[consulting] Hiring People

[Michael Haggerty]

Hey Henry - 

We do strategic consulting on top of development, which covers the range of
issues you mention. But this position I am describing is a little different.
We have clients coming in with plans that sometimes need to be fleshed out a
little more, and this goes beyond the kind of advice a project manager is
going to offer.

A case with a recent client involved deployment of an overall Web strategy.
They had the functionality in the Web site locked down pretty well, but
there were no forms of outreach that were part of their plan. We were able
to get them started on Google ads, mailing lists, tacking on a CRM system,
and a few other things that made a big difference.

Offering this kind of advice is a little different than what our project
managers do. While they are well versed in all these things, they are
primarily concerned with keeping the production process on track as opposed
to providing detailed advice on strategy outside the scope of the project.
While they understand the details of how to make things work, there are
natural limitations (budget, timeline, availability of resources) in how
creative they can be with a client. I really just want a dedicated resource
who can be the goto person for just understanding the goals of the project,
and providing options on how to achieve them. In some cases this is decision
support, in some cases this is risk management, and in others it could be
just sorting through a big list of complicated issues that are not
necessarily technical. 

I'm just not having a lot of luck finding someone like this and wonder if
anyone has had to hire for a similar position or has any advice on finding
this person.

Thank you,
Michael Haggerty
Managing Partner
Trellon, LLC
http://www.trellon.com
(p) 301-577-6162
(c) 240-643-6561
(f) 413-691-9114
(aim) haggerty321



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Henri Poole [mailto:henripoole at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Henri Poole
> Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 11:27 AM
> To: mhaggerty at trellon.com; A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal
> service/hosting providers
> Subject: Re: [consulting] Hiring People
> 
> Where is the recruiting effort giving you trouble?
> 
> We have found that our client need strategic advise in several areas
> which include (not necessarily in this order of importance:
> * grassroot organizing
> * online and offline community building
> * search engine optimization
> * technology (scaling, availability, interoperatility, integration)
> * internationalization
> 
> What types of strategic services are you looking to provide?
> 
> We also reach out to our clients and look at trends around them to
> determine what strategic services they may need in the future. Depending
> on the types of organizations that you are targeting, you may find
> certain services that are more important to a number of them.
> 
> As for the actual recruiting, we tend to provide strategy from within
> our organization. This may include our engineering team members, as well
> as project managers - who have a particular knowledge about the areas of
> interest to our clients.
> 
> -Henri
> 
> On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 10:17 -0400, Michael Haggerty wrote:
> > Trellon is growing and I am giving a lot more thought to how our team is
> > composed. Something I want to do is hire an internet strategist. This
> would
> > not necessarily be a programmer, but someone who can really understand
> the
> > goals clients are looking to accomplish and advise them on the best ways
> to
> > get there. This person would craft strategy documents, review projects
> under
> > development to make sure they are really meeting the client's goals, and
> > keep things organized outside just the production of a Web site.
> >
> > The problem is I don't really know how to recruit for this position. I
> have
> > spoken to people with a lot of experience in specific areas, but finding
> > someone who is a generalist and knows enough about a lot of things seems
> to
> > be a tall order. It looks like this kind of work especially appeals to
> > project managers, but it's not really a production role so much as a
> client
> > relations role. It's hard to convey the difference.
> >
> > Wondering if anyone on this list has any advice...
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Michael Haggerty
> > Managing Partner
> > Trellon, LLC
> > http://www.trellon.com
> > (p) 301-577-6162
> > (c) 240-643-6561
> > (f) 413-691-9114
> > (aim) haggerty321
> >
> >
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