I’ve seen it a thousand times. A service delivery leader, sharp and experienced, tells me their team is running at near-peak billable utilization, yet margins are stubbornly flat. They’re selling every hour they have, but the business isn’t scaling the way it should. When I ask about their pricing model, the answer is almost always the same: "We're a time and materials shop. It's safe, and our clients understand it." I get it. Billing by the hour feels like the path of least

We’ve all been there. It’s 4:00 PM on a Friday and an urgent email lands in your inbox with a subject line that makes your stomach drop. A key project is suddenly on fire. A critical resource is leaving, the client has changed a fundamental requirement, or a technical hurdle once deemed minor has become a showstopper. The rest of your day - and likely part of your weekend - is now dedicated to reactive firefighting. You pull up the project's risk register, and there it is, li

It’s a familiar feeling for any service delivery lead. You read an article about how Google or Amazon handles their internal IT, and a little voice whispers, “We should be doing that.” The pressure is immense. These are the most successful companies on the planet, so it seems logical to follow their lead. They invest billions in custom-built platforms, cutting-edge AI, and sprawling data analytics. The temptation to emulate even a small piece of their playbook is strong. But

We’ve all been there. The project is flashing red, the deadline is looming, and the team is pulling late nights to catch up. In the post-mortem meeting, the usual suspects are rounded up: unexpected scope creep, a difficult client, or maybe we just blame the scheduling software for not being “intuitive” enough. It's a familiar cycle of frustration. But what if the problem isn’t the tool, the client, or the last-minute change request? The uncomfortable truth I’ve learned over

I’ve seen a lot in my thirty years, but the current frenzy around AI feels different. Every services lead I talk to is either being pushed by their board to "inject AI" into their operations or is looking at a PSA vendor demo that promises algorithmic perfection in forecasting and resource planning. The pitch is always seductive: an AI that can see around corners, predict project outcomes with stunning accuracy, and build the perfect resource plan every single time. It sounds

I’ve sat in more than a few board meetings where a well-meaning executive, fresh from reading an article about Silicon Valley, holds up their phone and asks, “Why can’t we be more like them? Why aren’t we using the same tools as Google or Amazon?” The pressure is immense. We see these tech giants as the pinnacle of success, and it’s natural to want to emulate their playbook. But for those of us leading professional services firms, this is a dangerous and costly trap. Trying t

We’ve all been there. The project plan, once a pristine Gantt chart full of promise, is now a sea of red. The go-live date is slipping, the client is getting anxious, and the team is burning out. The first reaction is to find a culprit. We blame the PSA tool for not being intuitive enough, the client for endless scope creep, or the sales team for setting unrealistic expectations. It’s a familiar cycle of frustration. But after three decades in this business, I’ve learned that

Let’s be honest for a moment. What happens to your project budget right after the kickoff meeting? If you’re like most service delivery leaders I’ve worked with over the past 30 years, it gets a final sign-off and is filed away in a shared drive. It’s a box-checking exercise - a necessary evil to get the project started. Then, weeks or even months later, it’s unearthed during a panicked project review when everyone realizes the financials are deep in the red. We treat the bud

That email probably landed in your inbox a few weeks ago. The subject line was something innocuous like "Updates to Your Subscription," but you knew what it meant - another price hike for your CRM. It’s a familiar feeling for any service delivery leader. You sigh, forward it to finance, and assume it’s just another cost of doing business. But what if it wasn’t? What if, instead of just absorbing the cost, you used it as a catalyst to demand more value from that investment? Th

It’s a scene I’ve witnessed countless times over my 30 years in professional services. A key client decides not to renew, or worse, terminates their contract mid-stream. The post-mortem begins, and before the meeting is even over, a familiar villain emerges: the sales team. The verdict is swift. "They must have over-promised," someone says, and heads nod around the table. "The client’s expectations were completely unrealistic from the start." It’s an easy, comfortable explana