viable workshop series

Viable PracticeA Viable Output© Application

by

John Gardner, CMC

Viable PracticeA Viable Practice© Application

Published by J.V.G. Consulting Inc. April 2012All Rights Reserved.Copyright © 2012 by John Gardner, CMC

JVG Consulting Inc.Condensed Viable Practice Workshops

Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction.....................................................................................................................................3

1.1 Current Situation........................................................................................................................3 1.2 What is Viable Output©.............................................................................................................4 1.3 What is a Viable Practice?..........................................................................................................5

2.0 Becoming a Viable Practice............................................................................................................7 3.0 Bootstrap Your Practice..................................................................................................................8

3.1 Diagnosis..............................................................................................................................10 3.2 Goal Map..............................................................................................................................11 3.3 Problem Map............................................................................................................................12 3.4 Solution Map............................................................................................................................13 3.5 Intervention Plan......................................................................................................................14 3.6 Next Steps.................................................................................................................................15 3.7 Alternative Modeling Techniques............................................................................................16

4.0 Higher Margins and Fees..............................................................................................................17 4.1 Background......................................................................................................................17 4.2 Practice Map.....................................................................................................................17 4.3 Diagnosis..........................................................................................................................17 4.4 Client Map........................................................................................................................19 4.5 Solution Map....................................................................................................................21 4.6 Interventions - The Road to Higher Fees and Margins....................................................21 4.7 Revised Practice Map.......................................................................................................22

5.0 Branding and Market Presence.....................................................................................................24 5.1 Background......................................................................................................................24 5.2 Diagnosis..........................................................................................................................24 5.3 Market Map......................................................................................................................25

6.0 Increased Leverage........................................................................................................................28 6.1 Background......................................................................................................................28 6.2 Diagnosis..........................................................................................................................29 6.3 Market Map......................................................................................................................29

7.0 Necessary and Sufficient IT..........................................................................................................30 7.1 Background......................................................................................................................30 7.2 Diagnosis and IT Map......................................................................................................30

8.0 Final Thoughts..............................................................................................................................32 Appendix.............................................................................................................................................34

Author Profile.............................................................................................................................34 JVG Consulting Profile..............................................................................................................34

1.0 Introduction The goal of this program is to help the independent consultant build a

profitable and sustainable consulting practice. To achieve this result,

you will be given the tools and techniques that have helped other

consultants improve profitability and growth. However, to succeed you

must be committed to change what you are doing, and the way you do it,

so you can achieve the results and reap the value from this change.

This book tackles the challenge of creating a profitable practice

through the application of the Viable Output© method to the management

functions of a consulting practice. The focus is upon restructuring your

consulting practice to change it into a high performance, ever

flourishing engine of growth.

1.1 Current Situation Today's economic conditions are volatile, to say the least, and to run a

business in today's marketplace requires focus, adaptability and

perseverance. For consultants the situation is even more tenuous. As

consultants we are selling advise and implementation assistance in a

market that views many consultants as providing little value or nothing

more than glorified contract labour. The challenge for consultants is to

develop and maintain a profitable, thriving practice while delivering

real value to clients.

There is also much confusion about the difference between a consultant

and a contractor. True consulting is about changing an organization for

the better,through advise and implementation assistance, as a management

consultant. Contracting is about providing services as an operational

consultant to perform a task. Many clients and consultants confuse the

two roles. A true consultant is a management consultant, whose focus is

upon changing a client's condition to an improved state.


You can make a living as an operational consultant. However, the

marketplace tends to view operational consultants (contractors or

freelancers) as a commodity resource. Hence, there is often a continuous

downward pressure upon rates, especially in depressed markets, and with

the availability of cheap overseas labour. The exception is within a

value-based engagement, where an operational consultant can achieve

higher revenue. Ultimately, however, you will make more money as a true

management consultant. But, you may need the core revenue of

contracting, while you develop the additional revenue of a management

consultant. Through the application of the Viable Output© method you

will achieve a Viable Practice.

1.2 What is Viable Output© Viable Output© is both a method and an end state that is achieved.

Viable Output© is a lean, pragmatic method that allows practitioners to

achieve a state of Viable Output©. To be in a state of Viable Output©

means that you have achieved maximum throughput with minimum waste and

minimal cost and you have established a process of ongoing improvement

within your business.

