Before every TSW conference I get asked to provide insights on what are likely to be the best sessions to attend. And every year I struggle and hem and haw and scratch my head and have trouble doing this. It’s like being asked which of your children is your favorite … to which every parent since the beginning of time has of course responded: “I love them all equally.” You may not realize this, but we get a lot more requests to present at TSW than we can accommodate. That’s an embarassment of riches, which means that every single one of the sessions is hand picked through a formal process in which I closely participate. In short, I expect ALL of the sessions to be excellent!!! But make a list of “top picks” I must and so here goes.
The good news, again, is that the PS agenda is set for TSW (click HERE to see it) and it’s full of good stuff, beginning with the pre-conference workshops that take place on Monday, May 7th. Among these, I’d highlight the half day session by our good friends at Pretium Partners. This session goes to Pretium’s strength: helping services organizations get better at selling on value and driving more and more profitably business in so doing.
The core conference sessions are made of of two kinds of experiences. One is a traditional, stand and deliver presentation (“Breakout”) in which our members present their case studies and best practices to one another. The other experience is called a “Workout Session.” These sessions are designed to be more interactive and to create an environment in which members help one another with problems that are tackling. They are moderated by peers and experts, but there is very little in the way of formal ”stand and deliver.”
I’m really excited about all of the sessions, as I’ve said. But I would like to highlight one Breakout and one Workout session that I think should be particularly interesting. The breakout session I want to highlight is being given by Mary Elston of VMware. This session takes place on Tuesday May 8th and is entitled: “Capturing the Cloud with Confidence: Creating Professional Services Programs for the New Cloud Application Era.” The back story on this session is that it came to us not through the traditional application process but by my own personal request to Mary. Mary had contacted me through VMware’s membership inquiry service to ask about best practices in creating PS programs and offerings optimized for the cloud. In discussing the topic with her, I quickly realized that VMware was doing some really cutting edge things. As a result, I asked her to present to the TSIA community and fortunately for all of us, she agreed! I’m going to go to this session, that’s for sure.
This year in Santa Clara, there is one set of concurrent Workout sessions taking place also on Tuesday, May 8th. In highlighting a Workout session, I’m conflicted because I and the PS Champions Co-Chairs are facilitating a session on developing cloud services and all of the workout sessions are concurrent. For folks interested in this topic, it’ll be a great and lively session. However, if I had to pick one session to highlight for the broadest PS audience, it would not be our session, but another one being facilitated by Randy Myslievic of RTM Consulting and Ruth Fornell of NCR. This session is entitled “Driving Strategic Revenue Growth by Extending the Delivery Model Beyond Traditional Services.” What’s particularly interesting about this topic is that developing non-attached consulting has long been the new Siren’s Song for embedded PS organizations. But it’s always been easier said than done. This session will leverage success story on how NCR’s Professional Services Organization worked with a TSIA partner to establish a global consulting services practice as the lynchpin around a interactive discussion about how to get this done in your organization. I don’t see how you could beat a Workout session being facilitated by this fantastic team of Randy and Ruth.
Ultimately, you’ll have to review the agenda and make your own decisions about what’s going to be valuable for you. And don’t forget, even if your company is only a PS member, you can attend all of the Support Services, Field Services, Education Services, and Services Revenue Generation sessions you want at our conference. Throw in all of the keynotes, not to mention all of the services technology sessions by John Ragsdale (who is a discipline unto himself) and you have the makings of … well … just another fantastic TSW conference. See you there!!!
