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Issue 12 - July 2004
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Perspectives:
Summer's Here – Now What?
For many practitioners, the summer months mark a slow down in scheduled projects and an opportunity to take a breather from an intense first half. During this “less busy” time, we recommend that you consider taking a few proactive steps to plan for growth in the coming year. We believe that following these simple steps can help reduce the strain of work compression on your people and your practice as a whole.
Step One: Examine the Past
Gather your key managers and leaders and ask yourselves the following questions about the busy period just past:
- How did the first half go?
- What went well?
- What did not go well?
- Did you have enough people when you needed them? If not, what type of skill would have been most beneficial, when and why?
- What business processes seemed to inhibit your work? What can be done about these before season starts again?
- By conducting a “post-mortem” with multiple perspectives involved, you can learn from the past to ensure that next year’s busy period is improved.
Step Two: Commit to Improve
Develop an actionable plan based upon what you’ve learned from the period just ended. Consider investing in:
- Education for team members who would have been more productive if they’d been stronger in a particular technical skill, had a better grasp of the technology your firm uses or had stronger client management skills;
- Technology upgrades that include new software solutions, remote access for your staff members so that they can work from home and better balance their work and personal lives and increased network security to better protect the integrity of your sensitive data;
- Business process improvements that will enable you to better manage the work flows and ensure maximal productivity; and
- Marketing or sales programs that will enable you to maximize your value, accelerate cash or make improvements to your processes that could include pre-paid, fixed price engagements for production work like tax processing.
- For those actions that you commit to take on, make sure each one has a single owner in the firm assigned to see it through and a by-when date to guide your improvement process. When you make action plan development a regular part of your busy period ending, you’ll make continuous improvements each year and reap the benefits of these improvements through enhanced productivity and profitability.
Step Three: Look to the Immediate Future
Take the time to create a schedule of the projects you have committed to take on in the 2nd half of the calendar year. Map the projects against the calendar and then determine the amount of resource required to fulfill each project. Try to be as granular as possible – indicating the type of resource (administrative, junior, senior, partner/owner, etc.) and the estimated number of hours each person will be needed per project.
Use this detailed schedule to determine where you’ll have resource shortages, if applicable, so that you can plan to add that type of resource – whether temporary or permanently – before the need arises.
More likely though, your resource schedule will indicate that you will have capacity for more work than is sold in the months ahead. Because you’ll have done this planning at the resource level, you’ll be better able to gauge what type of work you should focus on selling to take advantage of your resource availability and you can spend your energies developing this work now. Or, if your culture calls for a “rest period” during these months, you can use this capacity schedule to plan CPE, vacations and even part-time work schedules to flow with the work you’ve already committed to perform.
Undertake these three steps now and feel much more in control of your practice performance and workflow during busy season and after. For more information about conducting post-busy season assessments and how to capitalize on your findings, contact Jennifer Wilson at jen@convergencecoaching.com or 402.933.2900.
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