Partnership Activity Proposal And Application: Fill & Download for Free

There is so much good stuff to learning from consulting. Here are the top 30+ things I would recommend learning. . . links to blog posts. Hope helpful.Hypothesis-based consulting: guessing the answers to client problems (09/26/12)What we call hypothesis-based consulting, some cynics call educated guessing. Either way, it is a smart way to break down complex or ambiguous problems, and quickly start driving towards an answer. Hypotheses start early in the process, go broad at first, but then get narrowed down quickly. It can be unnerving to some clients, but it works.Why do consultants use PowerPoint so much? (12/1/12) Good presentations are succinct. They may have a 60 page appendix, but the summary will be terse and have a point of view. Using the analogy of a tree, the presentation is the fruit. There is no reason to show off all the minutiae. You need to really boil it down to its essence. .Consulting PowerPoint Presentations: 4 Steps (12/5/12). To be clear, it is more than just making fancy graphs, but it is a large part of what we do. Executives are often very visual people. They have busy schedules and short attention spans. Sometimes, you only have 2 hours with a CXO (CEO, CFO, COO, COO, CIO, CMO) at the end of 4 month project – so you need to make sure that your presentation makes an impact.Better PowerPoint: 6 ways to make your point (4/30/12) What’s the so what?You will hear this phrase used on projects a fair amount. It is certainly not the best usage or even politely worded, but it is critical: Your presentations need to have a point . . .What is a good excel model? (11/13/12) Recently, I was given an excel model that was like the Titanic: large, slow, overly ornate, and structurally unsound. Not only was it frustrating to work with and laborious to fix, it was also a bit laughable. It did not answer even the most basic questions . . .Data analysis in 20 minutes (10/2/2014) Consultants are in the business of taking messy, unorganized data and turning it into information, and hopefully, some insights. Here is a simple example of excel clean up. . .Why consultants love best practices (6/10/12) Management consultants use the phrase “best practices” often. Perhaps too often. A few pictures that help explain why best practices are so popular with consultants and clients. . .How consultants interview clients (11/4/12) This week my team interviewed more than 20 people, everyone from VPs down to the analysts and clerks. The interviews were a gold mine of insights – especially since we were still in the early days of the project and collecting data. My throat was killing me, but these interviews helped us get our bearings on the client’s business, the personalities, and the politics. Every consulting project has interviews and here are my top interviewing tips . . .DMAIC: A great consulting tool for process improvement (4/28/12) Ask any consultant, and I mean ANY consultant (strategy, process, IT) and they will know what DMAIC stands for. It is an abbreviation for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve,Control. It is a tool often used in process improvement projects. . .SIPOC: Consulting framework to untangle problems (2/14/13) SIPOC is an ugly sounding acronym, but it is a useful way to think through problems. Clients often present consultants with complex processes that seemingly don’t have a start or a finish. Sometimes, the best thing is to stop digging. Take a step back and think through the problem. Untangle the problem in a more structured way . . .Consultant’s tool: what is a maturity model? (7/1/12) What really surprises me is that many clients have trouble explaining what is exactly wrong and what they want done. They often talk about symptoms – flat revenues, dropping margins, or increased receivables – not the root causes.A maturity model gauges the client’s maturity in a number of areas and points out the areas of improvement. It’s actually a simple thing that often looks like a report card or an excel table. It looks simple, but there is good stuff there. . .Lean means no waste. No TIMWOOD (2/11/2014) Lean is obsessively focused on doing only what is critical and what is valued by the customer. The way of thinking inherently believes in opportunity cost. You should only do what matters (to the customer). Put another way, if the customer wants 100, you should deliver 100. If you deliver 110, you wasted effort. . . The lean fundamentalist asks, “What is the customer really willing to pay for?” Anything more than that is really waste.Six Sigma: Consultants eat your own dog food (3/15/2014) Do you have boring, low-value added parts of your business that need to be standardized? By squeezing out the variability (read “craziness”) out of the process, you will be more efficient. Reduce the variability in the boring parts of your work to allow more time, freedom, and margin to innovate and deliver real value to your clients. . .Clients hire consultants to GET TO YES (12/6/12) Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In written by Roger Fisher and William Ury is perhaps the most famous book on negotiations. It’s been endorsed by people who use these lessons daily – diplomats, lawyers, and business people because this stuff works. Fortune 500 organizations have a terrible time implementing these simple things and, as a result, often hire management consultant for help . . .Consulting advice: Help your clients save face (4/4/14) This is a simple concept that is critical for consultants and sales people to understand. Never put your client in a situation where you are directly and publicly disagreeing with them. Never box them into a corner where they might be ashamed of the situation. Never embarrass them. It’s a very Asian business culture concept of harmony, and it is super-applicable to consultants. Some of the most deadly phrases . . .How consultants do industry research (5/12/12) Management consultants need to be quick learners. Junior analysts are routinely asked to support proposals and projects across different industries. The good ones are fast, and proficient with Excel and PowerPoint. The great ones get up-to-speed quickly on the industry dynamics and can add in industry specifics to the pitch. . .4 reasons why management consultants love data (4/15/12). Management consultants are always on the prowl for good data. After all, it is the stuff that client recommendations are made of. To a cynic, it might seem obvious. The title of this post would be a kin to: “Why chefs love ingredients” or “Why district attorneys like evidence” or “Why gardeners like sunlight.” Even so, what exactly about the data do consultants love so much?Saying YES to clients can get consultants in trouble (8/29/12) When the client asks for something – new research, some ad-hoc analysis, an extra workshop – it usually seems like a reasonable request. After all, they pay the bills and shouldn’t they get the most out of their consultants, right? Experienced consultants and lawyers will tell you there are many reasons why being overly agreeable can create problems. . .Pauses: a consultant’s public speaking tip (4/20/12) Good speakers pause. After they finish one thought, they don’t rush to the next sentence. They don’t rattle off useless verbal fillers (uh, ah, um, well, so, right, hmm). Instead, they embrace that millisecond of silence, harness the awkwardness, and force the listener to pay attention. Many people call it the pregnant pause. . .What is scope creep? (1/29/13) Generally, this means that the client wants more work done for the same amount of money. It’s not pretty and it’s no surprise that consultants dread it. It usually means late nights, grumpy analysts, dissatisfied clients, and potentially lower project margins. All bad things. . .Structuring problems: Consultants use buckets (05/16/13) Consultants use buckets. I know it sounds pedestrian and unsophisticated, but it’s harder than it looks. When you are trying to crack a complex problem, inevitably you will start to group things. Structuring problems forces you to organize your thoughts, and reflect on what your key messages will be. It is the first step in turning data into insights.Frameworks: Distill your thoughts until they are 80 proof (1/21/14) Consultants are structured thinkers. They may not have as intuitive a grasp on the topic as the client – after all, the client has been living in this field their entire life – but consultants excel at piecing together bits and pieces of data until it starts forming an outline of a story. . . .The best short-answer to give clients? It depends (5/13/2013) “It depends” is a phrase you hear a lot in both business school and management consulting. To some, it might seem like a boring half-answer, timid, or worse – mentally lazy. As weird as it might seem, it is often the best short-answer to give a client.Cracking the case interview (8/11/2013) This format of interviewing is tough, but also a lot of fun. The interviewer gives you the problem and background, and it is up to the candidate to think through the problem, and selectively ask questions to solicit the information needed to get to a solution. 70% IQ, 30% EQ.Resumes are bait (11/7/13) I was on the recruiting team at a Big 4 consulting, and we looked through hundreds of resumes every year and 90% of them went into the trash. We probably spent less than 15 seconds on a cover letter and 30 seconds on a resume. Basically, the resume review was quick and violent.The way I see it, the entire purpose of a resume is to get invited for an interview. Period. Getting an interview means the fish took a bite at the bait. Resumes = bait.Finders, Minders, and Grinders (1/28/14) Managing a Professional Services Firm by David Maister is a consulting classic. For those interested in the economics of partnerships and want to know how managing partners think of their business model, you have to read this book. There are three archetypal roles that roughly line up with these job titles in the respective industries. . . finders (partners, principals), minders (senior managers, managers), and grinders (senior consultant, consultant, analysts)Consultant, what’s your leverage model? (3/16/2014) Leverage is how consulting firms make money. As I discussed in a previous post, professional services firms – lawyers, accountants, marketers, consultants – are built on organizational pyramid structures. There are fewer partners than analysts, no surprise. The ratio of finders, minders, and grinders (senior, middle, junior resources) affects the types of projects they can handle and also their profitability. . .18 excel modeling tips. (12/11/2015) This week I coached a new consultant in creating an excel model. Here are some of the words of advice I gave him. I wish I knew these pointers 20 years ago. . .Consulting proposals: 12 common mistakes. (12/19/2014) . In consulting, writing proposals and statements of work are the lifeblood of the firm. It is akin to fisherman throwing out nets, or farmers planting seeds. If you are not putting together proposals and pitching potential clients, you are dead. . . .Competitive Intelligence 20 tips (10/28/2014): When I was working overseas, I was on a competitive intelligence project. It might sound super-crafty, and Mission-Impossible, but it was not. It was actually quite boring. Lots of meetings to share information, and try to piece together the competition’s strategy and tactics. Very ethical and process-driven initiative.Data Analysis in 20 minutes (10/2/2014). Consultants are in the business of taking messy, unorganized data and turning it into information, and hopefully, some insights. Here is a simple example of excel clean up, and the steps to copy, paste, filter, sort, and cleanse data. For most consultants, the data cleansing would 7-10 minutes (takes some trial and error) and the graphics would be another 10 minutes, if (s)he knew what graph they wanted to make. . .Consulting formula: Think + write + communicate + revise (8/04/2014) On a large project with so many moving parts, people, stakeholders, and organizational history that I sometimes get lost in the activities, status reports and project management mess. Stop. I need to come back to the basics of consulting. This post is written to myself, for myself. Gotta get back to basics:IT implementation worst practices: healthcare.gov (11/3/2013) IT implementation is “bread and butter work” for consulting firms. It often involves dozens of consultants, multiple locations, and sometimes 2-3 years for a full roll out of an enterprise resource plan (ERP) like SAP or Oracle. These are big hairy projects that cost dozens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. It’s big money.What is RACI? (05/18/2015) This is a tool consultants use on any project which requires clear definition of roles and more communication on a new process. When you have more than a handful of people involved, it’s very easy to get confused and make incorrect assumptions on who is doing what. Confusion = frustration = lack of adoption = failure.

