People, Process and Tools

Over the years, it's become clear to me that to run a relatively sophisticated professional service group efficiently requires three important things; good people, good processes and good tools.

I say "efficiently" because I don't think any of the three are absolutely necessary to be successful; if one simply has great customers that pay high margins, and at whom one can then afford to throw a lot of resources, they will probably be quite successful.  This is actually kind of common in our industry.  

Take for example the customer service dimension of "customer communication".  There is a sort of "fixed cost" concept with a professional services customer that says "after a critical point, a client no longer needs any "more" communication - they are already getting plenty".  So if they are paying you enough to have someone who is able to maintain a very high degree of contact with the customer, you can weather a lot of storms.  This same fixed cost concept applies to project management, development, systems administration, and more.  If you can cover the customers fixed cost for that service, everything else they pay you for is extra.