The IT Service Manager's Essential Guide to Profitable Project Management in MSPs
As an IT Service Manager, you are tasked with significant responsibilities beyond just managing projects. Projects are a major liability for a MSP, entailing substantial labor hours for the MSP and considerable financial investment for the Client. They carry high visibility within both organizations and can lead to significant financial loss and disappointment if they experience sideways motion or delays. Projects also typically tie up your highest billable resources, who are crucial for engineering excellence and serve as mentors to the rest of the team. Poorly managed projects can result in profit losses and eroded Client relationships. In fact, projects are identified as a leading cause of disruptions in IT Service Delivery and associated lost profits for MSPs.
Despite these challenges, IT Service Managers often manage a fair number of projects, typically between 5 to 20, before a company hires dedicated full- or part-time Project Managers. Their other daily responsibilities are frequently deemed of higher priority than the projects they oversee. The core solution to this dilemma is to plan a process that effectively segments projects from all other workflows and clearly defines what constitutes a project. The following will assist in such a plan:
IT Service Managers CAN Catch a Break
Project planning is indeed an area where an IT Service Manager can gain an advantage by employing a divide and conquer strategy. While the Project Management Institute (PMI) provides a comprehensive framework, Project Management for MSPs operates in a distinct environment compared to PMI's approach.
For an MSP, the actual technical execution of the project is typically planned by the Lead Tech responsible for delivering the final product. The Project Manager's role is more about facilitation and coordination rather than direct control over the project's execution. This distinction is crucial because,
unlike PMI-certified Project Managers who are solely dedicated to project oversight, MSP Service Managers have a multitude of other, often higher-priority, responsibilities.
An IT Project Manager's core responsibilities within an MSP involve:
Coordinating project communications.
Managing resources.
Overseeing the budget.
Leading the project from initiation to closure.
Most importantly, keeping the Client updated on every aspect of the project, especially its start and end times, and any potential disruptions to production.
Facilitating the handoff between the project team and the support team at the project's closeout.
It's important to note that a project manager for an MSP typically does not engage in activities such as creating a project charter, identifying a project champion, or developing detailed plans for execution, scope management, risk mitigation, RACI charts, stakeholder management, project budgeting, or staffing, as these are more aligned with traditional PMI responsibilities.
The Gathering What Was Sold Meeting
The "What Was Sold" (WWS) meeting marks the transition from the Initiation Phase to the Planning Phase of a project. During the Initiation phase, all relevant information about the project should be collected and stored in a central repository. It is the IT Service Manager's responsibility to ensure all necessary information for project planning has been gathered and is readily available once the sales opportunity that requires a project closes.
A critical step is ensuring Service Delivery reviews the Scope of Work (SoW) and Bill of Materials (BoM) before the project opportunity proposal is sent to the Client for signature. This allows Service Delivery to "bless" the proposal, ensuring feasibility and alignment. Furthermore, before the project officially begins, Sales must clearly communicate to the Project Team what was sold. This collaborative effort between Sales and Service Delivery is essential for developing profitable project workflows, although it can be challenging as it requires a shift in mindset and processes for both teams.
After the WWS meeting, the Planning Phase begins, with everyone, including the new Project Manager, focusing on their respective parts of the project plan. Ideally, the salesperson is then free to move on to new prospects.
What if the Start of Your IT Project is Months Out?
If a project's start date is several months in the future, it may be beneficial to delay the Lead Tech's detailed planning until approximately three weeks before the project is scheduled to commence. In such cases, a "Pre-Install" meeting might be necessary to refresh everyone's memory, though procurement may not need to attend if parts have already been ordered and are on hand. This highlights the importance of initial planning and awareness of capital tied up in
ordered parts.
5 Steps to Planning a Project for the New IT Project Manager
Here are five key steps to effectively plan projects within an MSP context:
Communications Plan: A comprehensive communications plan is vital to ensure all project stakeholders feel informed and engaged. Doug Rabold strongly advocates for the use of a Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI) chart as the primary document for communications planning. This helps identify who needs to know what and why. Weekly conference calls involving everyone involved in the project, especially the Lead Technician and the Client, are highly recommended. This 360-degree communication ensures clarity and builds trust. Effective communication spans the entire project lifecycle:
Before the project proposal: Service Delivery reviews SoW and BoM.
