Sharon Youngblood Business Consulting - Articles for Executives

Expert in Performance & Profitability

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P.O. Box 41236
Tucson, AZ 85717
520.795.7498
520.795.7556 (FAX)
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"Sharon is that rare individual - extremely intelligent and multi-talented,"
-- Hussein Kamel, PhD, Computer Structural Analysis, Professor Emeritus, University of Arizona

"I can say we would not have accomplished our goals without your assistance."
-- Chester Teaford, HDR, Inc.,
formerly, V.P., Michael Baker Jr., Inc.

Articles for Executives

Is Recruiting The Answer To Needed Growth?

The consultant facilitating the strategic session for the firm dutifully recorded the new markets on the flip chart. Five executives sat around the table talking about which markets are growing the fastest, which best fit the ACME Company's core competencies and which the company should enter over the next few years. The number of needed new hires captured for each market segment and the plan rushed to admin to type it and bind it. Everyone in the room congratulates himself or herself on a job well done and awaits the final version of the strategic plan. Section or group heads are told to roll projected person-hours into next years' projected revenue.

This is a familiar, albeit abbreviated, process in many firms around the country. What follows is also familiar - the inability to recruit the staff to create the projected revenue. With today's shortage of qualified technical personnel, adding more bodies and growing by expanding top line revenue is not always the smartest way to go.

Any firm can enjoy 10 to 40% growth in profit, without adding a single employee, simply by improving project delivery.

The place to start is to understand how much "unrealized revenue" your firm is losing each year. It is appalling how few project managers as well as company executives know the percent of revenue their firm is losing due to project inefficiencies. The second task is to figure out exactly where you are losing it. Most profit drains start early in the project. For example, the scope of work is not clear. It is fair to say that 80% of the problems are introduced in the first 20% of the project - the old familiar Pareto Principle still holds.

The major culprits are:

Unclear or incomplete scope of work
Having to back track and pick up vital information too late in the project
Poor communication channels set up and maintained
Re-doing or re-working parts of the project
Inexperienced personnel
Poorly trained personnel
Lack of accountability
Ineffective delegation

If these are the culprits, what are the solutions? Once you identify that you are losing money, isolate where in your project delivery process does the loss occur? It is best if the whole team works on identifying where the losses happen. You'll get better ideas and as a bonus, everyone will understand the process better. When you figure out where it is happening, then figure out why. The third step is to devise a better way to do that step and implement. It is also important to measure the effect of your changes.

Go ahead and hire more people if you can find them. At the same time, discipline yourself to improve your project delivery and you will increase your profit growth. You can improve your profit 10 to 40 percent without hiring one additional person.

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Youngblood Consulting, Inc.
P.O. Box 41236 ∙ Tucson, AZ 85717
say@youngbloodconsulting.com ∙ www.youngbloodconsulting.com

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2009