But are we Losing Control??

If we (as Services Organizations) don’t have a good way (tool) to keep track of our Resources’ skills AND have a way to cross reference that with the upcoming and existing work, then we definitely are!

‘Cause the power a tool like this could be supplying – it’s electrifying!

Whether you are a small, medium or enterprise-sized services business there is something you have in common – people. Ultimately, people are the core of any services organization. There are so many ways our people are contributing – from leveraging their technical skills, their industry and business acumen, to work with customers, lead projects and become trusted advisors. Ultimately it is the people in our organizations and their skills that enable us to do anything from sales to customer success to services delivery to operations and more!

Technical skills, power skills, industry skills, business process skills, and certifications – there are hundreds (even thousands) of things we want to know about our people.

Let’s take an area near and dear to my heart – the Salesforce App Certinia (formerly FinancialForce) as an example – when thinking about the skills needed to implement there are a plethora:

• Certinia has multiple Products & Solutions (PS Cloud, ERP Cloud, & CS Cloud)
  • Each of the Products has distinct Feature Areas which someone may or may not know how to implement:
    • For Example: PS Cloud has Resource Management, Project Management, Services Billing, Services Revenue Management, Services CPQ, Services Community and more)
• Since it is built on the Salesforce Platform, there are Salesforce skills needed
• Sometimes you need someone who knows the above Technical skills, but sometimes you need someone who knows these Products and Features from a Business Process perspective. Not just ‘how’ to implement or set it up, but ‘why’ you might want to do this vs. that.
• Sometimes you need someone who has industry specific knowledge around both the technical and process discussions.
• As important as the technical, process and industry skills (maybe more so) are the Power Skills – those related to communication, teamwork, problem-solving, story-telling, requirement gathering and leadership.
• Finally we can’t forget the Certifications – there are Certinia specific certifications, Salesforce Certifications, Partner Certifications, and others like PMP or Six Sigma.

But there is more to saying: Sandy is skilled in implementing PS Cloud. We need to know more. How skilled? For how long? In what specific areas? What are some projects or clients where this was demonstrated? What are areas where she is aspiring to gain a new skill? Or what if she’s been told she needs this new certification by a certain date to meet a requirement?

This is starting to look like a gigantic spreadsheet. ‘My Resource’s Skills & Certifications’

Now let’s pivot from the skills our people have, when we have a potential lead or opportunity and we identify that this is going to be a PS Cloud implementation, we know there are certain set skills needed to implement at a minimum. As we talk more to the client about their needs and desires we may realize we need people with higher level skills in some areas, or a specialty in another. And as we think about when that project might be starting, we have some tentative dates for when we need resources with those skills.

Another gigantic spreadsheet in the making. ‘Pipeline by Skill & Certification’

Finally we want to cross-reference the two spreadsheets and add in what my resources are currently working on so I can see that analysis of the Need, the Fit and the Availability over time for the ultimate in Capacity Planning.

• Do we have the Resources with the Skills needed to fulfill the Need over the next month, quarter, or year?
• Do we need to not have enough Resources in a particular area so we need to hire?
• Do we need to outsource Work?
• Do we need to ask Resources to skill up in certain areas?
• Is there a specific Skill Set or area that is being underutilized or is no longer a focus?

These are just some of the really amazing insights you can get when you have the data in a way that is sustainable (pssst – spreadsheets are NOT sustainable)!

This is one of the areas I love the most about the Resource Management capabilities in Certinia PS Cloud. The ability to do all of the above and more!

Comprehensive Skills Management functionality that allows you to maintain the skills and certifications important to your services organization, grouped by region or practice or role or type. Setting up sets of skills that can be applied together if they are linked. The ability for a resource to rank themselves on a skill and submit for approval. Track certification expirations and aspirational skills. The ability to manage skills in bulk for large groups of resources. To request a resource with certain skills and let the system tell you not only who fits the mark based on skill but availability as well. To see what skills a resource used on projects they’ve been assigned to. To setup a way to allow a resource to volunteer for an upcoming project based on skills they possess or are looking to learn. To implement a regular review process for resources and their managers so it’s a continuous process with accurate up-to-date information anytime it is needed.

Then layer on top of this all of the amazing reporting and analytics you can get on the Salesforce Platform.

For Services Organizations, where skills are what we are selling, this is a MUST – it shows your resources their skills matter and ultimately it can show your customers that you have the right teams at the right time with the right skills to do the job. Win/win/win!

If you are slacking in this area You Better Shape Up!

With the right tool in place you, your resource management teams and your customers will be able to say with confidence:

You’re The One That I Want!