Before project engagement: Sales communicates what was sold to the Project Team, and the Lead Tech communicates the project plan.
During the project: Weekly update calls should be held with the Project Manager, Lead Tech, and Client.
After project completion: The Support Team must review internal deliverables (like Client Documentation) and formally accept the project before the Project Team is released. Automating Client-facing communications at each step, from new request to completion, is highly beneficial for consistency and building trust.
Risk and Risk Mitigation Plan: Risk mitigation involves identifying potential risks and brainstorming ways to address them. While often part of the WWS meeting, it should be a constant topic of conversation between the WWS meeting and the project's start. For MSPs, risk management often translates into lessons learned captured after a project to avoid repeating mistakes. These lessons should be documented in Services Onboarding Playbooks.
Schedule: Identifying the critical path tasks that, if delayed, impact the overall project timeline is crucial. These tasks need to be closely monitored. In the MSP environment, project scheduling often takes precedence over other scheduling, which can lead to disruptions and unprofitability. An off-line Excel spreadsheet can be used to map future weeks, resources, and Client projects, providing a single view of workloads. While the actual schedule remains in Autotask's Dispatchers Workshop, this spreadsheet aids in strategic planning. The Project Availability Forecast (PAF) report is a valuable tool for forecasting project availability weeks in advance. This report empowers the Service Coordinator to understand resource availability, identify the best times to schedule new projects, and manage floating holidays effectively. Unlike other service requests that have contractual promises or non contract expectations, for projects, the MSP controls the start and completion, and the Service Level Agreement (SLA) is negotiable.
Professional Service Automation (PSA) Project Built: In the PMI world, this is akin to a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). For MSPs, projects are a distinct Client request type and a mechanism for capturing time. The Autotask Project module should be utilized for project management. The New Project Manager will create the project within the PSA tool, outlining high-level tasks, phases, and milestones. Subsequent tasks can be populated by the Project Manager or Lead Tech after the detailed plan is developed. If similar projects have been executed before, the previous project can serve as a template, incorporating prior lessons learned. Projects are tracked by distinct phases, from Initiation through Close-Out. This, combined with Sales Opportunity Pipeline stages, forms a comprehensive workflow from initial sale to project completion. It's imperative that projects are segmented into their own workflows with specific mindsets, tasks, and ticket categories for effective management of multiple projects simultaneously. A key aspect of closeout is the Support Team's formal acceptance of the project deliverables. The IT Support team should have a Project Closeout checklist that they own and complete before accepting responsibility for supporting the Client and their network. This checklist helps shift responsibility and ensures a smooth, positive Client experience post-project. Capturing "Lessons Learned" during this handoff is crucial for continuous improvement, documenting both successes and areas for improvement in Service Onboarding Playbooks.
Coordination: A significant portion of an IT Service Manager's project management time is dedicated to coordination and scheduling. This involves coordinating interdependencies within the project's execution phase, such as ensuring network ports are open before server setup or operating systems are updated before migrating to Office 365. Successful project management within an MSP requires Service Delivery to deliberately slow down, think, plan, communicate, and execute within what is often a fast-paced, noisy environment. This is a learned skill that may not come naturally to a reactive break/fix culture. Furthermore, project opportunities demand more responsibility and consistent communication from Sales than almost any other opportunity type, and all employees need to adopt a different mindset regarding projects.
Wrap-up
In conclusion, for MSPs, projects, though often a major liability leading to significant financial loss and disruption, can be transformed into one of the most profitable areas of business. This requires IT Service Managers, despite their numerous responsibilities, to adopt a strategic approach to project management, distinct from traditional PMI frameworks. By focusing on a structured planning process involving five key steps Communications, Risk Mitigation, Schedule, PSA Project Build, and Coordination-ITSMs can effectively manage projects from initiation to close out. This shift leads to reduced losses, increased demand, improved Client retention, optimized resource allocation, and enhanced employee and Client satisfaction, ultimately bolstering an MSP's overall success and profitability.