The Viable Output© method is an integration of techniques from multiple

disciplines, such as Theory of Constraints, Lean/Six Sigma, Object

Oriented Analysis, Functional Size Measurement, and the CMC Body of

Knowledge. The Viable Output© method has numerous applications, such as

Strategy and Governance, Projects, Operations, Outsourcing, M&A,

Valuation (IT Assets), Non-Profits, Small Business and Consulting.

Viable Output© is strategic: the focus is upon achievement of the

goals,delivery of the necessary conditions to enable those goals, and

overcoming constraints that are obstacles towards accomplishment of

those goals. Both the current situation and target state are analyzed

and specific interventions are developed to overcome constraints.

Viable Output© is outcome-driven: the focus is upon completion of

outputs, rather than activities. With the focus upon outputs, Viable

Output© becomes a controlled process, with the outputs sized, and key

metrics measured, tracked and analyzed. Key metrics such as Demand,

Capacity, Work-in-Process,Defects-in-Process, Capability and

Risk-in-Process are managed and provide the basis for a framework of

controls.

Viable Output© continuously improves: the framework of controls and the

method, which includes Goldratt's Process of On-Going Improvement and

Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), provide the basis for continuous

improvement. This is achieved through: a mechanism for continuous

real-time feedback of true performance; and a method for ensuring that

the necessary conditions are changed to improve performance.

1.3 What is a Viable Practice? A Viable Practice is a consulting practice that has achieved Viable

Output©. A Viable Practice has achieved maximum throughput (consulting

revenue), with minimum waste (rework, lost contracts, slow delivery) and

minimal cost (over-head, resources, material costs). A Viable Practice

has achieved maximum profitability and sustainability, for its system.

What is the system of a consulting practice? It is the business model

and processes that define and deliver the services and products of the

consulting practice. From strategy and marketing, to practice management

and accounting, all of the management functions that make up a

consulting practice are its system.

The goal of the (consulting practice) system is to maximize throughput

(revenue), while keeping operating expenditures (direct costs) and

inventory (non-billable time) to a minimum. From Throughput Accounting

we can express this relationship using the following formula: ROI = T -

OE / I. Hence, the ROI for a Viable Practice is calculated as ROI =


Revenue - Direct Costs / Non-Billable Cost.

For a consulting practice that has total billable time as 1600 hours per

year, non-billable time of 200 hours, direct costs of $160K, and revenue

of $200K,then the ROI for the consulting practice is 2%.

Generally speaking, if your revenue is declining, your sales funnel is

diminishing and your ROI is 5% or less your consulting practice is not

viable. But then, if you see this happening, then you already know this.

However, you may not know what to do about it. This book will help you

change your practice so you have maximum throughput, minimum waste,

minimal cost and maximum profitability. You will learn how to change

your firm into a Viable Practice.

2.0 Becoming a Viable Practice The Viable Practice Workshops presented here are condensed versions of

the live workshops that JVG Consulting holds for its clients.

The Viable Practice Workshops will show you how to become a profitable,

sustainable consulting practice. There are six workshops in total, each

of which address a specific subject area of practice. They are:

Bootstrap Your Practice

Higher Margins and Fees

Branding and Market Presence

Increased Leverage

Necessary and Sufficient IT

These condensed Viable Practice Workshops are being provided to

Certified Management Consultants (CMC) on LinkedIn as part of their

professional development; a contribution by JVG Consulting and the

author.

This Viable Practice Workshop material is published in collaboration

with the Independent Consultant Community of Practice (CoP) subgroup in

the Canadian Association of Management Consultants LinkedIn group.

Membership is open to all CMC's in good standing.


3.0 Bootstrap Your Practice

This session of the Viable Practice Workshop series, called Bootstrap

Your Practice, will show you how to create a profitable consulting

practice, doing work that you like, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle

as a result.

How is this possible? We will apply some of the tools in the Viable

Output(c) method to rebuild your consulting practice. We will look at

your current constraints, your goals and interventions required to make

you profitable.

To deliver maximum benefit to you in this session, we will perform a

structured walk-through of the Viable Output(c) method, so you can apply

it to your individual practice. So, let's get started.

