How many technical specialists do you need?

© 2009 Catalign Innovation Consulting 1

How many technical specialists do you need?Using PMM to estimate size of TCP for ODCs & IT service companies

Vinay Dabholkar, Ph.D.

Catalign Innovation Consulting

[email protected]


You don’t want your technical career path to be…


Just a wall-hanging


You want your engineers to play …


Some of these roles…

Staff Engineer

Sr. Staff Engineer

Distinguished Engineer

CTO

Architect Principal Engineer

Sr. Architect Sr. Principal Engineer

Pr. Architect Technical Director

Chief Architect Fellow


Question is: How many do you really need?


To re-phrase the question…

Staff Engineer

Sr. Staff Engineer

Distinguished Engineer

CTO

Architect Principal Engineer

Sr. Architect Sr. Principal Engineer

Pr. Architect Technical Director

Chief Architect Fellow

+

+

+

Totally how many do you need here?


Let’s use a 2 step estimation process

1 2


But, before that we need to wear a special goggle


Our goggle is called Partnership Maturity Model

Adequate Resources with

Basic competencies

Cost ofResources

CustomerCommunication

Cost, Quality & Timeliness of deliverables

Post development

support

Responsivenessto customer

ResourceCentre

OffshoreDevelopment

Centre

Center of Excellence

Co-developingrequirements

InfluencingRoadmaps

Customer orientation

InnovationCentre

Ownership ofRequirements/

Roadmaps

New productIdeas / prototypes

Customer partnershipconsulting

Highly ValuedPartner

InfluencingStandards

Contributionto market leadership

Define newAreas of research

Source: PMM paper by Jaideep et al Philips


And we need two dummy organizations

Let’s call them RaCo and CoeCo


Both RaCo and CoeCo have

10 projects with 100 people each


Now, let’s start with step-1

1 2

See each project through the PMM goggle

How does the picture look?


0 projects0 projectsHighly Valued

Partner

1 projects0 projectsInnovation

Center

3 projects0 projectsCenter of

Excellence

4 projects3 projects

Offshore

Development

Center

2 projects7 projects Resource

Center

CoeCoRaCoPMM Level


Now, let’s move to step-2

1 2

Use the rule of thumb table…


8% - 10%Highly Valued

Partner

5% - 7%Innovation

Center

3% - 4%Center of

Excellence

1% - 2%Offshore

Development

Center

0.3% – 0.7%Resource

Center

% of TCP membersPMM Level


Apply it to the table we got in step-1

What we get is…


5-110.5%-

1%

100010Total

0

0

0

300

700

People

8%-10%

5%-7%

3%-4%

1%-2%

0.3%-

0.7%

TCP%

00Highly Valued

Partner

00Innovation

Center

00Center of

Excellence

3-63Offshore

Development

Center

2-57Resource

Center

TCP strength (est.)Projects PMM Level

RaCo


19-292%-3%100010Total

0

100

300

400

200

People

8%-10%

5%-7%

3%-4%

1%-2%

0.3%-

0.7%

TCP%

00Highly Valued

Partner

5-71Innovation

Center

9-123Center of

Excellence

4-84Offshore

Development

Center

1-22Resource

Center

TCP strength (est.)Projects PMM Level

CoeCo


RaCo needs: 5-11 technical specialists

CeoCo needs: 19-29 technical specialists


Now we know…

CeoCo needs 2x to 6x more

technical specialist than RaCo


Look 2 years ahead through thesame PMM goggle

And repeat steps 1 and 2


It will tell you TCP need in the future


How many technical specialists do you need?

Technology

projects center center

projects partner

pmm paper

pmm gogglehow

tcp strength

pmm goggleand

raco needs

size of tcp