Bringing Fresh Perspectives on Project Management for SMBs

How many of you have run into a client, a boss, or a colleague that demands that the next project manager that you bring on is PMP-certified with strong proficiency in Microsoft Project, RAID logs, and developing 500-line RACIs? (Oh, and they claim to be an agile shop. ??) If you've been a project manager or a consultant for enough years, this has probably happened to you more times that you care to remember.

For those of us that work in the SMB space, it's a constant struggle to determine how much project management is too much? SMBs have limited budgets, team members with cross-functional responsibilities, maturing processes, and tons of pressure to retain every, precious client. That said, the projects that they run are simpler, there's less bureaucracy, and the turnaround time from good idea-to-implementation is significantly shorter than their enterprise elders.

Most of the resources on project management and the efforts of management consulting firms are geared towards large enterprises -- both public and private. Some of the publications throw a random article in here or there about how SMBs can use their principles to deliver simple projects, but the big players are frustratingly light on their love for SMB project management.

For that reason, I have pulled together this newsletter to share some of the techniques, tools, and processes we have developed at Tuck Consulting Group for our clients, many of whom range from 8 to 80 employees. There's no perfect science to running a great project for an SMB, but we've got a pretty solid set of experiences (both good and bad) that have helped us tune our service delivery. That said, I know a lot of you have your own successes and failures, and I'd love for you to engage in the comments and share other perspectives on successful PM service delivery.