How Much Do You Know About Organizational Design?

Posted in Corporate Updates / Professional Development on December 13, 2011

The Organizational Design Symposium, led by Nic Turrentine, was designed to educate the participants about the subject and explore avenues to outline the M Squared Organizational Design Service Line. Brian St.Sauveur, Andrew Slawter, and Wes Cronkite prepared and delivered presentations based on literature they reviewed regarding the subject. Each of them gave informative and engaging presentations that delved into the specifics of Organizational Design, including various models used.

The symposium also consisted of a variety of brainstorming and discussions sessions exploring areas of Organizational Design that M Squared is currently providing and future areas to grow. These outputs will help develop the core documentation when we are designing how the Organizational Design Service Line will operate. This Symposium was exceptionally educational to all the participants and valuable to the company.

A special thanks to Brian St.Sauveur, Andrew Slawter, and Wes Cronkite for taking extra time beyond their normal work schedule to prepare materials for the symposium and to all participants for attending!

Preparing our Organizational Leaders and Facilitators to Better Serve Government Clients

Posted in Corporate Updates / Facilitation / Human Resources / Professional Development on December 13, 2011

Erin Bankey led a training session on group dynamics to better inform the company’s work with organizational design, project management, and facilitation. In collaboration with Dr. Sam Steen of The George Washington University, the course covered the five stages of group development and useful techniques to mitigate group problems. Examples raised during the group discussion demonstrated that an understanding of how people interact in groups is essential in client delivery and relevant for our work.

Offering internal training sessions is part of the FSL’s effort to provide professional development for M Squared employees. The slide deck and presentation notes can be found under Corporate Meetings on SharePoint.

Be looking for more upcoming training offerings from FSL, including strategic communications, interest-based problem solving, leadership development, and conflict resolution! Based on the feedback received so far, project management, process design, proposal writing, and organizational change management are also popular requests for future trainings.

Please feel free to email the FSL team with additional suggestions or requests for desired trainings. We look forward to your valuable input!

Meeting Managers Showcase & Training

Posted in Corporate Updates / Facilitation / Human Resources / Professional Development on December 13, 2011

Can a meeting that only gets half way through the scheduled agenda be considered successful? Absolutely!

The Meeting Managers Training in September is an excellent example. The afternoon training was a great success, despite only finishing half way, as it showcased current M Squared supported meetings by each Meeting Managers. These presentations described each meeting’s significance, benefits, and where M Squared has brought direct value. We also documented a long list of the various tools that M Squared uses to support the meeting. In total, M Squared has seven Meeting Managers (and counting) supporting 19 meetings!

Andrew Slawter brought forth his vast M Squared experience in meeting management and facilitated an informative and entertaining training session on meeting minutes, proper documentation, and procedures. Hard to believe meeting minutes could actually be fun!

Outputs captured from the meeting will help M Squared develop common standards and train future Meeting Managers. With time shortened from the original schedule, we were only able to get through half of the agenda. The second half of this training session resumed in mid-October and focused on further improving M Squared’s meeting management through using technological tools and writing clearer, more effective action Items. Thank you all for your participation and feedback!

AMP Mentor Relationship Yields First AMP-Initiated Corporate Project

Posted in AMP Program / Corporate Updates on December 13, 2011

In June, Elena Foukes joined M Squared as a part of the third class of Applied Management Professionals (AMP). The mentor component of the program was created to introduce AMPs to the M Squared corporate culture and to be able to teach the young professionals some of the nuances of client delivery in a government-consulting environment.

During their mentor meetings, Andrew Slawter and Elena Foukes identified an opportunity to develop a corporate project that would strengthen the AMP Program and add value to AMP client delivery. In their afterhours discussions they quickly identified a need to increase the level of the program’s quality assurance. With the help of her mentor, Elena developed a Plan of Action and Milestones for a Quality Assurance Management Plan (QAMP) to be delivered as a component of the AMP Program. In early August, they met with the President of M Squared Strategies, Kendall Lott, to present the proposed plan which included a project overview, a list of deliverables, a work breakdown structure, and a cost benefit analysis. This endeavor marked the first time that an AMP-Mentor relationship led to the creation of a corporate project. The project was particularly unique in that it is focused on the sustainability of the AMP Program, and on the quality of client delivery as a means to achieve that sustainability.

Some of the deliverables Elena will produce as part of the QAMP include the development of a Quality Assurance Guide for the AMP Program Director’s use in future program years, guidelines to ensure the creation of successful projects, guidelines to set and manage client expectations, and suggested communication flows to enable effective reporting of AMP activities. In addition to quality assurance, the project includes case studies focused on the AMP Program achievements during the 2011 Program for the creation of marketing materials.

Elements from the QAMP can also be applied to other areas of M Squared. The Quality Assurance Management Plan will be incorporated into the 2012 AMP Program as M Squared Strategies continues to strive for professionalism, transparency, accountability in all the company undertakes.

