More info or book?
Match the CBI
Pain to
Persona
Persona
Name that Jim Carrey film
Differentiators
100
hi - I was wonder what your pricing is. Can I have a demo?
(VP of Product at Harvest)
Yikes (s/o to Parker)
100
When they can't see who is working on what.
RM CBI #1: Resource Visibility
“We lack the visibility and governance required to optimize capacity across our workforce, which makes the business overly reliant on certain resources.
100
Emotional Pain
"I want to strategically deploy resources, not just who’s on the bench"
Rational Pain
"We need to limit the time spent getting data from teams to forecast resource needs and availability"
Resourcing Leader
(Titles here are more industry-specific)
Consulting ex.
Principal Consultant Director of Consulting OperationsResource, Operations ManagerVP of Operations Director of OperationsOperations Analyst Production Manager
Resource Examples:
Operations Analyst
Head of Delivery
Director of Technology and Information Systems
Production Manager
Resource, Operations Manager
VP of Operations
Director of Operations
Traffic Manager
100
Struggling reporter is suddenly gifted godly powers.
Bruce Almighty
100
We call our software ____ as it is designed for the professional services industry in particular.
Vertical/ Purpose-Built
200
150-person Custom software development organization.
Currently using Salesforce, Harvest, Excel, and Netsuite.
Looking for a centralized platform to better understand estimates vs actuals, bench availability, and a single source of truth through integration with existing tools.
Resource Visibility CBI
Yuuup
200
Our highest winrate CBI for Project & Portfolio Management
PPM CBI #1:
"We have difficulty managing projects to the appropriate timeline and budget."
200
Titles do not strictly dictate persona. But rather, their ___ and ___ as it relates to the business.
Role/Challenges/Responsibilities
200
Expert and conniving attorney Fletcher Reede suddenly finds that he can't help but speak the truth after his son wishes that he would stop lying.
Liar Liar
200
Unlike our competitors, we offer both a ___ native solution as well as a ___ to accommodate the needs of any prospective customer.
Salesforce
Open Architecture/Stand-alone
300
Agency
300 Employees
Traffic Manager
"Having trouble understanding the profitability of upcoming projects and who to staff them with. Since we do not currently track time we end up doing a lot of guess work. Looking to solve for this!"
Enough to book.
However, we should absolutely seek to gain more info here if possible. Digging more into the "How' and "Why" questions to uncover organic pain and set up the discovery call for success - ultimately leading to a better eval.
They do not "currently" track time but are looking to solve this. Heavy indicators that this is what is driving the new initiative.
If they don't track time, do not write them off immediately. Seek to understand why
300
What Persona might be affected by the following CBI?
"We believe inconsistent service delivery across teams is impacting project & portfolio health, but we can’t see how much or how to address it at scale."
Services Leader
Project Delivery Lead
PMO Manager
Project Manager
300
Emotional Pain
"I fear that making decisions with inaccurate financial data could jeopardize the company’s future and lead to significant losses"
Rational Pain
"Obsolete tech systems hinder immediate insights into our financial performance, leading to excessive time spent finalizing period-end reports"
Finance Leader
CFO/VP of Finance/Director of Finance (All Industries!)
It's important to understand the difference between forecasting challenges from a CFO and Resource Leader's perspective.
(Accuracy of data and time spent finalizing data for period close)
300
Ace Ventura
Bonus for "When Nature Calls"
300
In Enterprise engagements, we generally position SX as the source of truth.
Name two reasons why SX is a more "Enterprise-focused" software tool than OX.
A ton of answers here realistically.
- Period Management
- Multi-currency/ Multi office support
- Large-scale functionality around timesheet compliance.
- Workflow automation for large # of projects
- Strong Period management
- Lot of SFDC incumbents
(The above are more commonly challenges to solve for in larger organizations)
400
New Inbound lead (Business Analyst Intern)
Consulting org
600 Employees
Hi there can I have a demo? My manager asked me to look into tools for project management.
I'm sorry but I don't know the answer to your questions.
Tricky one, but yes I would book it.
While there are several red flags here, understand that in many cases with inbound leads - the actual driver of the initiative (his/her manager in this case) has tasked the analyst to do initial scheduling.
While the individual may not know much, or even speak or language what so ever we should understand that there is a significant UPSIDE. (600 person consulting pure-play with an RM-focus)
Always consider both the Company and the role that we are calling into!
400
Explain "DSO" and a CBI that most closely relates to it.
Days Sales Outstanding.
Associated with the amount of time it takes to close the books in a given period.
By reducing the DSO, we can accelerate cash flow and improve overall financial performance.
Financial CBI #3
"We struggle to close the books on a monthly basis in a timely manner."
400
Emotional Pain:
"I struggle to understand the performance of a project at any given time"
Rational Pain:
"We lack the performance and reporting tools to adequately manage projects"
Project Delivery Lead
PMO Manager
Project Manager
Director of Project Management
400
Gooooood Morning and in case I don't see ya, Good afternoon, Good evening, and Good nigh!
The Truman Show
400
One of the differentiators is
"Unlock the potential of your workforce"
What area of our software solves this, and what is an example to share?
Resource Management
Skillset matching/Skills taxonomy
Resource Reccomendations/Matching supply to demand
Team Builder/Bench Optimization
500
"Hey Nate - just had a quality conversation with the Head of PMO at this Software company I spoke with.
1000 employees
Up to 400 users
- Facing difficulty understanding workload and capacity across the organization.
- Tracking time and budgets in all of their projects.
- Mentioned that their primary CBI is a lack of resource visibility.
- Seems great, they're hoping for a RM focused demo tomorrow.
Currently using Asana, clockify, and MS teams are their primary tools.
Negative
Lot of red flags here. ALWAYS contexualize the conversation with both the industry and the role that we are calling into.
400 users in a 1k employee software org is unusual at best.
Mentions BUDGETS but not profitability or any financial metric that is PS-specific.
All their current tools are extremely basic/cheap/cost effective.
500
What Metrics are associated with the CBI
"We have no way of looking back and comparing estimates to actuals"
Margin
Project Cost
Profitability
500
Emotional Pain:
"I fear our current processes aren’t robust enough to support future growth and scalability, but I struggle to identify what process to fix first.
Rational Pain:
"We lack a centralized data system, making it difficult to retrieve and analyze key information when needed."
Process Improvement Leader
Business Transformation Leader
Digital Transformation Manager
(will accept IT Services Leader, but this is an important sub-set)
500
"It's PARTY TIME
P - A - R - T, Why? Because I gotta!"
500
Where software like Certinia may require heavy customization before going-live, and a high TCO (Total cost of ownership",
Kantata features and functionalities work __-_-_-__, enabling a lower-risk _____
Out-of-the-box/ Implementation