It pays to specialize… I would even say it’s necessary.
No one consultant has enough time or breadth of experience and expertise to know everything and be able to do everything in Deltek Vision.
While many consultants (like myself) have done a lot in Vision, I do have a specialty (which is not dependent on Deltek Vision or any other platform), which is business process and data architecture. The data architecture and business process architecture are the foundation of your enterprise system no matter what platform you are on.
So if I was the Marvel Comics of Deltek Vision consulting and I was going to build the perfect super hero consulting team for implementations or other related projects, I would probably have one person for each of the following areas:
CRM stuff: this includes everything about keeping your contacts and clients data clean, outlook integration, proposals, merge letters, opportunities and service estimates etc.
Resource Planning:
This is pretty complex and advanced, and I’ve found most firms don’t do much with it… because planning your resources on projects to the level you need to in order to get out of it what you’re asking for (how busy is Bob on Tuesday?) is a full time job… and frankly, most firms are busy trying to keep their billable staff busy so those billable staff don’t have a lot of time to do real project management which is a full time job in itself… and not billable. I would probably have someone on staff (in my perfect consulting firm) who was good at both CRM and resource planning, even though they fall into two different disciplines.
Accounting:
In my ideal world, I would have a Deltek Vision expert in accounting on call at any moment; someone who could explain in 500 words or less the basic concepts behind intercompany billing, overhead allocation, cross charging, revenue generation and GL reports vs. Project Earnings based reports… this is on top of being able to explain what the day to day should look like in Vision, as well as month end and year end closing procedures, what to watch out for etc.
Business Analysis, technical architecture and fit:
That’s me. I’m pretty good at all of the above mentioned areas (except Resource Planning, with which I have zero experience) but my super power is seeing down deep into the data and being able to understand the thread of your mission critical data processes to make sure that you’re storing the right kinds of data in the right place.
Custom Reports:
That’s me again… this person has to know the data in Vision inside and out in order to pull that data out in meaningful and accurate ways.
So what is your super power? Whether user or consultant… what part of your business or of the application Deltek Vision do you seem to innately understand? How do you think about your business? What do you find yourself explaining to others a lot about how something works? What “just comes naturally” to you?
Then the flip side of that question…
What don’t you understand? What confuses you? What seems to just “not make sense”?
I know there’s a few of you out there reading this blog. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have the time.
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For your enjoyment…
My new office is on the corner of 6th and Congress in downtown Austin, Texas. It’s a great city by the way.
We got here just before Christmas and I immediately bought a mountain bike and have been riding to the office on most days.
However, just over a week ago, it snowed over night so we woke up to a quiet, Friday morning winter wonderland. I skipped driving (I don’t think Texans are used to snow so I figured I would avoid all the collisions, and decided my bicycle wasn’t a good idea either since it was below freezing with ice everywhere) and walked the 4 miles to the office.
Now I can tell my kids when they grow up that “Hey! I had to walk 4.2 miles from home to the office in the snow just to make sure there was food on the table!”. I’ll leave out the part that it was quite enjoyable… I took lots of pictures, and that it was only once for an entire year (and that I didn’t have to walk back b/c I called the wife and she drove out and picked me up).
Here’s a picture as I’m walking into town across the Congress street bridge.
