Professional services management - reader interests July 11

At the end of each month I look at the most popular posts on this blog to get a feel for reader interests. The most popular posts on this blog and for Management Perspectives (I merged that blog into this one in February) in July were:

• Designing a simple performance appraisal system - sample policy statement - 81 page views
• The Importance of Demography and Demographic Change - update - 40 page views
• Problems with Performance Pay - 31 page views
• Allen & Overy's profit conundrum - 28 page views
• On financial metrics - professional services - 24 page views
• Ships, knowledge & management short term ism - 23 page views
• Common Management Problems Series 1 - managing up - 21 page views
• Changes in Public Administration and their Impact on the Development of Public Policy 1 - Introduction - 18 page views
• People Management in Professional Services - Effective Delegation - 14 page views
• Guidelines for Effective Negotiation - 13 page views
• Performance Measurement - Profit Per Equity Partner (PEP) - 12 page views
• Recession and the importance of fixed costs - 11 page views
• Corporatisation, Corporate Structures and the Law - The Case For - 10 page views

Blog performance November 2010

End of month stats.

The  graphic shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) for the year to end November.

The most visited posts over the last month have been:

• Problems with Performance Pay 96 page views
• Designing a simple performance appraisal system - sample policy statement 82 page views
• Break in posting 59 page views
• Wednesday Forum - Delegation Issues 57 page views
• Wednesday Forum - Performance Appraisal 50 page views
• Wednesday Forum Resumes 45 page views
• On financial metrics - professional services 35 page views
• People Management in Professional Services - Effective Delegation 27 page views
• Keddies, Slater & Gordon & the law 16 page views
• Good to Great - The Conclusions 14 page views

Managing the professional services firm - what people want to know 4

Continuing my irregular series on what draws people to this blog, the most popular posts among my last 100 visitors have been:

• Australian law firms retrench. This short post came first by a very considerable margin.
• Designing a simple performance appraisal system - sample policy statement came next. This post has been consistently popular.
• Law, Life Style and Legal Salaries in Australia came in third with a gap.

Then came five posts:

• People Management in Professional Services - Effective Delegation
• A Scottish doctor's reservations about evidence based medicine - measurable vs the immeasurable
• Problems with Performance Pay
• Common Management Problems - dealing with poor performers
• Managing the professional services firm: a pause for reflection

In all, a fairly mixed lot!

Managing the professional services firm - what people want to know 3

Continuing my irregular series on what draws people to this blog, the most popular posts among my last 100 visitors have been:

• Designing a simple performance appraisal system - sample policy statement, first last time, retains number one spot.
• Problems with Performance Pay came a close second.
• Law, Life Style and Legal Salaries in Australia came third.
• Then came Performance Measurement - Profit Per Equity Partner (PEP).

This was followed by four equal posts:

• On role clarification within partnerships.
• People Management in Professional Services - Effective Delegation
• US Market for New Law Graduates
• Causes of project failures - responsibility without authority

And then a further four equal posts:

• On financial metrics - professional services
• Good to Great - The Conclusions
• Corporatisation, Corporate Structures and the Law - The Case For
• Economics of professional services - surviving recession 4: getting the cash in

Quite a range really.

At the moment I am just recording. I think that once I have half a dozen posts in this series, they will provide a useful guide to further writing taking reader interests into account. 

Managing the professional services firm - what people want to know 2

Welcome to visitor 18,000 who came from Melbourne searching on lawyers' salaries.

Continuing my irregular series on what draws people to this blog, the most popular posts among my last 100 visitors have been:

• Designing a simple performance appraisal system - sample policy statement. Performance appraisal is a long running popular topic among visitors.
• Performance Measurement - Profit Per Equity Partner (PEP).
• On financial metrics - professional services
• Law, Life Style and Legal Salaries in Australia
• Problems with Performance Pay
• Causes of project failure - lack of central control
• Common Management Problems - the over-enthusiastic boss

Managing the professional services firm - what do people want to know 1

I do try to monitor what people search on in coming to this blog because it gives clues as to things I should write about. However, my free stats package limits the data to the last 100 posts. So what where the most popular entry pages for the last 100 visitors?

The largest number of visitors by far (23) came to the blog front page. This includes regular visitors plus those searching on "managing the professional services firm" - a Google search on "managing the professional services firm" presently brings this blog up as number three.

Then at 14 visitors comes Designing a simple performance appraisal system - sample policy statement. Performance appraisal is a continuing interest - Designing a Good Performance Appraisal System attracted a further 3 visitors.

Chris Marston's 4C's of Value Pricing attracted 6 visitors. Searching around, value pricing continues as a hot topic in professional services, especially law.

This was followed by two posts, each on 5 visitors. Common Management Problems - the over-enthusiastic boss is as the title says. The common management problems series is intended to provide simple practical advice, so I am always pleased to see it score well.

Law, Life Style and Legal Salaries in Australia also came in with 5 visitors. Graduate Starting Salaries in Australia came in with 4, reflecting continuing interest in how much people are paid!

There were 3 other posts on 4 visitors.

Performance Measurement - Profit Per Equity Partner (PEP) deals with a topic that continues to be popular within the professional services blogosphere.

Causes of project failures - responsibility without authority is, like common management problems, one of a series intended to provide practical management advice. This issue - responsibility without authority - is one that worries many staff.

Corporatisation, Keddies and professional ethics is a short comment post with links to various stories dealing with the problems faced by this Australian law firm.

Then came two posts on 3 visitors.

I have already mentioned Designing a Good Performance Appraisal System. Also on 3 visitors was Problems with Performance Pay, an introduction to the problems that can be created in this area.

In all, quite an interesting set of posts with a particular nuts and bolts management focus.