Stoneseed engagements tend to fall into two categories – “Operate” or “Advisory”.
Or as a colleague put it this week … “operational” or “inspirational”.
Stoneseed employs a team of Project Management and Technical Professionals, delivering services through a flexible, on-demand resourcing model PMaaS (Project Management as a Service). From strategy to service delivery, this cost-effective model for project delivery gives you access to the resources you need – when (and for how long) you need them.
Whether it’s a Project Manager, a Business Analyst, or Project Management Office services, Stoneseed’s multi-level offering and ever-expanding portfolio of project resources and competencies, at an engagement level seems to fall into either “simple delivery support” (the operational), i.e. project resources (or ‘another pair of hands’ as a client once beautifully summed it up) or they need a “consultant” (the inspirational*), i.e. a more senior project professional engaged in a more advisory capacity, perhaps for establishing more complex projects or programmes, acting as a catalyst for change within a project team, etc.
Now, the thing is, all our project talent are generally more experienced, so even if you’re just after that “extra pair of hands” what you’ll get from Stoneseed is someone who will show up and act more like a consultant than your average PM, in other words you get years of experience, best practice and a fresh pair of eyes bundled in at no extra cost. *At Stoneseed, our operational talent is inspirational too!
There are, though, some really strong Stoneseeders, the individuals who are Programme Manager capable, our advisory level team, for whom we charge a little more and who deliver an exponential and wider reaching return on investment.
TEAM OPERATE
Team Operate does what it says on the tin. The client who described as Stoneseed’s ‘aaS talent’ as an extra pair of hands wasn’t far off the mark, although it’s worth emphasizing that, as well as your extra pair of hands, you also get a fresh pair of eyes (and new perspective) and thinking that isn’t affected by whatever paradigms have evolved along with a team.
Our services portfolio offers a true end to end service, from IT Technical Advisory, Business Analysis Services and PMO Services through to Programme & Project Delivery. Whatever type of ‘extra pair of hands’ you need, we have them – and Stoneseed’s innovative on-demand resource model allows you to dial up and down IT project resources in sync with your delivery needs.
With some reasonable planning, Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) provides access to a wide portfolio of project skills, made available against your demand schedule, from a single Project Manager, Business Analyst, Technical Advisory or PMO expert for a few days, right through to a large team of fully utilised project professionals.
TEAM ADVISORY
Team advisory perhaps needs a little more exposition!
Stoneseed’s PMaaS advisory talent act like project management consultants, often providing expert advice, naturally offering recommendations regarding project and programme management but also the wider business / IT project relationship and landscape.
At Stoneseed, a pillar of our client approach has always been to thoroughly understand your business, and Team Advisory really make it their business to get to know your business. By doing this, our advisory talent can assist in actually directing and driving some parts of a project, or helping the project manager create strategy, etc. Clients also tell us that they value help with allocation of resources, identifying and prioritising deliverables, data analysis to identify project issues before they even surface, and Stoneseed’s advisory level talent are pivotal in aligning IT projects with business case (and ensuring they stay aligned).
Team Advisory can create project plans that deliver for your business, roadmap your project (and wider programme portfolio), draw from their depths of experience to offer a more considered perspective, assess risks and much, much more!
In a sentence, Stoneseed’s project management advisory level talent has a wealth of experience, relevant skills and capabilities, and a deep and wide-ranging project management knowledge bank from which to draw to give guidance and help in making better decisions throughout the life cycle of a project, programme management phases and the life-time of a team.
THE CV OF ADVISORY LEVEL STONESEEDERS
Often the best way to define the criteria for a role or competency is to ask those tasked with hiring such individuals! I dropped in on Stoneseed’s recruitment team and asked what the CV of an advisory level Stoneseeder might look like. This is what they told me:
Experience – Ideally 5-10 years of experience as a project manager. Watching advisory talent at work looks instinctive, and of course it is, but those instincts are as nurtured as they are nature. Years of delivering IT projects creates layer upon layer of instinct and confidence.
Skills – The other thing that you pick over time is lots of skills. You can’t act in an advisory capacity if you don’t know what makes a project tick, or how to apply varying methodologies to successfully manage it. The best advisory talent has experience of a range of methodologies, from Agile to waterfall, Scrum, PMBOK, Prince2, and more than likely experience deploying a hybrid approach too.
Provable And Demonstrable Expertise – A telling interview moment is the “give me an example of when” type of question, where a candidate is not only asked for their expertise but how they deployed it to help an organisation find solutions to overcome a challenge or add business value.
So … whether it’s operational or inspirational … Stoneseed has you covered.
Remember, PMaaS has a straightforward commercial model too. Stoneseed can work with you to forecast project resources needed before providing a straightforward rate card with resources defined by type and skill set. As resources are called off against your demand schedule, they can flex up and down and you are simply billed for the resources consumed at the end of each month.
Team Operate or Team Advisory … as a Service … on a cost effective, full-time or part-time basis. Now that is inspirational!
PS – If you’re a project professional reading this and think you’d fit or operate or advisory level teams – get in touch!
Find out more about Project Management as a Service from Stoneseed