Setting Up for Professional Services

Professional services firms — consulting, legal, accounting, advisory — have a distinctive portfolio challenge: their delivery capacity is also their revenue-generating asset. Squads are client-facing teams, and allocation decisions directly affect utilisation rates and profitability. StartConsole is well-suited to this environment when configured to connect the internal strategy portfolio with the capacity of your delivery teams.

Recommended pillar structure

Five pillars reflect the strategic priorities common to professional services firms:

• Client Delivery — programs improving delivery quality, client satisfaction, project governance, and delivery tooling
• Business Development — pipeline development, proposal quality, key account programs, marketing
• Talent — hiring, onboarding, learning, retention, performance, and graduate programs
• IP & Methods — methodology development, knowledge management, proprietary frameworks, thought leadership
• Operations — finance systems, risk management, technology infrastructure, office operations

If your firm is organised by practice area (e.g. Strategy, Operations, Technology, Risk), consider whether practice areas should be pillars or themes. For most firms, practice areas work better as themes beneath the five pillars above — this preserves a single strategic view while allowing practice-level filtering.

Recommended theme names

Themes in a professional services context typically reflect practice areas or geographies:

• Under Client Delivery: Strategy Practice, Operations Practice, Technology Practice, Risk & Compliance Practice
• Under Business Development: Key Accounts, New Logos, Public Sector, Financial Services
• Under Talent: Graduate Program, Lateral Hiring, L&D, Partner Development

If your firm operates across geographies, add geographic themes under Business Development and Operations — e.g. UK, MENA, North America — to filter the portfolio by region during leadership reviews.

Typical initiative types

• Client programs — significant internal investments in client relationships or delivery capability (e.g. building a new service offering for a major client, developing a sector-specific tool). These are tracked as initiatives, not as client engagements.
• Methodology development — creating new frameworks, accelerators, or proprietary tools. These are IP-generating initiatives with a research and development character — link them to key results tracking utilisation or reuse.