IT Project Consultant
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@penguinwrangler said in IT Project Consultant:
The old law firm I worked at used it because the three IT staff were at full capacity with about 200 staff to support. We literally didn't have the time.
Oh, it exists, just rare.
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
@jaredbusch said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
@jaredbusch said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly That sounds like a project manager for an IT project along with outsourced IT staff to implement.
The staff part is where it gets sticky. I don't want to get into break/fix or admin work any more than is strictly necessary, but some companies would need it. This is really early in my thought process.
That is why I said staff to implement. Once implemented it is turned over.
Also, it is not a viable business model IMO. You will never find the customers.
That's the challenge. Finding a customer that will pay for project management for IT work, when most IT work has management built in is really tough.
It's rare that IT work needs project management, we had it in the enterprise and mostly it just got in the way - calling meetings and keeping people from working who were trying to get things done. Very costly.
You're thinking too enterprise. I would want to handle communicating with stakeholders (including IT), establishing parameters, determining solutions (not in a vaccum), and then implementing it, or working with either an MSP/vendor/internal IT to implement it.
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@jaredbusch said in IT Project Consultant:
@penguinwrangler said in IT Project Consultant:
The old law firm I worked at used it because the three IT staff were at full capacity with about 200 staff to support. We literally didn't have the time.
Oh, it exists, just rare.
I believe it is really common in Legal IT. If a firm is large enough to support their own IT department they are usually under heavy load so they take advantage of consultants in this way. However, a lot of IT departments will hang your ass out to dry if it goes awry.
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@penguinwrangler said in IT Project Consultant:
@jaredbusch said in IT Project Consultant:
@penguinwrangler said in IT Project Consultant:
The old law firm I worked at used it because the three IT staff were at full capacity with about 200 staff to support. We literally didn't have the time.
Oh, it exists, just rare.
I believe it is really common in Legal IT. If a firm is large enough to support their own IT department they are usually under heavy load so they take advantage of consultants in this way. However, a lot of IT departments will hang your ass out to dry if it goes awry.
Yeah, I could see that there would be many opportunities to get thrown under the bus by internal staff.
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@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
I realize that y'all aren't the market for this discussion, but IT staff would be stakeholders in a discussion about this, so I figured I would posit the question here. Do you think that there would be a market or interest in having a third party come in and handle project planning and coordination for IT that is not associated with an MSP or a vendor? The idea would be to have someone come in for larger scale transitions and changes so that it wouldn't affect IT's current staffing/workload ratios, they would handle as much of the coordination and communication for working a project through the stages, and then hand it off to internal IT at whatever point is deemed appropriate by the company.
Lots of MSPs do this exact thing. There's quite a few projects where I will only coordinate with certain clients, and others I'm all hands on. Just depends on the client's needs at the time.
Most of the time, I do the planning and the implementing. Most clients are 500 users and below, with no IT staff. It's not "as needed" though as they have weekly/semi-monthly maintenance and visits.
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@bbigford said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
I realize that y'all aren't the market for this discussion, but IT staff would be stakeholders in a discussion about this, so I figured I would posit the question here. Do you think that there would be a market or interest in having a third party come in and handle project planning and coordination for IT that is not associated with an MSP or a vendor? The idea would be to have someone come in for larger scale transitions and changes so that it wouldn't affect IT's current staffing/workload ratios, they would handle as much of the coordination and communication for working a project through the stages, and then hand it off to internal IT at whatever point is deemed appropriate by the company.
Lots of MSPs do this exact thing. There's quite a few projects where I will only coordinate with certain clients, and others I'm all hands on. Just depends on the client's needs at the time.
Most of the time, I do the planning and the implementing. Most clients are 500 users and below, with no IT staff. It's not "as needed" though as they have weekly/semi-monthly maintenance and visits.
But MSPs are generally sales organizations.
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https://www.sierrasystems.com/
These guys (employees anyway) make serious money doing exactly what you're talking about.
Generally SMB wouldn't be able to afford them.
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@jaredbusch said in IT Project Consultant:
@bbigford said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
I realize that y'all aren't the market for this discussion, but IT staff would be stakeholders in a discussion about this, so I figured I would posit the question here. Do you think that there would be a market or interest in having a third party come in and handle project planning and coordination for IT that is not associated with an MSP or a vendor? The idea would be to have someone come in for larger scale transitions and changes so that it wouldn't affect IT's current staffing/workload ratios, they would handle as much of the coordination and communication for working a project through the stages, and then hand it off to internal IT at whatever point is deemed appropriate by the company.
Lots of MSPs do this exact thing. There's quite a few projects where I will only coordinate with certain clients, and others I'm all hands on. Just depends on the client's needs at the time.
Most of the time, I do the planning and the implementing. Most clients are 500 users and below, with no IT staff. It's not "as needed" though as they have weekly/semi-monthly maintenance and visits.
But MSPs are generally sales organizations.
The confusion with some MSPs is where they call themselves MSPs but really they are just a VAR. Sales driven is something we've tried to strongly avoid. We didn't even have a procurement department for 8 years because we said we'd never sell hardware... now we sell hardware. Other than that, it's just outsourced IT like one should expect.
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@bbigford said in IT Project Consultant:
@jaredbusch said in IT Project Consultant:
@bbigford said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
I realize that y'all aren't the market for this discussion, but IT staff would be stakeholders in a discussion about this, so I figured I would posit the question here. Do you think that there would be a market or interest in having a third party come in and handle project planning and coordination for IT that is not associated with an MSP or a vendor? The idea would be to have someone come in for larger scale transitions and changes so that it wouldn't affect IT's current staffing/workload ratios, they would handle as much of the coordination and communication for working a project through the stages, and then hand it off to internal IT at whatever point is deemed appropriate by the company.
Lots of MSPs do this exact thing. There's quite a few projects where I will only coordinate with certain clients, and others I'm all hands on. Just depends on the client's needs at the time.
Most of the time, I do the planning and the implementing. Most clients are 500 users and below, with no IT staff. It's not "as needed" though as they have weekly/semi-monthly maintenance and visits.
But MSPs are generally sales organizations.
The confusion with some MSPs is where they call themselves MSPs but really they are just a VAR. Sales driven is something we've tried to strongly avoid. We didn't even have a procurement department for 8 years because we said we'd never sell hardware... now we sell hardware. Other than that, it's just outsourced IT like one should expect.
That's the biggest thing, just the wrong terms used so that people associate the MSP ecosystem with VARs, which definitely would not be good in this scenario.
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Just received this spam today, so these people are definitely out there...
" My company provides IT PMO and Project Management Consulting services. We have a proven approach to delivering PMO Startup/Improvement, Project Delivery, Project Management Training, and Project Management Software services nationwide.
Our dedicated SQUAD of experts can lead your high-priority IT Projects allowing you to focus on the core of your business. We have a successful track record of delivering IT Applications, Infrastructure, eCommerce, and Digital projects using Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid methodologies.
I would like to speak to you about your current / future IT Projects and PMO needs to see if we can help. Are you the person I should speak with? If not, can you please point me into right direction?"
