© 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

vinay@catalign.com

© 2009 Catalign Innovation Consulting 2

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

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Just a wall-hanging

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You want your engineers to play …

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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

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Question is: How many do you really need?

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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?

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Let’s use a 2 step estimation process

1 2

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But, before that we need to wear a special goggle

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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

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And we need two dummy organizations

Let’s call them RaCo and CoeCo

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Both RaCo and CoeCo have

10 projects with 100 people each

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Now, let’s start with step-1

1 2

See each project through the PMM goggle

How does the picture look?

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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

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Now, let’s move to step-2

1 2

Use the rule of thumb table…

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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

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Apply it to the table we got in step-1

What we get is…

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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

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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

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RaCo needs: 5-11 technical specialists

CeoCo needs: 19-29 technical specialists

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Now we know…

CeoCo needs 2x to 6x more

technical specialist than RaCo

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Look 2 years ahead through thesame PMM goggle

And repeat steps 1 and 2

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It will tell you TCP need in the future

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