An idea is only a starting point in a long and sometimes painful journey of developing a product. From my experience, close to 95% of app ideas never come to life. Why?Because developing an application is not a piece of cake and too many young founders rush into the development long before they’re ready.Let’s take a look at the pre-steps you want to have in place before even asking of software development. I’ll list them below with short descriptions.Problem - let’s be honest. People want to have their problems solved. They’ll value the solution especially if no one else proposed it.Priorities - you need to know what would make people pay for the solution. The most important thing here is not to make assumptions but to gather facts.Secret sauce - unique selling point, i.e. what makes your app different from other similar apps (or apps that make the same job done). Don’t omit this point. It’s where your marketing comes from.Business model - What’s your revenue/cost? Who will be your supplier/client/advocate? What are the strategic partnerships/activities/channels? In short, that’s your revenue and marketing plan.Prototype - people eat and buy first with their eyes, then with their wallets. Sketch whatever you found out about your product. Picture the application and each of the critical functionalities.Math - make sure you secure enough funds for marketing and product strategy. Too many founders forget that building a product doesn’t make it famous. Promoting and selling do.Challenge - use startup competitions, pitching sessions and other opportunities to have your idea and business model challenged and evaluated. If you treat the project seriously use the assistance of people who prepare product strategies (Kreatik, Ideacto, Tribe47). It won’t be free but will be worth it.These are the steps you can (and should) make alone. Why? Because no other person in the team you’re going to work with should believe in your product and the idea more than you. No one will risk more than you.If you’ll rush too much you’ll see that you might end up in a situation with:a blurry vision no one actually understands, not even you - a root of all evilnot enough money to launch the app because of too many ad-hoc changes in features and designtoo many features that cost a lot but don’t bring anythingnot enough money to test the app with beta usersnot enough money for marketinga feeling that the software partner failed or disappointed youBelieve me, you want to avoid all that.Good luck!If you’re interested in the topic, you might want to take a look at my article on Medium about the topic.

I’m fine with it.Personally, though, I am somewhat “against” the entire process of surprising your spouse-to-be with marriage at all. In my opinion, this is better off as a rational discussion which would naturally occur after a long-term partnership that has been stable and looks as though both parties involved aren’t going anywhere.But I’m not religious nor do I have any particularly romantic views on marriage. It’s literally a legally binding contract. You can be in love and cohabitate or whatnot and not be married. In fact, I would actively seek to cohabitate with a partner before getting involved in a legally binding contract with them. For the most part, engaging in this sort of contract involves living together. I would like to give that a test drive before involving the government.Marriage does solve a bunch of issues, like power of attorney or visitation rights in the hospital or monetary responsibilities or visas (if applicable), and there’s the tax breaks, so there are several good reasons to get married.But, I mean, again, it’s a contract. Assuming that my paramour was a male, I would not particularly appreciate being surprised with him offering me to engage in a legally-binding contract with him while on his knees in a restaurant presenting me with expensive jewelry while the entire restaurant stares at me. I am a business owner who has processed many contracts over the years, and none of which were decided upon in such an environment. That’s not a place where you can make logical decisions. That is theatrics.I’d rather discuss it in private. I wouldn’t mind if he brought it up, assuming that it looks as though we’re in it for the long haul. I also wouldn’t hesitate to bring it up myself if it seemed like the sensible thing to do.But, I mean, in terms of people who really want the surprise engagement, I’m neutral on it either way. It’s not for me, but I’m not going to rain on anybody else’s parade if that’s what they want.And whether the “surprise-er” is the man or the woman makes absolutely no difference at all to me.