Introduction
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By now, you have come to realize that being a consultant or independent contractor means you have to wear virtually every hat that might be worn in running a business. Of course, the “focus hat” of any given project depends on the complexity of the project itself and your role as the consultant on that project.
This chapter focuses on two of the hats you might need to wear in handling those wonderfully, scary bigger contracts that require more human resources than you to complete. Those hats are as Project Manager and as Human Resources Manager. Discussion focuses on two possible scenarios:
- In the first scenario, you are an independent technical communication consultant, who, up until now, worked as a lone writer, perhaps at home or perhaps at a client site. Your current or upcoming contract has a scope that is larger than you can handle alone within the delivery timeframe. Or, perhaps the current contract deliverables require a component that you think might be better completed by someone with more “expertise” in that specialty (such as indexing or graphical representation of numeric data, perhaps.) This represents a “one-shot” deal.
- In the second scenario, the contract you are trying to fulfill has a scope that is larger than you can handle alone, and this is the way you want it. This is a step in your bigger plan to grow your business to a point that it supports more than just you. This scenario has bigger risks, but offers bigger rewards too. If this is your plan, please be sure to read Growing Your Business. This represents an “on-going” deal.
Under either scenario, there are two basic steps:
- Determine what resources you need (Project Management Hat)
- Round up the people (Human Resources Management Hat)
Rounding up the Resources