What do I do? Selected highlights from Blue Fractal’s work in 2024

Companies/Industries Served:

·      Professional Engineering Services

·      Healthcare Tech Startup

·      Marketing Agency

·      Property Management for Affordable Housing

·      Design Software for the Construction Industry

A selection of work I did to help clients:

KPIs and Data

·      Instrument the business to establish baseline KPIs, begin measuring, and leverage data for decision making.

·      Calculate project profitability.

·      Root cause analysis for poor performing projects.

·      Develop and implement accountability standards for team members. Coach project leaders how to hold their teams accountable.

Business Operations

·      Install a cadence for the leadership team – quarterly planning with execution details and weekly checkpoints.

·      Streamline proposal writing process with standardized templates.

·      Financial systems migration from QB Desktop to QB Online.

·      Process improvements to streamline or automate work.

Product and Go To Market

·      Opportunity sizing for metal building manufacturer software.

·      Competitive landscape analysis for bringing offshore software solutions into the U.S. market.

·      Written phased requirements for software development roadmap and resource planning.

·      Authored business plan to inform go/no-go decision.

HR and Culture

·      Facilitator for employee communications workshop.

·      Change management workshop for leaders and managers.

·      Extract core values from leadership; proliferate company-wide through multiple channels.

·      Update and stimulate the employee review process.

·      Recruit and interview candidates for skills, experience and culture fit.

·      Create onboarding programs for new hires.

Marketing & Sales

·      From-scratch marketing literature and website content to move into new market segments.

·      Hands-on project management to create and execute marketing strategy.

·      Create a sales team commission structure.

What is a Fractional COO?

I've begun working with multiple businesses as a fractional COO. This is a new space and many seasoned executives are looking at it, trying to figure out how to make it work. But what is a fractional COO? There seem to be a lot of different answers. Here is my vision and definition.

Just like a full-time COO, a fractional COO (fCOO) acts as a strategic partner with the business owner. The job of the fCOO is to enhance existing leadership into a team that can run the day-to-day without the the business owner’s constant intervention. The fCOO drives execution of the owner's vision with the leadership team (and, by extension, the rest of the company).

The fCOO is the leader of the leadership team. This is not an outside consultant; the fCOO is part of the org structure and the leadership team reports to him or her, even in a fractional engagement. The fCOO ensures that all of the various functions and departments of the business are integrated with one another and that everyone is rowing in the same direction.

In contrast, the VP of Ops/General Manager is a member of the leadership team who reports to the fCOO. They are responsible for the actual product or service that the business provides to its customers.

One reason for confusion between the fCOO and the VP of Ops/GM roles is that in the majority of businesses where the COO is full-time, he or she also serves as the organization’s VP of Ops/GM. Eighty percent of the full-time COO role is managing the day-to-day business operations, and 20% of the role is strategic development of the owner's vision.

The fCOO focuses on the strategic 20%. That's why it's fractional (not full time). The fCOO may perform this service for multiple companies at the same time.

For most operations teams led by a VP of Ops/General Manager, the 20% strategic work often get consumed in the whirlwind of day-to-day business. Client issues always take priority, and the company makes slow or no progress toward the business owner’s strategic goals. (This is often true even when a company has a full time COO.)

Having a fCOO focused on the strategic 20% improves the likelihood that the business will make crucial changes and improvements to achieve the owner’s strategic vision. That’s not to say there aren’t trade-offs with a fCOO operations leader, but if everyone understands where the fCOO is focused - on strategic activities (without disrupting the day-to-day business) - the fCOO model can become highly effective.