The summary of the steps we will take today are:

Diagnosis

Goal Map

Problem Map

Solution Map

Intervention Plan

This process scales to support any size consultancy, any size scope, and

any crisis. However, our focus today is the independent consultant.

Before we begin, here are some rules to guide the process:

Rule 1: Make all statements direct, active tense and single purpose

(no compound sentences).

Rule 2: 3 x 3 x 3. Not more than 3 goals, 3 sub-goals, 3 levels of

constraints or conditions.

Rule 3: Not more than 12 constraints, 6 strengths, 6 weaknesses and

3 interventions.

Rule 4: Apply to 80/20 rule, focus on the significant.

Rule 5: Apply the Proofs when modeling.

During the course of this session, we will be creating at least 3 maps

which are a combination of a concept map and a logic tree. When we

finish a Map we need to validate our thinking and the content of the

Map. Here are the basic proofs to help us test and verify the logic of

our analysis:

Proof 1: Clarity: are statements succinct, unambiguous and

understandable.

Proof 2: Root-Cause-Effect: are there additional effects

(negative/positive) created by the condition?

Proof 3: Sufficient: are there additional conditions needed to

create the effect?

Proof 4: Necessary: is the condition necessary to create the effect

(negative/positive)?

You will need at least 10 sheets of blank paper and a pen, pencil or

marker. Whatever you are comfortable with when you are drawing a model.

Clear off your desk, or table, clear your mind and let's begin.


3.1 Diagnosis To understand not only the problems that you are facing, but also

your original goals for your consulting practice, we need to perform

a self-diagnosis. We'll also take a look at your strengths and

weaknesses and then we'll develop interventions to bootstrap your

practice.

To begin, take 5 sheets of paper and think about your goals,

constraints that stop you from achieving your goals, your strengths,

your weaknesses or areas of improvement, and some ideas about how to

overcome your constraints. Perform the following steps:

a) Identify your goals and sub-goals on the first page.

b) Identify your constraints, or obstacles in reaching your

goals on a second page.

c) Identify your strengths: both what you think and what other

people think on a third page.

d) Identify your "weaknesses": the focus is upon your skills and

assets. Do this on a fourth page.

e) Identify interventions/solutions to weaknesses and

constraints on a fifth page.

You now have 5 pages that list: goals, constraints, strengths

(skills and assets), weaknesses (skills and assets), and

interventions (solutions, new goals, new skills, or new assets).

3.2 Goal Map To create a Goal Map, you will be taking your first page that lists

goals and sub-goals and draw/model a Goal Map. This is like a

concept map organized like a hierarchical logic tree. Apply the 5

Rules when creating your Goal Map. To begin, perform the following

steps:

a) Review all 5 pages, make minor revisions (1 or 2 things) as

needed.

b) Organize your goals. Create a key goal. Start with

"Profitable Practice".

c) Take a blank sheet of paper and write "Profitable Practice"

at the top, center of the page.

d) Write your goals and sub-goals as causal chains that lead to

"Profitable Practice". Leave space for 2 or 3 items.

e) Draw lines between your goals and sub-goals to show their

causal relationship.

f) Take your strengths and relate them to the goals and

sub-goals. If they don't relate, don't write them down.

You now have your first draft of your own Goal Map. Apply the 4 Proofs to validate your Goal Map.


3.3 Problem Map To create a Problem Map, you will be taking your second page that lists your

constraints and draw/model a Problem Map. This is like a concept map

organized like a hierarchical logic tree. Apply the 5 Rules when creating

your Problem Map. To begin, perform the following steps:

a) Review all 5 pages and your Goal Map.

b) On a blank sheet of paper, write a single sub-goal from your Goal

Map.

c) Organize your constraints and weaknesses.

d) Identify what constraints and weaknesses are related to the sub-goal.

e) Create a causal chain of constraints and weaknesses connected to the

sub-goal.

f) Repeat this for the other 2 sub-goals from your Goal Map.

You now have your first draft of your own Problem Map, that links

constraints and weaknesses to specific sub-goals. Apply the 4 Proofs to

validate your Problem Map.

