Re: Developing centres of expertise in a consulting firm

Hello Saar,

It appears you've been given what is potentially a big disaster for your
firm... Someone is going to be left holding the bag and hopefully you don't
eventually discover that it's you.

>From your post, it is evident that many see the CoE program as additional
overhead that does nothing to add to their bottom line (What's in it for
me?).

I suggest you quickly focus our limited resources on succeeding on some part
of the program (however small) by demonstrating how this program adds value
to the firm (of interest to the owners) and/or yields increased revenue to
the individual consultant (find a way to reward successful participants in a
meaningful way). Then expand from there to the other areas.

How to achieve such a result requires a very good understanding of how the
CoE program should work, finding appropriate metrics (measurement tools)
meaningful to the participants and setting up a performance/compensation
mechanism that rewards contributors in an objective way.

Keep in mind that what is of value to the managing partners (owners) and
individual consultants are not necessarily the same.

I believe I saw something about setting up such a system at
www.fastcompany.com. Check out their archives and search for knowledge
systems... Etc.

You might also want to get some books on process reengineering and case
studies in this area... I recall reading something about situations similar
to what you are facing but it's been a while...

In a nutshell, I think your challenge will be more in finding a reward
mechanism for attracting participation by the different publics in your
organization.

A few thoughts.


-- 
J.P. Solyom, B.Sc.E.E., M.B.A.
KS Business Development
Sales and Marketing Solutions for the New Economy
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(253) 272-0996  [EMAIL PROTECTED]




On 10/17/03 9:18 AM, in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Saar
Ben-Attar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> I hope someone can assist in tackling the following:
> 
> I have been put in place of driving the development of Centres of Expertise
> (CoE's) at a mid-sized consulting firm, for which I work.
> Ten centres were identified, of which, after a few months of work (only the
> last two under my direction), one center is nearing competion, another two
> have made progress and the others are far behind, some not even past the
> start line.
> 
> We defined a working (successful) CoE as:
> A common approach decided upon
> 
> Current Service Offerings agreed and well defined
> 
> Marketing materials developed
> 
> Training materials/programs in place
> 
> CoE meets regularly to
> 
> Update members
> 
> Explore new service offerings
> 
> Debate application of knowledge to other projects, clients or industries
> 
> After analyzing the possible reasons, I came up with the following:
> 
> Symptons: CoE effort seems to be fizzling out
> 
> CoE leaders meetings are repeatedly not being attended.
> 
> Some CoEs have not taken off the ground.
> 
> Others seem to be stuck in the same phase for well over a month.
> 
> No CoE has yet reached the finish line, with only one possible 'winner' this
> year.
> 
> New CoEs have been added but their development state is unclear.
> 
> Possible underlying problems
> 
> Some question the need for a CoE at all, or may prefer other mechanisms.
> 
> It may not be clear how CoEs can contribute to consultant work, or even
> bringing in new work, and so commitment is lacking.
> 
> Some may think they can avoid the work entailed, without Director-level
> involvement.
> 
> Work load is perhaps increasing to levels which prevent any effort being
> given to CoE development.
> 
> Billable vs. non-billable time debate has not been resolved, while requests
> for CoE time to be billable have been unreasonable.
> 
> Is there any literature that can assist me in revitalizing this initiative?
> I am sure these problem are not unique.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Saar Ben-Attar
> 
> 
>