Consulting Services
Spanitz Consulting offers a comprehensive collection consulting services:
• Workshop and seminar customization
• Mentoring
• Project Kickstarts
• Project Pep-talks
• Project Audits
• Software AssistanceWorkshop Customization
We are capable and willing to customize our courseware and presentations to fit the specific needs of your organization. We have done this for years. There are four levels of customization:
Stand-Up: which means the consultant works with you before the workshop, to discover organization and cultural specifics, terminology, issues, and land-mines. The consultant then works this information verbally into the presentation. This can be done over the phone, before the workshop. This is the cheapest and quickest option.
Supplemental: In addition to the "Stand-Up," the we also develop additional printed materials for use in the workshop. These materials could be organization-specific case-studies, glossary lists, standardized terms, etc.. This requires more time, and is more expensive.
Courseware Modification: The actual student material, along with the presentation, is modified or enhanced with organization-specific material. This is time-consuming, requires contracts and lawyer review, and is expensive. This is probably the messiest and most complicated of the options.
Courseware Development: This is simpler than "Modification" but usually requires more time. With this option, we create a workshop from scratch for your organization. The legal issues are much simpler, and the costs are actually not too bad, considering the deliverables (a brand-new unique workshop).
How long does this all take? The quickest any of these options has taken is 3 days, usually is it takes closer to 10 days, and it can take up to several months. Of course the time required is dependent on the amount of customization, the availability of our consultants, the availability of your organization's resources (usually this is what slows everything down), and the nature of the customization.
We are not adverse to change, and we've done it before!
We always ensure that our workshop participants have fun while learning!
Coaching
Our associates have many years experience in defining, planning, staffing, managing, and wrapping-up projects. Our experience covers many different industries and areas of government. We are extremely familiar with project management software. (Please see our Credentials page.)
Mentoring (or "coaching") is when we work side-by-side with your internal staff, to assist them in defining, planning, staffing....well, you get the idea. We can also perform Project Audits, if you would rather just get a summary of how things are going.
Our goal is to transfer our years of experience and technical knowledge to your project manager. We have cross-organizational years of best practices, lessons learned, and documented risks. Rather than making mistakes, learn how to identify and avoid them!
Project Kickstarts
We help define and plan the project, working side-by-side with your organization's own people. We plan the project in such a way that there is a seemless hand-off to your own people. This also helps in situations where your organization is not yet comfortable with the project management software, yet would like to start a project properly.
Instead of getting our organization embedded in yours, we prefer to get the job done in a way that you can continue on your own! We can always come back on an as-needed basis, possibly for project Pep-talks, formal workshops, Project Audits, mentoring, and many other offerings.
Project Pep-Talks
Years ago, when we first started training organizations on the use of project management software, we would usually get a phone call a few weeks later, asking us to come back and double-check the files that were set up in the software.
We would come back and verify that the project files were indeed set up correctly, and offer suggestions on how the project plan might be optimized.
This developed into "stump the professor" sessions, where the various project managers in an organization would bring the project plans or project problems to a conference room, and we would spend a few hours working through possible solutions. A lot of times, the project managers were looking for fresh ideas, or reminders of concepts that were presented in one of our project management seminars. Sometimes we even discussed effective strategies for explaining things to the boss. Employees at one organization called these "project pep-talks" and the name stuck.
Project Audits
Our associates have many years experience in defining, planning, staffing, managing, and wrapping-up projects. Our experience covers many different industries and areas of government. We are extremely familiar with project management software. (Please see our Credentials page.)
We have proven procedures that enable us to check on the status of a currently running project, to find potential problems, and also highlight success factors.
Rather than being "the project police" we document, coach, and mentor the internal staff, so that they can better manage their projects. We also offer Project Pep-talks to keep a project running smoothly.
Unlike many consulting organizations, we consider an engagement a success if we can teach the internal staff enough...so that we don't have to remain intricately involved.
Software Help
Our consultants have a very strong background with technology, hardware and software. We specialize in software that supports project management efforts. This includes non-traditional software, not just the project management specific software. In addition to almost all of the project management software, we also work with the Microsoft Office suite, the Corel Office suite, both Microsoft and Novell networks, and of course project websites. Our consultants have experience developing project-related databases.
We pride ourselves in delivering innovative solutions using existing technology. We do not encourage people to jump on the latest fad or bleeding-edge development.
Unlike a lot of project management consulting and training companies, we are not afraid of technology, and we are savy in the proper use of technology.