3.4 Solution Map To create a Solution Map, you will be taking your third page, which

lists your strengths and your fifth page, which lists your interventions

and solutions and draw/model a Solution Map. This is like a concept map

organized like a hierarchical logic tree. Apply the 5 Rules when

creating your Solution Map. To begin, perform the following the steps:

a) Review all 5 pages, your Goal Map and your Problem Map.

b) On a blank sheet of paper, write down 3 Core Problems.

c) Review your Strengths and see if any apply.

d) Pick 1 Core Problem and identify a cause or condition that

creates it.

e) Identify one or more solutions that would remove the Core

Problem.

f) Identify one or more conditions that must exist to remove the

Core Problem.

g) Repeat this for the other 2 Core Problems.

You now have your first draft of your own Solution Map, that links

strengths and interventions/solutions to constraints and problems, which

in turn are linked to goals and sub-goals. Apply the 4 Proofs to

validate your Solution Map.


3.5 Intervention Plan At this point, you now have a Goal Map, Problem Map, and Solution Map,

along with your list of goals/sub-goals, strengths, weaknesses and

interventions/solutions. You will now create an Intervention Plan by

performing the following steps:

a) Review your solutions, conditions, and interventions that will

remove Core Problems.

b) On a blank sheet of paper write each intervention as a category.

c) Identify supporting actions or features that must happen to

implement each intervention.

d) Determine the time-line to complete these actions/features.

e) Determine if this intervention if feasible.

You now have your first draft of your Intervention Plan, that identifies

the interventions, enabling actions and time-line or schedule to

complete each intervention.

3.6 Next Steps Now that you have an Intervention Plan to bootstrap your consulting

practice into profitability, here are some suggestions that might be

useful:

a) Repeat the process to fine-tune your goals, constraints,

strengths, weaknesses and interventions.

b) Depending upon your interventions, re-brand your practice to

support your goals.

c) Give your Intervention Plan a chance. Follow it for at least 20

days, before revising it.

You have now completed the entire process to Bootstrap Your Practice.

The effectiveness of the Intervention Plan is based upon the

completeness of the analysis and the degree of self-effacing honesty you

applied during the analysis. At this point, however, you still have 3

separate Maps. To improve your skills in this technique, try to

integrate the 3 separate Maps into a single Practice Map. You can do

this by following these steps:

a) Redraw the Goal Map and position the "Profitable Practice" goal

at the top of the Map.

b) Add your Strengths as they relate to each sub-goal.

c) Add your Constraints or Weaknesses as they relate to each

sub-goal or contributing condition to a Strength.

d) Add your Interventions to each specific Constraint or Weakness.


e) Apply the 5 Rules while you are modeling your Practice Map.

f) Validate your Practice Map with the 4 Proofs.

You now have a real Practice Map. You can modify it as time goes on. Try

to keep focused upon the significant goals, strengths and

constraints/weaknesses, when you are updating and reviewing your

Practice Map. The Practice Map is essentially a model of your business.

Keep it fresh by reviewing it every 20 days or so, depending upon your

results.

3.7 Alternative Modeling Techniques

During this session, we used pen and paper as our tools. There are other

tools that you can use. I personally use a notebook, or journal and

revert to blank sheets of paper when I'm trying to get a fresh

perspective. In creating the Practice Map, you have actually created a

"Single Page Logic Tree". Other modeling methods you can use are:

a) Single Page Logic Tree

b) Sticky Notes on the Wall

c) Sticky Notes on large Bristol Board

d) Index Cards on the Wall

e) Modeling Software - Visio, Concept Mapping, Semantic Map, etc.

4.0 Higher Margins and Fees

4.1 Background To further develop a Viable Practice, we must have services and

products that provide true value to our clients. There are two

ways to accomplish this:

Develop products and services that resolve one or more

persistent problems and their root causes.

Develop methods to deliver products and solutions that a

faster, cheaper and/or provide more functionality.

In the previous section, Bootstrap Your Practice, we performed a

diagnosis and developed a number of concept maps (Goal, Problem,

Solution) and an Intervention Plan. Before we begin this section

you need to develop your Practice Map. This will provide a

foundation for the development of a Viable Practice.

4.2 Practice Map If you haven't already, perform the steps outlined in the Next

Steps sub-section of the Bootstrap Your Practice section.

If you have created a Practice Map, then review your Diagnostic

Sheets you created and revise your Practice Map accordingly. For

example, you may have identified new strengths, weaknesses or

goals for your professional Practice.

