); does it allow customization based on the needs (it is a rapidly changing environment and flexibility is important); does the supplier provide support and maintenance on time (timely technical assistance, troubleshooting resources etc).

Thinking only of Project Management in a Practice is a very narrow focus as even a small Practice does Presentations, define and manage budgets, send proposals etc. Hence a combo of tools helping with all these preparations would be a good start. Selecting SaaS based integrated tools will be more cost effective with faster availability and rapid adoption. Easier licensing options can lead to optimised budgets thereby saving costs.

Now with Service offerings defined it's now time to hit the road and face the customer. The pitch to the first chstomer is always the toughest but it will be cherished for life - whether it's a success or otherwise. Focus should be on listening with all ears as the initial set of customers will pave your go forward direction. Keep service commitments and timelines that can be fulfilled else these will hit hard during closure and settlement. Try and ensure that every client can become a Reference Customer, which will ensure repeatability.

Be open minded and ask very basic questions while evaluating the factors like Elon Musk did for his businesses. There is always a chance to do things differently and most probably more effectively.

A Practice is a conduit between Sales & Delivery. Sales opens doors and Delivery closes a project, rest everything in between is the ownership and responsibility of The Practice. The knowledge, experience and approach towards an opportunity can have a lasting impact on the Client hence it's necessary to keep nurturing it for continued success.

Any new practice would want to establish trust with it's customers and provide confidence on their ability to deliver on-time and budget with quality. However there are unknowns that cause slippage and it is important to be transparent with the customer to jointly mitigate risks. In my opinion use of agile methods like scrum or kanban are most suitable for a budding practice. It is lightweight project management method and easy to understand for customers and technical teams. Jira is an excellent tool that enables management of software development projects as well as service management engagements. It is cloud-based/ Saas solution so remote workforce and customers can collaborate naturally. Other options can be MS Planner and Excel.