ABOUT
Our foundation: built on trust and excellence
In 2015, our co-founders began to formally share their functional and industry experience and expertise to help companies become "better versions of themselves". While experience and expertise is one very important building block of our foundation, Fermata also prides itself on mutual partner-client respect and understanding that self-awareness is built with other important factors to achieve success: cognizance, acuity, coaching and technology. In sharing this foundation with every client, prospect and partner, Fermata's mission became clear...
We advise and support owners, executives and functional leaders in organizations that, alone, cannot succeed in their transformation journey.
Fast-forward...the last decade has involved, not only being a part of the evolution of our clients and partners, Fermata's own transformation has come to fully embrace, integrate and realize the core meaning of "fermata" - for ourselves and, seamlessly, for our clients and partners.
fer·ma·ta fer-ˈmä-tə
: a prolongation of a pause at the discretion of the performer of a musical note, chord, or rest beyond its given time value
also : the sign denoting such a prolongation
Our process
Regardless of which of our services - or combinations of services - are involved in your engagement with Fermata, we value the act of the "pause". By applying the benefits throughout key aspects of our structured project approach, we can ensure your objectives are met and maximum value is realized.
Impact of Fermata
MINDFUL INTENTION
Transformation is difficult and the focus on achieving objectives may create a lack of the "feel" needed during the journey. We believe various - and organic - pauses can be beneficial to mitigate stakeholders and constituents sense of overwhelm and help re-invigorate their effort.
DECISION-MAKING INTERLUDES
Uncertainty or complexity begets the need for your team to have the space to reflect, gather more information, analyze data, and consider all options before moving forward. This helps temper rushed decisions - derived out of "analysis paralysis" or worse, incomplete understanding.
INNOVATION & CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES
Thriving on true rest, the marathon that is transformation, suddenly becomes a series of manageable sprints. Recharged team members are likely to deliver more innovation AND creative thinking - and solutions to complex problems.
RENEWING MOMENTUM
Pausing for rest and recovery sustains long-term productivity. Resetting your team's energy in alignment with less busy time periods, for example, can propel subsequent transformation work with better velocity and higher quality.
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
Organizations that briefly slow down their transformation, can focus on giving extra attention to key stakeholder groups - customers, partners, and employee team members. Understanding needs at a deeper level can create deeper loyalty to your undertaking and foster valuable engagement.
Mobilization
SCOPE AND APPROACH ALIGNMENT
We "begin with the end in mind" and focus on re-articulating the formalized details of the engagement with team members stakeholders, sponsors, and partners to ensure all participants are in alignment. This includes the "WHY - WHAT - HOW - WHEN" plans and the related financial considerations.
SPONSOR AND STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
In addition to the practical value of a RACI exercise for team members, we engage with sponsors, stakeholders and governance and "review boards" to identify who needs to know what - and when - and at what level.
TEAM READINESS AND MANAGEMENT
We collaborate with all team members to inform them of the engagement's expectations for their role, required time commitments and how the engagement will operate on a day-to-day basis. Key responsibilities are reviewed such as attending working sessions and status meetings, reporting issues and task/deliverable status, as well as time reporting (if required).
Engagement Close Out
FINAL APPROVALS
Having defined specific approval criteria and approving team members as part of Mobilization, we collaborate with all members of the project team to ensure engagement objectives and approval criteria are met. We emphasize: "the engagement is not DONE until the client says so" - we manage expectations accordingly.
DEFERRED ACTIVITIES, ISSUES & DECISIONS
We will work with your team to finalize an aggregated list of these items as well as to develop a definitive action plan for subsequent resolution and implementation.
REFERRAL DEVELOPMENT AND EXECUTION
We will collaborate with your leadership team to ensure your success is shared as part of our referral program. This assists in sharing lessons learned with our other clients (only in non-competitive situations), and helps to further-develop, professionally, our team members and support the mutual evolution of leading practices.
Serving
Metro Philadelphia
Metro New York City
Northeast & New England
Remaining USA: Hybrid
ORGANIZATIONALLY TRUSTED BY
Enterprise: C-Suite &
Functional Leaders
SMB: Finance & Operations, Contract/Legal, Service Delivery
SaaS ERP: VARs, ISVs, Service Organizations
Expert Advisory & Recruiting Specialists
Engagement Execution
TASKS AND DELIVERABLES
We take extreme pride in clear articulation of, and communication with you, regarding project tasks, interdependencies with your team members, and the structure, content, purpose and intent of deliverables.
ADVISEMENT AND GUIDANCE: STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL
The dynamic nature of transformation requires ongoing, specialized advisement and guidance with your teams and leaders. This can manifest into tough conversations about making informed decisions that may be unpopular, albeit based on keeping the best interest of your objectives in mind. Our ongoing commitment to our partnership will always guide our actions in this regard.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
From individualized work products to deliverables - and everything in between - we take a continuous and structured approach to peer and independent reviews of what we produce for your organization.
PROJECT AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Keeping your engagement - and your transformation - on track and on budget is our top priority. Weekly status and financial reporting is a key component of our services and collaboration with your team.
RISKS/ISSUES: IDENTIFICATION AND MANAGEMENT
Throughout the full lifecycle of your engagement, our experience enables full cognizance as to the risks/issues that may derail the work effort and your transformation. We provide full transparency, remediation approaches and recommendations, and navigation of escalations as needed for resolution.
COMMUNICATION
We adamantly believe that the quality (and success) of an engagement is directly related to the quality of communications. We architect and deliver on a comprehensive plan to ensure all levels and groups of stakeholders are informed of the status and overall health of the engagement and your transformation.
