Consulting Services

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Our Virtual COO service offering is geared for Small Businesses. Our goal is to establish and enable  your Company's  operations to run at a standard where it can run "hands free" without you the owner being involved in every part of the day to day. This is all about giving the company an opportunity to be scalable, meaning it can grow without you being overwhelmed.

The image above shows Five key areas that we will assess your company against to establish a baseline of your operations today, then work with you to close the gaps and strengthen the maturity of your End to End processes. 

Overview

The Discovery Study Service is geared to gather understanding of the current  (AS-IS) condition of the specified process area through quantitative and qualitative data analysis.  

This phase will involve: 

• Establishing a Process Performance Baseline (where metrics are available. Where metrics are not available, a data collection exercise will be implemented to establish the baseline). 
• Establishing an Industry Benchmark or setting process goal from Organization 
• Performing a Process Mapping exercise of the specified process area, and analyzing identified and potential bottlenecks in relations to process, competence gaps and tools.  
• Proposing Program work streams/initiatives based on the study which will address identified challenge areas. Each individual project will have it’s own project charter which will clearly highlight the necessary details of the individual project. 
• Developing and Proposing an overall program Business Case highlighting the potential Return on Investment (ROI).  

On average, this initial discovery study takes a period of 3 weeks. At the end of the discovery study, the project team and sponsor will have a read-out meeting where we will review the findings from the discovery study and reach a decision on the recommended next steps. 

The objective of performing a Deep Dive - Root Cause Analysis is to understand "the why" and isolate the key and underlying root cause with the greatest performance impact to the process areas in question. 

Deep Dive - Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Methodology: 

The RCA is conducted in a workshop setting with representative members who are involved  in the every day execution of the process areas in question. The workshop team will utilize the Fishbone cause and effect exercise to discover the underlying reasons behind process failures previously identified. Please note, the Fishbone exercise is a qualitative exercise, it’s great to show what lies behind the curtain of process failures, however, must be assessed through a quantifiable conversion process. Each cause will be assessed through a scoring system of probability of occurrence and level of impact when the cause occurs. 

Deep Dive - Root Cause Analysis (RCA) | Expected Outcome and Required Leadership Decisions

The Root Cause Analysis is going to provide Key (Target) Causes to attack in order to yield improvement in the Process Areas in question. Once these Target Causes are identified, the project team will conduct a rapid analysis to understand the addressable impact the Target Causes will have on the process, once addressed. This outcome, along with a feasibility study will then be presented to the Project Sponsor, to decide on the direction next steps.

The objective a solution development initiative is to build the future (TO-BE) processes that will address the Key Root causes identified in deep dive sessions. 

Solution Development Methodology

The initial solution development sessions will be conducted through a series of small rapid but effective brainstorming exercises with the needed process subject matter experts respective to the process area and work-stream in question. The team will utilize two different methodologies to conduct this exercise.  

Six Thinking Hats: 

The Six Thinking Hats methodology is a brainstorming exercise geared to creating a collaborative and innovative environment that will flush out process scenarios from Six different perspectives. The perspectives allows for the solution to consider Possibilities,  benefits, Risks, Facts, Potential impact to the organization and the responding feedback, and more. 


Pugh Solution Selection Matrix: 

The Pugh Solution Selection Matrix is a tool geared to pick the best portions from different solution options after identifying the best baseline solution. This way, this way, the final process exhibits every possible benefit achievable.  

Solution Development Phase - Expected Outcome 

At the end of the solution development phase, the Organization and Work-Stream drivers will have  clearly defined solutions to be implemented to resolve original process area challenges, along with a project implementation plan. The project implementation plan will show solution deliverables over time, potential risks and mitigation plans,  and all leadership support required for a successful implementation.  

All the skills needed to conduct a successful implementation of the defined solutions are covered in our 4 Day Business Transformation Leadership Course. 

Workshop Facilitation

In order to get a wider perspective of the best approach towards achieving a Vision or Solution, most organisations get their best minds together to think through the best way forward, these are called workshops. Workshops can be conducted to design a product, service or solution. They can also be conducted to identify the root cause of a problem, or simply to identify ways to effectively develop the Organisation. 

The key thing about workshops however is whenever the workshops are facilitated from within the organisation, some believe, the results may become Biased with Native knowledge and reasons for the same. Therefore, Organisations engage us to come help facilitate such sessions without bias, and therefore they receive a wholistic view from the represented groups involved. 

We use several scientifically proven methodologies to facilitate these workshops and provide a detailed with the feedback from the workshop.