A Consultant's Entrepreneurial Approach

After graduating with my MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, I joined the management team of Pariveda Solutions, a management and technology consulting firm based in Dallas. I work out of Chicago but spend a lot of time in Dallas. We help our clients with a variety of information technology projects.

My specialty is IT strategy -- helping CIOs run their organizations more effectively and build technology plans to support their business strategy. In addition to participating in and overseeing client projects, I'm responsible for selling new projects, recruiting new employees, building our training and intellectual capital, mentoring our employees, and helping with many other nonclient activities.

People often ask me how my job now differs from the work I've done at large IT- and strategy-consulting firms in the past. The biggest difference is that I feel more like an entrepreneur than a consultant. A big part of my job is building our company. The client work we do tends to be different as well -- we handle smaller projects, which I like because I can see them from start to finish.

My schedule on a typical day depends on whether I'm working on a client project. Some days I spend 10 hours straight at a client site. Others, I work on activities like networking, sales, and recruiting.

Here's a snapshot of a recent workday:

6 a.m. -- I wake up and head to the gym for a workout. I'd rather sleep, but I know I won't have a chance to work out later.

7:45 a.m. -- I meet James, one of our employees, over breakfast. James is leading an internal project to revamp our Web site, and I am his sponsor. He gives me an update on his team's progress, and we talk about how I can help him get input and approval from the rest of the management team.

9 a.m. -- Back at home, I check e-mail and see that Bruce, my CEO, has sent me some feedback on a client report. I make some changes based on his comments and call him to discuss a few of his points. Then, I clear out the other messages in my in-box and check my to-do list for the day.

10:30 a.m. -- I spend 30 minutes reading blogs. I read about 15 blogs on a regular basis, on a range of topics including IT management, technology news, industry trends, and general business news.

11 a.m. -- I drive to meet one of my clients, the CIO of a midsize retail company. I recently gave him a proposal for a project, and I am hoping for approval today. He signs off on it, and we discuss how we are going to kick off the project.

12:30 p.m. -- I arrive at my current client, a large energy company. I leave my computer at my cubicle and walk around to find that everyone is gone for lunch. I send a couple of e-mails.

12:50 p.m. -- Jim, another principal at Pariveda and the other half of my team for this project, arrives. We go for a walk to get a sandwich and figure out our plan of attack for the afternoon. We grab a conference room and start mapping out the deliverables for this final phase of a business-systems plan for this energy company's retail unit.

We spend about an hour discussing which slides we will need and then start building the slides. I begin the implementation and financial plans while Jim works on the business case overviews.

2:50 p.m. -- My phone beeps to notify me that I have to do a recruiting phone interview in 10 minutes. I do a quick scan of the recruit's résumé, then head down to the lobby to call her. We talk for about 25 minutes, long enough for me to determine that someone should meet her in person.

3:40 p.m. -- I settle back in the conference room to keep working on my slides. Jim and I discuss ideas.

4:45 p.m -- Our client stops by and says he has only about 20 minutes before he needs to leave to pick up his kids. We walk him through the outline of the deliverable and answer his questions. He needs to feel comfortable with the material, because he will be presenting with us to his executive leadership team next week.

5:15 p.m. -- Jim and I wrap up what we are working on and head out.

6:30 p.m. -- I meet a close friend for sushi and a glass of wine. It is mostly social chat, but she confides that her IT organization is having real trouble delivering since her company was acquired a few months ago. She works in marketing, so I encourage her to ask her CIO if we can take him to lunch and discuss some ideas.

10 p.m. -- I read the front page of today's Wall Street Journal and check e-mail. Before long, I have three instant message sessions going -- two work-related and one with my mom about our upcoming vacation. I tell everyone it is time for bed and sign off. I learned in business school that eight hours of sleep is critical to my success.

An MBA is not required for my career, but it has been helpful in the development of our company -- in writing our business plan, building internal processes, and developing our marketing and sales materials. On client projects, the knowledge I gained in B-school helps me apply IT in the context of business strategy.

To avoid falling behind on tech trends while in school, I took a class in IT strategy and wrote a research paper on the topic. I also did independent study with an IT consulting firm throughout my second year and attended as many of the business/technology club events as I could.

Business school was a great experience, but I wish I'd had time to do even more. I focused on the classes that interested me and got involved in a couple of activities that I was passionate about -- our leadership and consulting clubs. I'm glad I took time to get to know my classmates and build relationships. Two years is too brief a period to do it all. Spend it wisely.