4.3 Diagnosis We are now going to perform another Diagnostic on our Practice

to determine what problems and root causes exist in our client

base and service industry. At the same time we will evaluate our

own services to determine how we improve their efficiency and


cost of operation.

For this step to be effective, you need to focus upon the key

service you provide to a specific industry or client. If you

provide more than one service or practice in more than one

industry, then pick the most significant. You can repeat the

process for the other industries and services.

Take 4 sheets of paper and label them with the name of your client

or industry. Then add the labels "Strengths", "Weaknesses" and

"Goals".

More than likely, as an expert in your field, you probably know

the weaknesses of your client, or industry, very well. So, let's

start there with a list of the most significant weaknesses.

Limit this list to 5 weaknesses.

In developing your list, take an outlining approach. For

example:

Enterprise Architecture (all clients)

Weaknesses

Multiple methods and notations

Architecture silos

No reuse of artifacts by projects

No common repository and tool

Heavyweight, bureaucratic process

When you have finished your "Client Weaknesses" list, then

repeat the process for "Strengths". For example:


Strengths

All projects develop EA Artifacts

All projects comply with EA Governance

Standard set of EA Artifacts

Now take a breath and reflect upon what your client expected to

achieve. In other words, what were their "Goals". Again, take an

outlining approach on the third sheet of paper and limit

yourself to the five most significant goals. For example:


Goals

Reuse of Artifacts

Lower project delivery costs (30%)

Improved due date performance

Lower cost of operation

Normally, we would also create a sheet/list of "Constraints" and

"Interventions", but I've found that it is better to do this

analysis while creating a "Client Map". So, without further

delay, it's time to switch to building our "Client Map".

4.4 Client Map The purpose of the "Client Map" is to model the goals,

strengths and weaknesses of your client, or industry. Once this

is done, we will model the constraints and interventions

directly onto the "Client Map". To accomplish this we apply the

following steps:

a) Create an hierarchical concept map of our client or

industry, starting with their name and adding their goals.

b) We then take our list of "Strengths" and map them to each


of the goals as appropriate. The strengths are analogous to

sub-goals, and they will map to one or more of the client's

goals.

c) We then take our list of "Weaknesses" and map them to

each of the goals or sub-goals as appropriate. These

weaknesses are analogous to constraints.

d) During the creation of this hierarchical concept map,

apply Root-Cause-Effect analysis. For example, does one of

the "Weaknesses" lead, or cause, another effect? Are there

other sub-causes that contribute to this "Weakness"?

e) Apply the Rules and Proofs presented in the "Bootstrap

Your Practice" section, when creating your "Client Map".

f) Iterate through the Client/Industry goals, strengths and

weaknesses to identify new relationships, new causes and new

effects.

g) Focus and limit your analysis to the most significant

elements. Your causal chains should be limited 7 or less

entities.

Now stop and take a look at the entire Client Map. Does it make

sense? Have you identified all of the most significant goals,

strengths, weaknesses? Have you identified all of the most

significant causes and effects?

Now do a further analysis and try to determine a common root

cause or core problem. In most cases you should be able to

determine between 1 and 3 core problems, or causes. These are

your service targets. We are now ready to move on to

Interventions.

4.5 Solution Map Once we have identified between 1 and 3 core problems or causes

for our client's weaknesses and constraints, we can now develop

Interventions that will form the basis of a new or revised

service.

4.6 Interventions - The Road to Higher Fees and Margins Now that we have a set of Interventions that directly resolves

our client's weaknesses and constraints, we can build a new set

of services around them.

However, we aren't done yet. As mentioned in the Background

section, the second way we can achieve higher margins and fees

is to develop more efficient methods of service delivery. So, we

must do that when we design our new services, based upon our

previous analysis.

Some techniques to apply to ensure greater efficiency, and hence

lower cost for our services are:

a) Think 80/20 every second during the engagement and apply

it in the following ways:

a.1) Client does 80% of low value work (e.g.

administration, data collection, preliminary analysis,

document retrieval, etc). If the client can't or won't

do this, then bring in a sub-contractor to perform these

duties and charge straight time and materials.

a.2) Unless required by your service offering, limit


your face-time with the client to 20% of the total

duration of the project.

a.3) Spend 80% of your face-time with key buyers,

stakeholders and decision makers.

a.4.1) Charge the going rate for the total duration of the

engagement. Divide that amount by 20% of the time (your

face-time). This is your daily/hourly billing rate.

