Beyond the Chaos
From Chaos to Control: Empowering Small Business Owners with Operational Management
Description
Beyond the Chaos' team of fractional COOs, consultants, and project managers helps small business owners end their frustration, stop the chaos, and regain control of their businesses and lives. How?
We help you improve your operations by teaching you to use SaaS collaboration tools – like Teamwork.com – more effectively. We provide how-to and training plans for Teamwork.com for you and your team to implement. After planning, we can also do the implementation work for you on a project or ongoing basis, including project management, operations management, and fractional COO services.
Our fractional model allows you to work with us only as much as you need and to scale up as your business grows. See how we work together!
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Services
Onboarding Support
Businesses can implement Teamwork.com and Teamwork Desk more effectively, quicker, and achieve healthier platform use by working with a partner. We can also help you identify which Teamwork.com package you need, and how many users you need. See our packages.
Operations Consulting
Consulting helps us learn about your business goals and what’s standing in the way. From our conversation, we’ll provide a clear list of priority activities to focus on. This is for small business owners wanting to know how to grow their companies and get out of the day-to-day holding them back. Consulting can be a part of a suite of services or on its own if you choose to implement the work yourself. See our services.
Implementation
This done-for-you service is where the rubber meets the road. Unlike most consulting firms, we actually DO what we recommend. Implementation could involve:
- writing processes
- creating software automation
- setting up templates or checklists
- implementing software tools
- training your team
- owner accountability sessions
- coaching on how to DIY
- managing projects with your client and your team
- and much more
Whatever the work, we are definitely more than “just” project managers. Over time, your consultant can become a trusted partner integrated into your team to listen and advise on many areas of your business.
Pick My Brain Consultation
Are specific questions about Teamwork.com or operational challenges holding up your progress? Sign up to Pick My Brain: A one-hour paid consultation with your choice of Operations and Project Management experts. This is a stand-alone service open to anyone. Come to the call with your agenda, and we’ll get through as many items as possible. Schedule your session here.
Resources
Our Team
Susan Fennema
Chaos Eradicating Officer
Susan Fennema is the CEO of Beyond the Chaos, which helps small business owners extricate themselves from their day-to-day business operations to grow their businesses and get their lives back. Her team has served over 200 small businesses and is an Accredited Solution Partner.
Danielle Japczyk
Chaos Killer
Danielle is our internal operations director and a consultant with our clients. She earned her bachelor’s from Illinois State University and her master’s from Keller Graduate School of Management. She uses her unique skill set to control chaos by making technology hum.
Testimonials
FAQ
Project management is the art of organizing the details of a project: WHAT is going to happen, WHO is going to do it, and WHEN does it need to get done. It keeps projects on time and within budget. When your projects are completed within budget, you can avoid scope creep and maintain profits, thus growing your business. Examples of our project management services include: running your status meetings, creating new operational processes and implementing new collaboration software.
If you're currently reading this page, chances are, you are already feeling it. Chaos means having to work every weekend or not having time to spend with your family. It means struggling to fulfill promises and obligations to your clients and employees. Chaos is overwhelm. This is a great list to help you identify other signs of chaos in your business. Our project management services work to get you beyond the chaos.
We believe that project management should facilitate the team's and clients' end goals. It should not be invasive or bureaucratic. The structure we create should set you free, not bog you down. We view ourselves as the neutral diplomat, serving as an extension of our clients' small business. We understand that your business is extremely personal to you, so we're nurturing, but we won't let drama or chaos consume you or your business. While we help you complete the projects how they were scoped, we also listen to you and the pain points of your business. We provide a clear and simple path to solving your problems and repeating your successes. We listen to your frustrations and provide insight and suggestions based on our experience working with so many other small business owners.
Good news! Project management is billable. You can bill this time back to your client. It's not uncommon for us to hear that project management is overhead. But think about it this way - someone is probably already doing the project management work (whether it's your developers or creative team) - so your clients are already paying for it, but it probably isn't being done that well. Project managers allow developers and creatives to focus on what they do best. Meanwhile, the project manager supervises the scope, timeline, and budget to help keep clients happy. That's how project management reduces the overages on your hourly billing estimates.
That's fantastic! Then you already have a head start on understanding the value of project management. We can still coach your team to produce more efficient time management and client communication results. And if you already have existing project management processes, we can review them to make sure they are working effectively across the team. We are also available to help out if you need a quick ramp up for a special project, are between project managers, or to help you manage through a long absence. And keep in mind, project management is billable, and you can bill this back to your clients.
We are not software developers, architects, graphic designers, or accountants. But we do understand “geek speak” and can communicate well with developers. We have 135+ years of experience working with creatives. And, we can also communicate with clients. Being able to bridge that gap reduces misunderstanding and frustration.
Not being developers also helps us through the testing process, as we see the user experience through the client’s eyes. Our team can sit back and see the big picture, rather than work in the weeds of the technician, which is a huge benefit to the project. We don’t try to figure out how to solve the clients’ problems. We try to figure out how to make the solution that the expert comes up with work within the project.
