Keys to Being a Successful Consultant - Part 1 - Best Practices

Webster’s Dictionary defines consulting as:
Consulting - [kuh n-suhl-ting] – adjective - employed or involved in giving professional advice to the public or to those practicing the profession.

Consult - [v. kuh n-suhlt] – verb - to seek advice or information from; ask guidance from.

Customers rely on the experience, knowledge, and professionalism of  consultants for various needs, including:

Best Practices
Process Review/Design
Guidance/Advice
Relevant Experience
Things Lurking in the Shadows

Best Practices

I often get asked about best practices for ITIL and the tool for which I consult. I'm always willing to provide the best practice information and knowledge I have received over my career. I try to provide information that is helpful to the specific organization and industry, when relevant and possible. At times my best practice information may conflict with the customer's desires, requirements, or capabilities, even. Using the customer feedback I can tailor that advice to be more relevant and efficient for the customer.

For example, working with Incident Management, I get asked a lot about categorization, or how to create an effective Incident Catalog. Many of the catalogs I see usually focus on the symptom. Since there can be many different types symptoms it would be nearly impossible to identify them properly and use it for reporting. The best recommendation I can give, is base it off a Category and Subcategory. In more detail, the Category is domain expertise related, meaning Hardware, Software, Network, Security, etc. Then the Subcategory is based on the specific group of expertise, such as, Hardware would contain Workstation, Printer, Monitor, etc. The description provided in the Incident contains the symptom information.Using other areas of the Incident Management process I can use the categorization, description, SLA, Impact, and Urgency to route to the proper group, establish a prioritization level, and an expectation for the customer to receive assistance.

While this information may work for a majority of my customers, it may not work for all of them. I've provided my input for best practices. I also need to be prepared for the customer to reject that information. There could be many reasons why. It's my job to ask those questions if the customer does not accept it. Why doesn't this best practice method work for you? What challenges does it not solve? What requirements does it not meet for you? Based on the responses from my customer I can help tailor a best practice approach that works for their organization.

What tools and methods do you use to establish best practices?

The next post will discuss Process Review and Design.

Space Shuttle Model

UPDATE: 2/19 - I'm done! I finished the model. I have decals, boosters, and a platform. And it all fits nicely together. The picture below is the final picture. This has been one of the more detailed models I've built. It was blast to do and I hope to do more in the future.

What was nice is getting my kids excited abut building models. My daughter got a snap-tite space shuttle and my son got a police car. Both enjoyed putting them together, well I put my son's together, because he's barely 5. My daughter wants to paint hers like mine, so now we get to learn how to paint a model.

 

UPDATE: 2/10 - So far I have mostly completed the shuttle. It's about 80% done painting  and I still have several decals to put on. I am now starting the launch pad construction. It has taken me about 2 hours complete just one section of the launch pad. It's pretty time consuming to paint as it's about 11 inches long and has several sqares going across that have to be painted indivually, with 2 coats. I thnk I'm going to spray paint the othe section and the top of the platform next time.

Here are the pics for this weekend's progress.

The thrusters, wing flaps, and complete underbelly
are painted

That nose used to be white.

One side of the launch pad. Top speed of this launcher
is 2.5mph. 3 days to get from the hangar to the launch site.

2/09/13 - I've had my model about 24 hours now and have actually made some significant progress. The shuttle now looks like a shuttle. Some parts have been painted and others will be painted after completion. I have wings, thrusters, and functional cargo bay doors. Pretty soon it will be time to build the rocket boosters and then the launch pad. It's a little smaller than I expected for the size of the box, but it's not bad. The shuttle itself is about 10 inches long by about 7 inches wide and about 4.5 inches tall.

Here are the pics I have so far. These are in chronological order. Remember, this is still a work in progress.



First night

First night after about 2 hours of work. The fuselage is together.
Front and rear bulk heads in place. Windshield installed.



Rear thrust mount and rudder.
Status at end of the first night



Cargo bay doors and rear thrusters installed

Look ! They open!

Side view with cargo bay doors open

3/4 rear profile

Wings!

It's starting to look like a Space Shuttle

Someday a 3D printer can do this in about a day

Side profile with thrusters in view

Status as of 2/9. Satellite and robot arm installation coming up!

New Personal Project - Space Shuttle and Boosters

When I was a kid I used to love putting together models. I did all kinds of models, from cars, to military airplanes and helicopters, to ships. Some of my favorites were a 1957 Ford pickup, an A-10 Thunderbolt, and an Apache helicopter. As a kid I had lots of time to build them over weekends, after school, or over holidays. These days, between work, family, and more work, it's hard to find time to have any kind of hobby.

It's been at least a few years since my last model, which was the USS Kitty Hawk air craft carrier. That was a pretty good challenge. My new project is something I thought I would never see as historic relic and in museums. I figured they would be flying forever with newer ones getting built every couple of decades. I watched the first Space Shuttle, Columbia, take off in April 1981. I saw Challenger land at Edwards AFB in person and also watched its final take off live on TV in 1986. The last time I saw a Shuttle live was Columbia disintegrating across the sky that early morning in February 2003. It took over a year to launch a new mission after that incident. It has been truly unfortunate to see our space program now on indefinite hold.

When I brought this home and showed the kids, they knew what it was, because they have a toy shuttle and launch pad, but didn't really know why mine had the tanks attached. I explained the Space Shuttle history, briefly of course. I'm talking to a 5 and 8 year old. Their eyes glaze quickly. At least I got the chance initially to tell them about the shuttle and what it was. As I build it, I'm sure I'll have many opportunities to tell them about the historical significance and the achievement it showed we're capable of.

To me the Space Shuttle was a wonder of the world. It was a space craft capable launch, re-entry, and re-use. It was capable handling speeds in the tens of thousands miles per hour, launch satellites weighing several tons, and land on a pin point spot in FL or CA at about160mph from a starting speed of Mach 25 and an altitude of 400,000 feet, all without the use engines once inside the Earth's atmosphere. It was truly an engineering feat.

I will be posting pictures as I make progress. This will take some time to complete.