We help organizations, teams, and individuals conquer complexity through simpler processes, clearer communications, and greater focus. Our services include:
- Customized Workshops
- Consulting
- Coaching and Mentoring
- Assessment and Diagnostics
- Process Design/Redesign
- Document Creation/Improvement
NOW OFFERING: Telephone Consulting and Coaching
Jerry Manas is now offering telephone consulting and coaching. All teleconsulting packages include an assessment questionnaire, preliminary analysis, telephone session(s), and written assessments with recommendations. Options are:
1) One-Hour Consulting Session
2) In-Depth Mentoring (Ten One-Hour Sessions)
3) Annual Package for Small Businesses (3 one-hour sessions a month for one year: one-on-one)
4) Annual Package for Corporations (3 90-minute sessions a month for one year: Up to 10 attendees)
Examples of our Work
Problem: A publishing company needed to reinvent themselves for the 21st century after being in the traditional print publishing business for over 100 years. They were suffering from morale problems and a bleak economic outlook. People had trouble agreeing on what direction to move in.
Our Solution: We led a series of workshops with the entire staff and executive management and worked with them to identify their target audience, their brand identity, their core values, and their aspirations. Most importantly, we helped them identify small, inexpensive improvements that could surprise and delight customers, and get a buzz going in the marketplace. The CEO praised our workshops as trasnsforming the morale and energy of the entire staff, as they were now moving forward with greater clarity and purpose.
Problem: A national fashion retailer was having difficulty getting people to complete a series of business justification forms correctly for new projects. Staff was complaining to management about the burdensome documents, which seemed to contain redundant and extraneous information.
Our Solution: We worked with managers to assess the intended audience for the forms and how the information would be used. Clearer goals began to emerge. We also encouraged them to engage the people who must complete these forms to collectively discuss how best to meet the needs of the intended audience. What resulted was a greatly streamlined process with a common understanding of its purpose, an improved relationship between management and staff, and quicker decisions on project approvals.
Problem: The Organizational Effectiveness department at a hospital was asked to create an Enterprise Program Management Office (ePMO) that was simple and flexible, whose processes would be accessible to anyone in the organization who managed projects. Yet they struggled how to proceed, given that there were several existing PMOs they had to work with, including one in IT and one in Facilities, both with very mature (and complex) processes.
Our Solution: We took the stand that it is best to start with the people who need to use the tools and processes and see what they need in order to do their jobs effectively. We then focused on meeting those needs. We also suggested renaming the new ePMO to the Project Support Office, to set the right mindset up front. This enabled a collaborative approach with the IT and Facilities departments instead of an adversarial approach. As a result, the organization was quickly able to come up with a core, simple set of processes, which IT and Facilities could augment for their areas. Common process phases and stage gates were agreed upon by all parties. The Project Support Office was up and running in under 2 weeks, with a documented maturity path to follow.
