Managing the Professional Service Firm

Timeless wisdom!

Pietra miliare!

If you are providing any kind of service and if you want to know how to scale it: read this. Never has anyone laid down the structural pieces of professional services as these guys have.

A must for anyone working in, managing, or considering a role in a professional services firm. Not nearly as dry as I anticipated, it's a really great read.

Right out of the gate I will admit that I am not an expert in this field. This book was recommended to me by an individual with over ten years experience working for large consulting organizations. My interest in the topic arose out of a career change I was considering that involved an association with a small consulting firm that was in its early formative stages. I found this book to be easy to read and very informative. My understanding is that Maister is pretty much considered the guru of the form and function of these types of firms. This book was published in 1993 and it is essentially a collection of earlier articles written by him for professional publications so some of the material goes back to the 1980's. As one would expect, some of the examples found in these chapters are obviously dated but the over-all concepts seem to have held up well. This book provides a great insight into the types of practices or engagements various professional service firms may have: brains, grey hair and procedural and how they relate to organizational structures and life cycles. This book would be a great value to anyone entering a field populated by professional service firms (law, accounting, management consulting, etc) - especially young people - as it provides an excellent prospective on the issues these organizations must face. It could also be of some value to management folks who must hire these firms from time to time.