Vision and Stragegy in 2010

Building a World-Class PSO requires many components of a complex system to work together to meet the needs and objectives of the client base, consultants, department, and organization in which the PSO resides. Hiring the best and brightest consultants, developing relevant and repeatable services offerings, and developing a repeatable delivery model that enables projects to be delivered on time, on budget, and at the highest quality are examples of some of the components that must be implemented to ensure that the PSO is, truly, world-class.

But how do you know what resources to hire, what services to offer, and what the delivery framework should be?

As with any other business, develop vision and mission statements for the practice is a critical first step. Now, I know there are a lot of nay-sayers out there who believe that vision and mission statements are "fluffy" and meaningless. I disagree, however. In fact, the process used by managers and the team to develop these two very important artifacts for the practice is as important, if not more important, than the vision and mission statement themselves.

My company is moving through the Professional Services Maturity Model quite aggressively these days. There are a lot of changes we are managing. For instance, we were recently acquired, we are planning significant growth in our business, and we are even changing many of the services that are delivered.

As we sat down to plan the new year, which starts on April 1, 2010, we quickly realized that we were in the midst of an identify crisis given the changing environment. This crisis was preventing us from make key decisions and reaching our fullest potential as a world-class PSO.

So, we took a step back and started by defining a vision statement for the practice. We decided that the vision statement would define some future state - what we aspire to be. We also decided that it would be written from out clients' perspectives. In other words, there is no mention of internal metrics or growth numbers. What role do we want to play in assisting our customers through their own evolution to greatness? We held up in a conference room for a couple of hours, and we pulled something together that really speaks to why we get up every morning.

We are still working on the final touches of the vision statement, which includes reviewing it with key managers from across the business as well as with the consultants themselves. So I won't share the vision now. However, having this vision enabled us to make significant progress in defining our plan for the new year. We have identified a set of a dozen or so initiatives that align with the vision to assist us in improving how we go to market, work with sales and marketing, and deliver the services we offer.

Having a strong vision is a key component of SPI's Professional Services Maturity Model. Without it, PSO managers will not succeed in getting on the road to building a world-class PSO.