TecAccess Founder Debra Ruh with her daughter, Sara.  Photo courtesy of TecAccess

Want to get something done fast? Write a plan, make it detailed and be open to unexpected changes, says Debra Ruh, founder and chairman of TecAccess.

With 75 employees, US$5 million in sales, and contracts with organizations ranging from Fortune 50 firms to the U.S. federal government, Ms. Ruh says TecAccess’ careful project planning sets it apart from the pack.

TecAccess employs an array of IT and web accessibility consultants, many of whom have physical and/or cognitive disabilities.

That level of diversity—which ranges from veterans with disabilities to associates with cerebral palsy, bipolar disorder, macular degeneration and deafness—gives the company an edge in the working world, Ms. Ruh says.

“The people who work here are forced to look at the world in a different way and they’re much more creative for it.”

TecAccess provides disability and diversity consulting services to both large and small firms as well as staffing services for disabled workers. Just seven years old, TecAccess boasts big-name clients including AOL, Canon USA, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Postal Service and Aetna Healthcare.

Ms. Ruh chalks the firm’s success up to the three certified project managers she keeps on staff.

“There is no task that we take on that we’re not going to tie a project plan to,” she says. “We first figure out what’s the big task we need to do, then we work out who are the people we need to talk to to get this done? What are the individual tasks?”

From there, TecAccess develops a timeline for each phase of the project followed by a master timeline they then present to the client.

“I don’t know how to run a business without a project plan in place for every single thing that we do. There are just too many pieces to keep up with,” Ms. Ruh says. “We could not be the company that we are today without project management.”