Alternatively, use value-based fees or premium fees

(e.g. Going Rate X 200%).

a.4.2) Charge a total fee using either Value-Based fees

or premium fees (e.g. Going Rate X 200%).

a.5) Bill only for your face-time and subcontractor

time.

In developing your new services, try to quantify the ROI on your

fees. If this is not possible, then create a set of qualifying

statements around the value of your services. Be specific in

describing the outcomes that can be achieved (e.g. Improved Due

Date performance, Lower Cost of Operation).

When providing a quote, or proposal, follow Allan Weiss's

suggestion and break the work into a series of options. When the

client wants to lower price, you remove a block of value. This

prevents the knee-jerk reaction of discount pricing.

4.7 Revised Practice Map To complete this section, it's now time to update your Practice

Map to include the name of your Interventions/Services. Include

the service industry name or client category on your Practice

Map as well. As always, apply the Rules and Proofs to make sure

that your Practice Map makes sense.

We are now in the position to develop Branding and Market

Presence.


5.0 Branding and Market Presence

5.1 Background As an independent consultant, it is hard to compete with large

consulting companies with big marketing budgets and/or who ride

on the coattails of their audit and accounting practices. This

section will show you how to develop a Brand and Market Presence

quickly and efficiently.

5.2 Diagnosis Review your Practice Map, especially the client weaknesses and

your planned interventions.

Evaluate what Interventions provide the most value to your

clients in the quickest time. Is this something you could build

your practice upon?

For example, JVG Consulting is building its practice around the

Genuine Enterprise Architect(c) method. It remedies current,

persistent weaknesses in Enterprise Architecture that destroys

its value proposition, while providing tools that improve Due

Date performance and lower Total Cost of Operation by 30% or

more.

Once you have identified a potential product or service that

addresses one or more specific weaknesses in your client's

industry or company, think about a name for this product or

service.

In identify a name for your product/service, you want to ensure

that it is unique, memorable and, if necessary, be trademarked

or copyrighted. This name can be the basis for your brand.

The next step is to think of three (3) significant nouns that

capture the value of your product/service. These three (3) words

will become your Tagline below your Brand.

Remember, follow the Rule of 3: Never have more than 3 words or

3 lines in your Brand Name and Tagline. Most people don't

recognize or comprehend more than three (3) things in the first

10 seconds. This is your only window of opportunity to get

noticed.

Once you have thought of a name for your product/service, review

your Practice Map and revise it to reflect your new focus.

Your now ready for the Market Map.

5.3 Market Map Now that you have your Brand Name and revised your Practice Map,

we need to build your Market Map. The analysis is the same as

before, but focused upon your market. So let's begin.

Take a sheet of paper and put your Brand Name at the top. Review

your work sheets from the previous section. Determine if you

need to further package your product/service into component

parts or service offerings.

Starting with your Brand Name, connect 3 - 5 industries or

markets that your service can provide maximum value. For each

market, or niche, do the following:

a) Connect the specific weaknesses for each market or niche


b) For each weakness, connect the product/service package or

component that addresses that weakness

c) Connect your specific strength that enables you to

deliver each product/service package or component

d) If there are any gaps, identify Interventions that can

fix those gaps (e.g. partnership, sub-contracting),

otherwise drop the product/service.

Now that you have your markets and/or niches identified, the

client/industry weaknesses identified, and the product/service

offerings to provide value, let's determine how to build market

presence.

Take one or more sheets of paper and put the names of each

market or niche at the top. Now list all of the key magazines,

conferences, LinkedIn groups and associations for each market

and niche. For each of these marketing channels you will need to

create a series of articles and presentations.

Articles and presentations should be tightly aligned. All of

your articles should be short (1 - 2 pages) and topical; based

upon a specific market/client weakness and what to do to fix the

situation - but not how. Your presentation should be a highlight

of your article or a combination of article highlights (topics).

At the end of each article or presentation is the offer to

contact yourself to discuss how you can help them.

