James
Consulting Group
Practice Areas
James Consulting Group has performed and managed
a wide variety of assignments in many different industries Including
electric and gas utilities, telecommunications, energy, aviation,
government, insurance, manufacturing, professional services, retail,
transportation, distribution and high tech manufacturing.
In fulfilling our role, JCG has served as an interim
executive (a consultant in a line management role) as well as in
the more traditional consulting relationship. The key to all assignments
was successfully delivering to the client what was needed at the
time it was needed.
The nature of the work can be categorized both as
improving IT effectiveness and improving business effectiveness
in their use of IT. The primary focus of work has been in the areas
of:
IT Transformation
IT
Strategy & Governance
Quality
Assurance/Risk Management
Project
Management
Solutions
Delivery
Work
Management
Information
Technology Transformation
Senior business executives want to know if
they are getting their money’s worth out of IT? If the
answer is Yes, how do you know? If the answer is
No, what do you do to address the shortcomings? Business
executives are expecting speed, high quality and reasonable costs
in delivering IT solutions; how does the IT organization stack-up?
Answering these key questions is the focus of this service. Helping
companies deal with these questions is a core strength of James
Consulting Group.
The initial steps in answering these questions requires JCG to assess
the capabilities of the IT function. Once the IT organizations’
capabilities are understood, a Transformation Blueprint can be developed.
This Blueprint will guide the activities required to transform or
“turnaround” the areas of poor performance. The “turnaround”
is aimed at correcting what needs fixing.
The major thrust in achieving the “turnaround
of IT” is to apply sound business management concepts and
practices to the management of the Information Technology function.
James Consulting Group has significant experience
with the capabilities assessment of IT functions and the associated
“turnaround” of poorly performing IT organizations.
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Information
Technology Strategy & Governance
Alignment of Business and IT strategy is
of critical importance to the success of a business. This consulting
service focuses on developing IT Strategy and IT Governance frameworks
that both support and enable the achievement of business goals through
the appropriate application and management of technology. Lack of
IT and business alignment accounts for a large percentage of abandoned
systems projects. These failures result in lost time, sunk costs
and business personnel frustration with no business value being
received. Without proper corporate oversight and governance the
IT organization will struggle to effectively deliver what the business
requires.
James Consulting Group has significant experience helping business
develop IT Governance Frameworks and IT Strategies. A critical component
that we address is the institutionalization of the processes that
keep the strategies current.
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Quality
Assurance/Risk Management
Identification of the many risks (such as,
business, technology, organization, management, and vendor/systems
integrator, etc) that can negatively impact a project’s success
is critical. Equally critical is understanding the organization’s
tolerance for risk. When these factors are defined, you have a clearer
view of what must be managed and the impact that will likely occur
if not managed well. This becomes a key component of understanding
the chances for project success. The ability to quickly identify
and mitigate the risks is the basis for this focus area.
A periodic independent Quality Assurance Review for a project is
a cost effective way to evaluate the progress of the effort and
identify major issues and risks that will negatively impact project
success. The QA Review provides an unbiased assessment of the effort
and reports the findings and recommendations for action to the project’s
senior executives/sponsors as well as to project management. The
sooner the issues and risks are identified and addressed, the greater
the chance for success.
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Project
Management
Recent studies continue to show that about
70% of system projects that begin are completed; and of those, only
50% are completed on time and within budget. Bad project planning
and poor project management and execution are the major culprits.
Sound project management skills are one of the most critical components
for success and for on-time and on-budget systems implementation.
James Consulting Group’s proven project management skills and approaches
have been demonstrated by successfully managing major systems initiatives,
facilitating knowledge transfer to client personnel, mentoring project
managers and providing formal and informal training to staff.
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Solutions
Delivery
The IT organization’s reputation is built
around its ability to consistently deliver high quality systems,
on-time and on-budget, that satisfy and delight the customer. James
Consulting Group personnel have significant experience in creating
application delivery organizations, technical environments and management
practices that have been recognized as “World Class” in terms quality
of systems delivered, management practices and productivity of staff.
The key to success is the consistency and repeatability of approaches
and processes combined with a highly motivated and skilled group
of staff and managers.
The proper definition, implementation and use of performance metrics
are also drivers for long term delivery success. James Consulting
Group has developed and implemented robust IT metrics that allow
management to understand whether or not the desired results are
being achieved and if not, why not.
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Work Management
James Consulting Group is well experienced
in the design and implementation of work management approaches which
are instrumental in long term achievement of productivity improvements.
The key for successful work management processes includes consistent
definitions and practices that address work identification, prioritization,
scheduling, staff resource allocation, initiation, performance,
measurement and closure. This consistency will allow meaningful
and actionable metrics to be put in place that will guide the predictable
delivery of improved products/services.
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