Often these two terms are used interchangeably, but they mean very different things to those of us who have been implementing project management and project controls systems.
As you can imagine, explaining the difference is difficult, but it is the ultimate compliment when a client acknowledges the distinction and the contributions of our Implementation Consultants. It just so happens that it was a recent client's praise that inspires this blog article and I hope it will generate discussion on the topic.
Who Do You Need?
So, let me start by saying that typically you need both: Implementation Consultant and Configuration Consultant, or at least someone who can do both. There are very few Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software products in our space that can be installed and used with little to no setup, data migration or training. Why is this? Basically, you! You have demanded flexibility in the way you manage projects and our tool vendors are giving us more and more flexibility and capability with each release.
Configuration Consultant?
Your new project management solution likely has provided a “coding structure,” screen layout options, or configuration options which provide that flexibility you desire. To make the software work in your environment (the way you want to manage projects), someone who knows the solution, understands all the configuration options and knows how to make this COTS product “sing and dance” will need to build and shape your solution.
Has your configuration consultant asked you a lot of questions about how you want the tool to act? Better yet (and this is my favorite), is he or she standing at a white-board asking you what you want the tool to do?
Implementation Consultant?
Have you thought about the distribution of the solution across your organization? When do you train folks? How are you going to move data from your old solution to the new one? What data should move in and out of the solution and when? What integration needs to be completed to make this new tool a valuable part of your business management environment?
An implementation consultant needs to know the software tool, but just as important, they must want to know your business. How do you manage projects today and how do you want to do things differently in the future? Why did you seek this new solution in the first place? What business processes need to change to take advantage of these new capabilities?
An implementation consultant will concern his or herself with your deployment and training strategies. How are you going to get folks in your organization excited about this change or adding a new piece of software to their daily tasks?
So back to my client's recent compliment…
I must say this client has spent a lot of time and money implementing a new Enterprise Project Controls solution… or at least they thought they were implementing. It turns out they had spent a lot of time and energy simply configuring the tool. Spending time creating a deployment plan and communicating that strategy to the end users has allowed us to make great strides in the implementation in a very short amount of time. To hear our client state that they realize now that what they needed all along were “implementation consultants” was a feel-good moment for me – we have come into a difficult situation and we are having a positive impact. I am proud of our Pinnacle/Client Team and how they are working together to solve real challenges to this major undertaking.
So, what has your experience been? Feel free to add a comment below.
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