productivity in this way can give project managers a better understanding of the scope of projects and a stronger capability around managing tasks. It also gives them a greater ability to assess the performance on a given project and analyse how many hours have been worked to complete certain stages as compared to the original plan. To read the full article click here.
Controlling the chaos in your business Managing design and engineering businesses to ensure you are consistently making a profit One of the main assets of a design or engineering business is the knowledge and skills of its people. Similar to the projects they serve, the development and management of resources becomes increasingly complex as the business grows. It’s often said that project-based businesses become difficult to manage when all decision makers can’t fit around a conference table. Here are our recommendations to ensure profitable growth by improving the use of resources and gaining tighter control of business finances. 1. Leverage: how is the business structured in terms of the ratio between business directors and other client-facing employees? In design and engineering businesses in particular, business leaders are often client facing, specifically because it is their talent that is the face of a major project. To manage the spread of billable hours across a team, businesses will often structure with a number of high-performing client facing staff who report to each director. This in turn creates a layer of trusted and skilled employees who can spread the load of the billable hours created by any one client. 2. Utilisation: how do design and engineering businesses maximise billable time while avoiding burnout? Utilisation can be increased by billing more hours from higher-billed staff, however the ability of people to take on these hours needs to be managed carefully. Design businesses often run into problems when their highest performers work an excess number of hours because those hours are the most profitable for the business. Avoiding burnout for your best performers is critical to business success. It can make more business sense to hire new client-facing staff at a less senior level to take on more billable work in comparison to what