Take another sheet of paper and put Articles/Presentations at

the top of it. Now list all of the relevant topics and the

component of your product/service offering that provides a

solution.

Update your Market Map with the most significant marketing

channels (magazines, conferences, associations, LinkedIn Groups)

for each market/niche. Then add the specific articles or

presentations that make the most sense for each market/niche. If

all of your markets/niches are addressed by your articles, then

connect "Articles" to each of them and then add the list of

articles.

You now have a completed Market Map that lays out a plan for

building your Brand and Market Presence. Now you just have to

execute it. Ensure that all of your articles and presentations

have your Brand Name, TagLine and contact information.

Everything you produce, even on LinkedIn, needs to be branded.

Again, the Market Map is a general plan. Pick the most

significant marketing channel (conference, association, etc) and

publish your article(s) and give your presentation.

A final note, rework your website to reflect your focus upon

your Brand, TagLine, Products/Services, Articles and

Presentations. Cross link your LinkedIn profile with your

website. I left this part to the last, because you have to

create your content (articles and presentations).

Now that your Market Map is done, you can optionally revise your

Practice Map with the information. I do this, so I can see the

grand plan for my consulting practice. As I revise my Practice

Map, every 20 days, I may drop back to the individual maps to do

some serious revisions and then bring the revisions forward to

the Practice Map.


Now let's look at leverage.

6.0 Increased Leverage

6.1 Background As an independent consultant we are constantly challenged with

the need to increase capacity and market reach. But we also need

to be mindful of balancing revenue, profit and delivery cost.

Not all work is good work. From the perspective of a Viable

Practice, we need to look at building and sustaining revenue in

the following ways:

a) Leveraging other people to bid on larger contracts.

b) Leveraging other companies to sell through your Brand and

product/service offering.

c) Leveraging other companies to bypass capitalization and

insurance requirements when selling to government or large

organizations.

d) Creating products out of your service offerings.

The first three approaches are most likely known to you already.

Option B is a good option for building your Brand and Market

Presence, as well as revenue. Option A isn't for everyone;

especially if you prefer to be absolutely independent. Option C

is essentially sub-contracting.

Of all of the options, Option D is the most beneficial to your

Viable Practice. So, let's see what can be done.

6.2 Diagnosis Reviewing your Practice Map and your Market Map try to identify

what services, or components, could be made into standalone

products. For example, books, courses, workshops, assessments

and paid speaking engagements. Of all of them, the best option

is to focus upon workshops, courses, booklets and books.

Course material can be sold as a product, fully branded and for

a fixed price. Similarly, topic-based booklets that address

specific client/industry weaknesses are also a good revenue

generator. Workshops are variations on courses and booklets, but

require personal time. Courses, booklets and books can be sold

many times while you sleep. Simply add the Order Fulfillment

option to your website. Optionally, it may be a good idea to buy

ISBN numbers for your books and booklets.

6.3 Market Map Review your Market Map (or Practice Map) and add those companies

that you think you can sell through your branded products and

services. Where appropriate, make the connection between Company

and Market/Niche.

Review your list of Articles/Presentations and see if there are

any candidates for Booklets. Review your service offerings and

see if there are any candidates for courses, workshops and

books.

Add Products to your Market Map (or connect Products to Viable

Practice in your Practice Map). Then add the names of courses,

workshops, booklets and books that you have identified.

Update your Intervention Plan with a prioritized list of

courses, workshops, booklets and books. Schedule at least 1 hour


per day to create these products. Publish them in PDF format

and/or in print, using a service like Lulu.com. Update your

website to add these products.

Optionally, update your Practice Map with the revised Market

Map.

7.0 Necessary and Sufficient IT

7.1 Background As an independent consultant there is a tremendous need for

automation and tools to support our consulting practice.

Unfortunately, we can often get sidelined by too many tools,

converting contact databases from one package to another and

spending too much time on customization.

Jeffrey Fox suggests that any technology that gives you 60% of

the functionality that you need is good enough. Don't waste any

more time looking for the perfect solutions.

So, let's determine what is Necessary and Sufficient IT.

7.2 Diagnosis and IT Map Take a sheet of paper and put "IT" at the top of it. Now, think

about the types of things you do. Namely; communication,

writing, publishing and special purpose. All consultants do the

first three types of things, but niche consultants who have a

specific skill may require specific tools or services (e.g.

