Principal Consultant

Job Description

Principal Consultants are the next step up the career progression from the Senior Consultant role.  The responsibilities and expectations are broadly exactly the same as for the Senior Consultant.  The main difference between the Senior and the Principal role can be summarised as:

• The expectation will be that the Principal Consultants will be more proactive in seeking out new opportunities for additional business opportunities.
• Principal consultants will typically take on an additional role in the company.  For example managing the Bristol Office and having responsibility for managing Company Technical Standards.

Project Management

Vetasi use an internally developed project methodology called VAPM (Value Added Project Methodology).  This is broadly based on the principles of Prince2 but with an emphasis on the requirements associated with delivering the type of projects which are typically associated with Maximo implementations.  This is caused by the fact that primarily these projects are based around the use of a standard business package with configuration via standard tools.

In these, as with any development projects, the most important elements are:

• Planning & Definition Phase- key steps include
  • Assignment Mission
  • Statement of Work - Contract Review
  • Change Control- agreeing process
  • Roles and Resources
  • Communication Plan
  • Risk Management Plan
  • Quality Plan
  • Project Plan and Reports

• Design Phase- key elements include
  • Agree Value Points and Benefits
  • Review Current System and Business Process
  • Gap Analysis
  • Enhance Business Processes
  • Specify New Software Configuration Requirements and functions
  • Specify New Software Enhancements Technology
  • Specify Interfaces
  • Create Technical Infrastructure Plan

• Build Phase- key steps include
  • Agree Build Standards
  • Technical Infrastructure Delivery
  • Technical Build and Documentation
  • Data and Interface Build
  • Finalise Test Plan
  • Technology Delivery
  • Training Plan + Roll out Plan
  • System Test Report + Build Plan Finalization
• Enable Phase- key steps include
  • Confirm Acceptance Criteria
  • Data Migration
  • Process Documentation
  • User Training
  • Acceptance Testing
  • On-going Product Management
  • Support Contract
  • Handover and Lessons Learned

The key role in these projects will be the Project Manager.  Typically the role will be split between the Engagement Manager and the Lead Consultant (a role that will usually be fulfilled by a Principal or Senior Consultant).  The general breakdown of activities for each of these members of staff can be summarised as follows:

Lead Consultant (Principal / Senior Consultant)

• Ensuring that the consultants assigned to the project have the correct brief for the work required and the timescale for delivery.
• Day to Day management of the consultants assigned to the project.  This would include the start of day / end of day review of progress made
• Weekly report of progress against the agreed plan for the project
• Identifying the resource requirements moving forward on the project
• Identification of any potential Change Requests - identification of the potential impact on time and costs for the project.

Engagement Manager

• Validation of progress against the project plan - including the reconciliation back to the original agreed project budgets
• Validation of the identified Change Requests to determine whether they are in or out of the original scope.
• Raising Change Requests and negotiating with the client
• Validation of the resource requirements and ensuring that they are booked on the Vetasi Scheduling system
• Ongoing liaison with the client - including attendance at the Project Steering Group meetings

The key factor in this is that Project Management has to be a defined activity in the overall project definition document.  As a rule of thumb on most reasonably sized projects there will be a requirement for approximately 2 - 3 days per project week for the PM activity.  This requirement needs to be factored in to the original project costing and also the scheduling of the work on the Projector system.  On more complex projects, or where there is a demanding client or environment (i.e regulated industries such as Pharmaceutical or Nuclear) the PM requirement may be even greater.

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Principal Consultant