Comments and Observations from the President and CEO
Partnerships are an essential component of success in the consulting business – but the key is to select partners wisely and choose relationships that compliment your focus and add value to your clients. Read the rest of this entry »
Forte Solutions Group believes in giving back to our communities. Please join us this holiday season in giving generously to the United Way.
Have a happy holiday!
Joe
About the Unitied Way:
United Way of Metropolitan Dallas is the largest private funding source of health and human services in North Texas, but it does not stop there. Beyond simply providing resources for needs, we show our donors results from those investments. Tangible, credible evidence that your gift is making the largest impact, working for the greatest good, and improving lives of those who need help most. Though a partnership with volunteers in Collin County, Greater Lewisville and Rockwall County, United Way supports agencies across North Texas. So whether you live in Dallas or Frisco, Rockwall or Lewisville, be assured your donation is working in your local community, however you define it.The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas builds strong and successful families in North Texas. We are all part of a family.
As with a diet, a portfolio, a lifestyle or the “Garudasana” pose in yoga – balance in a Software Development Life-Cycle (SDLC) is a good thing. I’m referring to the balance of focus to the structures and the roles within the SDLC that keep it finely tuned and efficient. Read the rest of this entry »
With the evolution of the Business Analyst (BA) in the Information Technology (IT) world, there has been some blurring around the edges of some of the traditional project team roles. Take for example the Project Manager’s (PM) role relative to that of the BA. 
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So long as the vendor-customer relationship has some give-and-take in it, I believe it is the vendor firm’s responsibility to go the extra mile for a customer. Statements of Work, verbal discussions and Change Requests are among the many common examples of written or non-written communications that occur daily in consulting and each becomes a form of a promise that is a new opportunity to over or under deliver with a client. Clear communication and confirmations to solidify common understandings between parties is critical. With my team, we also try to put ourselves into our client’s shoes and visualize a situation from their perspective in order to make sure our interpretation and understanding is the same as our clients. This visualization process helps keep us focusing on our delivery with each facet of the relationship. This responsibility to perform some sort of visualization process trickles down all the way from the management team to the billable consultants – meaning it is each and every consultant’s responsibility to stretch our consulting abilities routinely to delight a client. So if this is true…when, if ever, do you draw the line and say “No” to a customer?
There are literally thousands of companies offering IT professional services and just as many pure IT staffing companies. The question is, are they basically the same thing, or is there a difference? Read the rest of this entry »
Smart, business-minded people understand that building lasting relationships in business is critical to sustaining success. Relationships that are built to endure must be founded on trust. Whether you believe in Karma or not, good deeds and fair dealings are an essential component to build trust in relationships, but shouldn’t this be ingrained in our standard operating behavior regardless? Read the rest of this entry »
The consulting business is fast-paced and can be grueling. For those of us who work in the business, we’re used to the long hours, high expectations and creative drain associated with always striving to be the best we can be for our customers, our co-workers and our employees. Newcomers to the consulting business can expect to sometimes feel their heads spinning from the pace and from all of the demands. It’s not that this business doesn’t have many rewards to offer those who stick with it through their careers, but it is hard sometimes to keep your sanity and your loving personality. So how do we maintain a balanced life when we work in such a challenging environment?
In working with clients day-to-day, some conclusions just crystallize and become clear - suddenly obvious to spot. One of those is the topic I’m writing about today. So what’s the magical discovery that I’ve stumbled upon? Read the rest of this entry »
Help Desks, Development teams, Testers, Etc…
It sometimes seems liked we’ve reached the point where everything in IT can be outsourced to a foreign country…but have we? Read the rest of this entry »