Market Scan service, Architecture Modeling tool, etc).

So, create a connection between Communication, Writing,

Publishing, Special Purpose and IT.

Now think of the Necessary Conditions to enable each of the four

requirements. For example, Email, Wordprocessing, Spreadsheet,

Database, Presentation software. Perhaps you need a separate CRM

addin for Email, or a dedicated CRM package.

Do you need commercial packages, or is open source good enough

(e.g. Microsoft Office versus Open Office). Go for the minimum

you need to get the job done.

Identify any services that you may need, such as Publishing

(lulu.com), website, order fulfillment, etc.

Identify any gaps that exist and determine what solutions exist

with minimal effort and cost that gives you what you need.

Review your selections with what you know about your clients. Do

they need special file formats, modeling tools, and so on, that

you need to provide.

Is everything that you identified sufficient for your needs? Do

the tools get the job done with minimal time, customization and

cost?

If you are faced with multiple choices, apply 80/20 thinking and

see what remains.

Build your IT Map with the software and services that you have

identified below each type: communication, writing, publishing

and special-purpose.

Revise your Practice Map with the information on your IT Map.


8.0 Final Thoughts I'm hopeful that you have found the information presented here to be

helpful in building a Viable Practice. I suggest that you review your

Practice Map and Intervention Plan every 20 days to ensure its validity.

As well, maintain a dashboard of your revenue per month (projected and

actual) to track your growth.

Finally, now that you have gone through the process of creating a Viable

Practice and you now have your Practice Map, Intervention Plan and

support Maps; I would like to share with you the thinking pattern I used

to create this approach.

To create a Viable Practice and to maintain it, apply the following

techniques:

Diagnosis

SWOT, 80/20, PEST, 80/20, Effect-Cause-Effect

Practice Map

Goal Map

Problem Map

Solution Map

Client Map

Market Map

IT Map

This material was provided to my fellow CMC's to help them build a

Viable Practice and to provide some professional development that was

specific to the needs of the individual consultant. Hopefully, I have

met that goal.

If you questions regarding the material, please post them on the

Independent Consultant Community of Practice (CoP) subgroup in the

Canadian Association of Management Consultants LinkedIn group.

If your CMC Chapter would like to hold a Viable Practice workshop for

your members, please contact me:

John Gardner, CMC

Managing Partner

JVG Consulting Inc

905-933-1372

[email protected]


Appendix

Author Profile John Gardner is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and Managing

Partner of JVG Consulting Inc. He's worked for Deloitte,

PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Fujitsu/DMR Consulting Group and is a

former CIO of a $1B insurance company.

Over the last 16 years, Mr. Gardner has performed field research and

studies on effective methods for IT operations management, project

management, portfolio management and executive management. This work

has culminated into a method called Viable Output©. The Viable

Output© method is an integration of techniques from multiple

disciplines, such as Theory of Constraints, Lean/Six Sigma, Object

Oriented Analysis, Functional Size Measurement and the CMC Body of

Knowledge.

JVG Consulting Profile JVG Consulting was founded by John Gardner, CMC in 1990 to provide

clients with ethical, professional IT consulting services. The

company is a value-based consultancy that combines the discipline

and rigour of the CMC Body of Knowledge with proven, effective IT

methods and techniques. The company assists clients with improving

their IT Strategy, Portfolio, Projects, Operations, Outsourcing and

Management Controls.

JVG Consulting is an independent management consulting firm that

specializes in Enterprise Architecture. Their lead product is

Genuine Enterprise Architecture©, a new service offering that is

adaptable, lean, rigorous and profitable for all organizations who

implement it. JVG Consulting provides three services:

Genuine Enterprise Architecture©

Enterprise Architecture - The 4 Stages of Value©

Solution Architecture

In addition, JVG Consulting provides their services through a

Remote/Off-site option. This service leverages video and telephone

conferencing for meetings, workshops and Checkpoint/Gating Reviews.

All engagements are tightly controlled through

Management-By-Deliverable, an Artifact-based project plan and

clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

For more details, visit the company profile on LinkedIn.

viable workshop series

Documents

market map

revised practice map

solution map

goal map

problem map

client map

viable output application

jvg consulting