Frequently Asked Questions

How much will this cost?
How long will this take?
Do I need a database, a spreadsheet, or something else?
Do I need special software or equipment?
Can you train my staff?
What do I have to do to prepare?

How much will this cost?  

GPC bills design, development, testing and installation work at $55 an hour. Effective 9/1/2003:  We have had to impose a 10 hour minimum for all projects.   We will consider long-term consulting contracts on a case by case basis.

Grover Park Consulting builds custom tools for your business. Having us build a Smart Tool costs more than purchasing a shrink-wrapped package from your local computer shop. Software companies amortize their development costs for applications like QuickBooks© or TurboTax© over thousands of copies. Therefore, if you can meet your organization's needs with an off-the-shelf application like QuickBooks©, you'll find these products to be very cost-effective.

On the other hand, our Smart Tools don't cost millions of dollars like software systems created for large corporations, and they take weeks, not years, to design, build, test, and launch into production.

We also create training materials, both for our own Smart Tools and for other subjects. A basic rule of thumb is that it will take 10 to 15 hours of development time for each hour of print-based training. For web-based training the ratio can be higher.

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The cost of manual processes

One reason for adding a Smart Tool to your organization's workflow is to minimize the amount of time people spend doing manual processing tasks.

For example, George created a database to track enrollments in classes and workshops offered by a large insurance company. After this database had been in in production for a few months, the administrative assistant for that training group decided to retire. The company decided not to hire a replacement because this enrollment database had reduced the number of manually produced rosters, reports and related paperwork for classes so much.

If your organization offers training to employees or customers, talk to us about leveraging that experience to build you a Smart Classroom Management Tool.

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How long will this take?

The amount of time we devote to designing and building your Smart Tool depends on several factors including the complexity of the proposed Tool, how similar it is to other Tools we've built, and any special requirements you have. We've created simple databases in less than a week. We've spent up to four months on more complex projects for multiple users spread across two or more locations.

In addition to our own time, Grover Park Consulting works closely with you and your staff to design and build Smart Tools that meet your needs. You or someone on your staff will make an investment of time in at least three ways:

• Defining system requirements. This can take from one to several hours, depending on how complex the proposed Tool is and how much thought you already have put into it. This step usually starts with a Proposed Project Profile. You can complete this prior to hiring us.

• Approving the design and signing off on milestones during development. This can also take from as few as one or two, up to several hours.

• Acceptance testing. Before signing off on the finished Tool, you'll want to have your staff test it to make sure it works as intended. Again, the testing time varies from situation to situation.

One way to control the cost of your Smart Tool project is to plan it in phases. If you want a suite of Smart Tools to track Time and Attendance, monitor Work in Progress, manage a Customer Contact List and keep your personal Rolodex, start with one module and add the others one at at time.

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Do I need a database, a spreadsheet, or something else?

Abraham Maslow, the eminent psychologist, once said, "To the person who has a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." From time to time, we at Grover Park Consulting like to remind ourselves of that piece of wisdom. Databases, such as MS Access or its larger brother, MS SQL Server©, are very good tools for some purposes, but not for others. The same is true of spreadsheets, word processing programs, etc. We like to think that a Smart Tool is one designed specifically for the purpose for which it is intended, using the right kind of technology. We won't try to sell you a database if we think another tool will do the job better.

Databases are very good for capturing and retaining large volumes of data over extended periods of time. For example, if you want to know the number of pieces of correspondence your organization receives from your customers each day, that's a job for a database, especially if you want to categorize them by the type of correspondence received, "orders", "complaints", "referrals", etc. and keep that data for a span of two or more years.

Spreadsheets are very good for analyzing, consolidating and reporting data. For example, if you want to create a chart or graph showing volumes of correspondence received, by category, for each month in the previous twelve months, that's a job for a spreadsheet.

In some cases, you may want to combine the strength of a database to capture your data with the spreadsheet's flexibility to present the data as a Pivot Table which you can post to a web site for all of your employees to browse.

Other functions may call for different tools. For example you may want to use a tool like Abode Acrobat© to convert documents to easily stored and shared files.

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Do I need special software or equipment?

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