Form follows function.
We work out what the job has to do before we decide what form it takes, so the team, the tools and the structure follow from the function. Here is how our work moves, the forms it takes, and who we do it for.
For owners →For public bodies and nonprofits →For recruiters →
Read. Write. Execute.
Discover, interpret, organize.
We start with the north star: why the organization exists, in one idea. Then we learn the problem where it lives: on the floor, in the systems, in the books, and from each person who touches it.
Strategize, plan, define scope, build.
We design the answer and put it on paper: what to keep, what to cut, what to buy, what to stop. This is also where we build the organizational model to address the problem: the right application of people, tools and partners, and no more.
Implement, test, refine, measure, manage.
We carry it out, managed in the style the work calls for: as a project with a fixed end, as a program across many projects, or as a product that improves in iterations. We tell the people it affects what is changing and when, and your people validate each stage as it lands. We train them until they understand it and can run it, because a solution nobody uses has not been delivered. Then we stay to ensure results stick.
We take the form the problem needs.
Depending on the problem, our team organizes as one of these:
A seat
One experienced person placed in your team.A team
A group built for a defined scope.A program office
One team that coordinates many projects, vendors and sites under a single plan.A standing role
Owner's representative or part-time technology executive (a fractional CIO), month after month.A product
When the answer to one client's problem would serve many others, we build it as a product and run it.A firm that owns only a hammer tends to find nails.
Our roots are in technology, in networks, systems, software and data that we built and ran with our own hands, and we could have stayed there. Some firms treat technology as an island. We have always treated it as a tool, and a tool is only as good as the job it is chosen for. So it was natural to bring other tools into the fold as problems called for them: the balance sheet, vendor management, training, communications planning, brand and product. We pick the tool after we understand the problem.
How do you spend your time?
For an owner, a strategy and program management partner means we are on the floor with you and in your balance sheet, working side by side until the business runs the way you want it to.
If the answer is "on everything except the business," you are in good company. An owner is usually the only person who sees the whole business, and the only one with no time to study it. The accountant, the bank, the software vendor and the IT provider each see their own part. None of them is responsible for how the parts work together.
We take responsibility for how the parts work together. Our team works in the balance sheet and on the floor: we read the vendor contracts and renegotiate them, write the procedures and train the staff, and plan how each change is communicated to the people it affects. We also choose, install and manage the technology underneath all of it.
When a project lands on you, such as a new location, a system replacement or a provider that has stopped performing, we take on the project itself and act as your owner's representative from the first decision until the result holds.
About half a day inside your business. You get a plain read on what we saw and what we would do about it.
You see the scope and the price of anything further before you agree to it.
Public projects, delivered and explained.
For a public body or a nonprofit, a strategy and program management partner means we represent you, your board and your decision makers, and we engage the public on your behalf. We oversee technology and the vendors who supply it, run projects and implementations from approval to completion, and explain the work in plain language to the people who pay for it.
We have worked alongside public bodies and nonprofits since the firm began, from neighborhood and national organizations to one of the largest school districts in the country. Across them we have planned and overseen technology, managed vendors and contracts, rolled systems out across many sites, trained staff, and planned and delivered communications to diverse stakeholders in high pressure situations. Public work brings many stakeholders and constant scrutiny, which is where our principles do the most: we see the whole problem first, organize around it, and stay through implementation.
Technology oversight
We act as your owner's representative and part-time technology executive: we write the requests for proposals, review the contracts, and hold providers to what they signed.Project and program management
Outside project managers, vendors and trades held to one schedule and budget.Implementation
Systems and networks selected, installed, tested with your staff and switched on across every site.Public information
Plain-language materials, presentations for decision makers, public meetings and visits to community groups.Records, training and procedures
Documentation that stands up to audit and outlasts the project.A fixed price for a defined scope. Written reports to your office on the schedule you set.
Firm facts. Toscas Group Strategy & PMO LLC, Illinois file 18843293. In practice since 2008. Riverside, Illinois. Member, Project Management Institute. NAICS 541611, 541618, 541512, 541513, 541519, 611420.
The bench: people who execute.
For a recruiter or a hiring manager, a strategy and program management partner means we fill the seat and stand behind the person in it.
When the job is a seat and not a whole project, we fill it from our bench: experienced people who have done the work before and do it to a standard. We read the business case behind the role and make sure the fit is right before anyone starts.
If we do not have the right person, we say so before the start date.