New Corporate Donor Program Director

Posted in Community Involvement / Corporate Updates / Human Resources on December 13, 2011

M Squared is pleased to announce Justin Heineman as the Corporate Donor Program Director. M Squared has continuously and consistently supported the arts and various charities within the greater Washington metro area. Justin will be responsible for further increasing M Squared’s involvement in the community as well as staff’s participation in doing charitable work. As a part of the upcoming holiday season, M Squared will be contributing to Feeding America, a non-profit charity whose mission is to end hunger in America. If you have an interest in philanthropic work, contact Justin to find out more!

HR Corner

Posted in Corporate Updates / Human Resources on December 13, 2011

Our HR processes and policies continue to evolve with three updates to report on. Firstly, our Deltek system has been updated to allow for the quarterly accrual of Comp Time. This will allow you greater flexibility in the use of your comp time. The system will now show your comp time balance in an easy-to-access drop down menu along with vacation and sick time balances. As always comp time can only be entered for approved projects and charge codes. Comp time will be zeroed out at the end of each quarter and any overage in billability will be reported to the executive for consideration in bonuses.

Secondly, we are currently testing the ADP Portal with several of our employees to explore additional functionality. Before the end of October all employees will have the option to access their current paystub electronically. In addition if it is preferred we can have your paper paystub cancelled and you can operate strictly from the Portal for pay information.

Finally, the Deltek system is set up to allow employees to request paid leave through your online access. This method makes it easier for both the requester and approver to view leave balances and formally approve the request. Communication with your manager will still be required, such as placing an out of office notice on your manager’s calendar, however this functionality provides a useful and transparent step. Two Deltek User Manuals, one for all employees and one for supervisors, have been uploaded onto the HR SharePoint site under T&E and these manuals will assist you to use the updated functionality that we now have available.

HR Diligently Planning for the Future

Posted in Corporate Updates / Human Resources on August 03, 2011

With an eye on the future, the Human Resources team has embarked on a strategic planning process aimed at enabling M Squared to respond to forecasted growth while continuing to develop our existing human capital so that we can best serve our clients. The team has identified human capital acquisition and human capital development as the two primary areas to focus our efforts. We have already identified multiple initiatives and established target performance metrics so that we can measure the success of each.

Within human capital acquisition, we aim to develop a more robust candidate pipeline by enhancing our marketing efforts and establishing a greater presence in the industry. We are also further developing service-line-specific screening and testing methodologies to improve alignment of candidates with various positions. Finally, we plan to refine the internal communications process between business development, service line managers, and human resources to ensure that we call fill positions on newly awarded contracts in minimal time.

On the human capital development front, we are working to better define promotion paths within the human resources framework, identify and communicate opportunities for external recognition of staff, and develop a formalized training program. This not only includes identifying appropriate and required trainings, but also developing training content to support individual training programs.

This strategic planning process will be instrumental in properly aligning our human resources to best support the evolving needs and direction of M Squared Strategies. It is also an exciting new context for us to apply our strategic management models and expertise to another division of our own company.

Marketing is Getting Social

Posted in Corporate Updates / Marketing on August 03, 2011

We have created a comprehensive suite of stationary for a wide variety of correspondence. From formal letters and proposals to proper handwritten cards to causal notes, we have created the paper goods (with matching envelopes, of course) to meet every need. We have also just started developing our presence in the social networking arena with a Linked In profile and a Facebook page. If you have not already, be sure to ‘connect to’ us and ‘like’ us, respectively.

AMPP Placement is Underway

Posted in AMP Program / Corporate Updates on April 25, 2011

The Applied Management Professionals Program has been interviewing applicants from coast to coast since January. The recruiting process was as rigorous as ever and has resulted in a high-caliber group of potential AMPs for the 2011 summer. This year we challenged students to develop a PowerPoint on the VA’s Electronic Health Records, and continued with the group interview tradition in addition to individual behavioral interviews. This year’s record number of motivated and energetic graduate student applicants come from UC San Diego, Indiana University, Boston College, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, and Virginia Tech.

We have been pursuing placements at the DOE and DOT (among other agencies) where the AMPs work from last summer was greatly valued. Clients are excited to have enthusiastic students arrive and start on important projects. We are looking forward to officially selecting AMPs and securing agency placements as the summer approaches! Alessandra will be reaching out to staff in the coming weeks to discuss mentoring, training, and other AMPP opportunities.

Our New Face on the Web is Officially Live and Well!

Posted in Corporate Updates / IT Services / Marketing on April 25, 2011

M Squared launched our new website in February. With a thorough introduction to the company, information about of each of our primary service lines, details on how to contract and partner with us, postings about current job openings, and, naturally, contact information, the new site is already attracting increased traffic from Google.

This launch was no small undertaking. The Marketing and Information Technology Services (ITS) teams worked closely together and coordinated efforts to prepare an infrastructure to host our newest marketing tool. To ensure consistent professionalism, ITS will be converting all of our email addresses to the ‘@msquaredstrategies.com’ format to match our new domain name. This transition will take place over the summer and should be seamless.

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