Author: steveshu

While I don’t often write about leadership, management, and consulting “techniques”, there’s one that I wanted to share as I’ve found it useful when facilitating a diverse group of folks. I call it “painting the ends of the spectrum”, although I’m sure there other varieties and names for this approach.

Here are a couple of examples of “painting the ends of the spectrum”:

• Trying to hone in on a direction related to strategy – In discussions with a client, framing the discussion by saying something to the effect of, “On the one spectrum, we can focus on simply reviewing the documents to make sure all parties understand. This will require a fairly short period of time. On the other end of the spectrum, we can work towards developing a common solution. Such an approach will require more time and strategy planning on our end.” This can be followed up by either the question, “Where on the spectrum are thinking we should be aiming for?” Alternatively depending on the bias you feel acceptable for the situation, you may indicate, “I think the former end of the spectrum is preferable. That said, what do you think?”
• Attempting to gauge direction on customer preference – The technique can often be used in primary market research or sales situations. Here you may ask, “On the one end of the spectrum you can have a solution that covers X, Y, and Z, and will meet your end needs (for a premium fee) of being able to sleep at night. On the other end of the spectrum, you can have a narrower solution that has smaller out-of-pocket fees and may require greater coordination and integration on your part. Which direction do you prefer and why?”

Painting the ends of the spectrum works in many situations, particularly if complexity is somewhat linear (i.e., moving from simple to complex). In some cases, you may find it useful to paint other colors in the middle of the spectrum too. I tend to find that this latter situation works more in written or visual presentations.

For those unfamiliar with Quora, it is one of the emerging “question and answer” sites on the Internet. Although its positioning is not quite clear to me yet, a point of difference relative to other sites (like Yahoo Answers) is that Quora integrates aspects of social networking technology. Throw in a carefully-honed, early-adopter market segment and some venture capital hype – the result for now seems to be a high-quality, professional dialogue hub.

In any case, I thought I’d share some answers I’ve provided to several management consulting and leadership questions posed on the site:

• What will be the most important skill for business during the next decade?
• What is the first step in opening a consulting business?
• What are the best management consulting books available in the market?
• What are some common stereotypes of consultants you find to be accurate?
• Why the client does not care if you have an MBA
• Are MBAs required for a startup to thrive and cross the chasm between ideation and execution?
• What metrics should be used to track the performance of a professional services organization?
• What is the first important question should a management consultant ask in a first client meeting?

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

As a consultant, 2010 has been an interesting year for me to reflect upon. I am thankful for the clients I have, and they have challenged me to perform my best in a very diverse set of circumstances and industries over the past couple of years.

What was particularly interesting this year was the mixture of smaller, project-based clients versus clients that had more of a retainer-based model engagement structure with me. These bookend engagement structures have different tradeoffs, and one thing that I developed an even deeper appreciation for was the ability to take a “project-based” perspective to either engagement structure.

Although I’m going to leave out an explicit definition of project-based thinking to provoke thought, for me here are some of the benefits I have seen:

• Since project life can end at any moment, fewer things are taken for granted
• Agile performance necessitates optimizing the communication and analysis organizational structures
• There is an increased focus on output and measureable results
• A focus on output in turn requires decisions to be made more quickly
• Excess capacity or process inefficiencies become more readily exposed
• A need for quicker decisions increases the need for management to articulate strategic tradeoffs more crisply
• There are often concrete efforts to balance benefits (e.g., revenue) against costs (e.g., expenses) and investment levels
• The goal of driving through a project can help break through barriers and challenge inertia often systemitized by a “corporate structure”
• A focus on project goals can help bring out the best leadership qualities of the project team.

What are your thoughts? To what extent can consultants, contractors, and employees be engaged with a project-based approach?