Consulting, in a broad sense, is to apply strategic manpower and expertise that corresponds to identifiable client needs and enable that organization to improve against define goals. Kasse Initiatives is prepared to guide its clients to develop action plans that not only describe the technical changes that need to take place but also the corresponding organizational and cultural changes that must accompany those technical changes.
Full service process improvement means working with clients to help them improve: to set expectations, to train, to assess, to help with action planning, to help them implement the process improvement processes and procedures, to help them manage change, to make a measurable difference. It means providing a competent staff to support KI’s full range of process improvement consulting services.
Kasse Initiatives' consultants come with its process asset library which includes industry standard templates and procedures along with examples of plans and procedures that can be used as a base to help get these ideas started at the client’s organization.
Kasse Initiatives provides consulting to support model-based process improvement, organizational change, senior management coaching, and business process improvement.
Consulting is directed to different level of management and personnel; to different domain disciplines with in varying levels concentration, duration and hand-on or off involvement.
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Businesses, cultures, application domains, and competition are major factors in successful process improvement and business success today. Kasse Initiatives with its world-wide experience and senior consulting staff are prepared to speak heart-to-heart with your executive and senior management team for guaranteed understanding and success.
The principles of process improvement are generally not well understood, nor are the commitments that must be made by higher level managers if a process improvement initiative is to be successful.
Through our KI (ESM) Executive Senior Management Program consisting of a combination of one day seminars, one-on-one coaching sessions and scheduled periodic R&R (Review and Report) Plans, Kasse Initiatives provides down-to-earth coaching that enables Executive and Senior Managers to become the visionaries and champions of their business goals through process improvement and quality management.
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Process improvement means “Change”…changing how things are done with in an organization. Organizational change requires an understanding of the organization’s cultural and the ability to facilitation cultural change. Only with understanding of behavioral change will come performance and support of process and technical change.
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Engineers and managers are normally involved in a process effort are technology and delivery oriented. Process, people and managing organizational change is second to product and delivery. Kasse Initiatives understands that when an organization puts a process improvement initiative in place, it is committing to changing individuals and the way an organization conducts its business. Kasse Initiatives is prepared to work with each individual to assist them to understand, test, and implement any necessary changes.
Process improvement is often focused on the improvement of technical processes. Senior Management teams order a focus on those technical processes with little regard to the other parts of their organizational structure. Process improvement of software or systems processes cannot be accomplished in isolation of the rest of the organization. Process improvement initiatives affect the strategic subsystems, the management subsystems, cultural and structural subsystems as well as the technical subsystem. Processes that are built to support engineering life-cycle activities are often able to be translated into processes that can be utilized for Human Resources, Accounting, Marketing, and Contract Management.
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KI has designed a flexible approach to consulting because each organization has unique consulting needs. We describe our Long term consulting as a possible 3 months to 2 years assignment; however most often it is about 6 months. Kasse Initiatives will place a the appropriate consultant at a client's site to help them achieve their process improvement initiative goals. The long-term process improvement or quality management consultants are trained to operate in 'expert', 'collaborative' or 'observer' modes depending on the needs and requests of the organization. They will have CMMI model background, understand quality management concepts, the use of an incremental process improvement approach, and will be conversant in the various support functions such as Quality Assurance and Configuration Management. KI consultants have strong interpersonal skills and are able to demonstrate their ability to communicate verbally and in writing.
Short term consulting normally means 1 day to 1 week and upwards to 3 months. It is frequently associated with training or follow-up of action planning. Most of the short term consulting is in the 'expert' or 'collaborative' mode and is focused on a specific task with a well-defined result. Providing 1-2 days of consulting to help an organization understand how to apply Configuration Management concepts following a 3-day training in CM would be one example of short term consulting.
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Many organizations today do not have enough expertise to be able to utilize the transfer of technology from Kasse Initiatives on all of the problem areas that have been identified. They may require that Kasse Initiatives consultants take over a function such as Requirements Engineering, or Configuration Management totally while the organizational members are working on project management. Kasse Initiatives is prepared to provide such long-term support. Each year the situation may be reviewed. As the organization becomes competent in project management, they may want to work on the technology transfer of Requirements Engineering but still retain Kasse Initiatives personnel to take care of Configuration Management. This placement may be temporary or permanent.
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Expert – The consultant leads the development of a plan or leads the Peer Review or other artifact with minimal input from the Project Manager or members
Collaborative – The consultant owns 50% of the problem to be solved and the Client owns 50% of the problem to be solved. This assumes a certain level of knowledge on the part of the Client’s personnel
Observer – The consultant basically reviews work that has been done and provides direction and/or guidance on implementation
Example use of Consulting Modes:
Collaborative Example: The organization or project may have relatively strong systems or software engineering skills but need guidance to initiate and sustain the process improvement initiative on it's own. The Kasse Initiatives consultant would operate in 'collaborative' mode where the consultant would own 50% of the problem but expect the organization to appoint individuals who will work with our consultants and own the other 50%. The objective is improvement for the organization and the transfer of knowledge to the organization from Kasse Initiatives to help them grow their own process improvement experts.
Expert Example: The organization may desire the technology transfer but have weak engineering skills. The Kasse Initiatives' consultant would operate in 'expert' mode. This would mean taking the lead in defining processes, plans, procedures, guidelines, templates, etc., and working closely with the projects and organization to ensure they apply the most efficient and effective processes which result in the highest possible product quality. As the organization's engineers and managers gained the understanding and knowledge to take on more and more tasks themselves, the Kasse Initiatives consultant would move towards the 'collaborative' mode and share in the decision making.
Observer Example: In both cases, where technology transfer is desired and agreed to by the client and Kasse Initiatives, the goal is for the consultant to work toward being an 'observer' and moving on to the next problem area when the client demonstrates they can manage and control the processes and products in transferred areas. Kasse Initiatives consultants are trained to act in one of three Consulting Modes.
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