IT Project Consultant
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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.
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So PMO outsourcing?
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@kelly That sounds like a project manager for an IT project along with outsourced IT staff to implement.
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@Bundy-Associates does that type of work. But not a lot of companies want it, even though it would benefit them greatly.
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It is also similar to the vCIO service the @NTG advertises and is something that we do, but without the marketing term vCIO..
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
So PMO outsourcing?
To an extent. It would be focused more at the sub enterprise level since that is where it is the most lacking.
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@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
So PMO outsourcing?
To an extent. It would be focused more at the sub enterprise level since that is where it is the most lacking.
PMO doesn't imply enterprise. Definitely lacking below the enterprise, but also only so needed. How many projects do you see being run in smaller shops that requires dedicated PM resources?
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@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.
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IT often lacks project management skills, so it makes sense to bring it in when needed. But a PM that doesn't have IT teams associated with them seems like they would be ineffectual. A lot of time and money would need to be spent integrating the PM into the existing teams, I would think.
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@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.
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
So PMO outsourcing?
To an extent. It would be focused more at the sub enterprise level since that is where it is the most lacking.
PMO doesn't imply enterprise. Definitely lacking below the enterprise, but also only so needed. How many projects do you see being run in smaller shops that requires dedicated PM resources?
Most of them
A majority of SMB have maxed IT staff, if not completely underwater. There is no bandwidth to handling the management of any kind of major project. This would be aimed at bridging that gap. -
@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.
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@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
@kelly said in IT Project Consultant:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Project Consultant:
So PMO outsourcing?
To an extent. It would be focused more at the sub enterprise level since that is where it is the most lacking.
PMO doesn't imply enterprise. Definitely lacking below the enterprise, but also only so needed. How many projects do you see being run in smaller shops that requires dedicated PM resources?
Most of them
A majority of SMB have maxed IT staff, if not completely underwater. There is no bandwidth to handling the management of any kind of major project. This would be aimed at bridging that gap.Right, I get that. But would they need it? Can you give a sample project?
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@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.
So, not needed, or no one will pay for it? (Or both)
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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.
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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.
