Management Consulting – Page 3

June 15, 2009

Perspectives On Providing Feedback On Client Staff To Client Management As A Consultant

Dustin Thostenson raises an interesting (and dicey) question in his Twitter log as to "how honest should your feedback be of full-timers to their mgr when it is requested?"

My general rule of thumb on this topic is to:

tread very carefully
try to avoid commenting on staff, but
if you must comment, be *clinical* and precise on the context and the limitations of your observation or interaction with staff (make sure you think through both positives and negatives of client staff performance)

Here's are some reasons for my thinking:

a consultant is usually an outsider and does not have to live with the implications of giving positive or negative feedback
observation periods are often short (since limited to a subset of the engagement period, which may be days or weeks)
consultants are often hired to address a particular problem statement for the client, and unless the charter was to evaluate employees (which in most cases it is not except for niche practices or statements of work) then your perspectives may not be grounded enough
consulting engagements often require working up and down the chain of organizational structure, and your reputation and effectiveness as a consultant could be damaged if people think that you are talking about them or evaluating them "behind their backs"
you must be extra careful that you have not been unduly biased (e.g., prior to the evaluation request) by either the client sponsor or other significant players in the client organization.

That said, a fear may be that the client sponsor will not look to you as a trusted adviser if you do not provide your perspectives. Many consultants would argue that the client is paying you good money and that you need to provide your perspectives. The ground can be tough here. Be clinical, think through pros and cons, and couch your caveats. Above all, act responsibly and ethically.

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June 3, 2009

Candid Interview With Will Weider On Consulting (From A Customer Point Of View)

This past week, I had the opportunity to speak with Will Weider, CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System, about using consultants. His perspectives are interesting because they are from a customer’s vantage point – not from a consultant’s viewpoint. Will Weider is author of the one of the earliest CIO blogs on the Internet, the famed “Candid CIO” blog.

Steve: Will, thanks for talking with me. As a management consultant myself, I’ve approached you for a “candid” view on using consultants. I am interested in constantly improving the practice of consulting and management. Hopefully this interview will shed light for both consultants to improve their practices and peer organizations of yours to improve their selection and use of consultants. To that end, when do you look to consultants, and what do you look for in consultants?

Will: There has to be a specific reason for using a consultant, and my philosophy is to use consultants as little as possible. A couple of thoughts immediately come to mind. The first is that consultant costs can give me heartburn (e.g., when comparing loaded hourly rates of internal staff against the consultant). Now as context, it is infrequent that my organization does not have the skillset to either get a project done or solve a particular problem. A second perspective is that I have had some disappointing consulting engagements where the results have fallen short of my expectations. Part of the blame may fall on the consulting firm which may oversell themselves in order to get a deal done. Some of the missed expectations may be in part that the buyer has elevated expectations when using a consultant.

Steve: Do you have any thoughts on aligning an organization and its expectations when using consultants?

Will: I’ve found that the worst time to use consultants is when my organization is saturated. A client organization needs capacity to bring the consultant on board, ramp them up, manage them, provide feedback, etc. As an example, if I have estimated a project at requiring 100 hours to do internally, then I may need to allocate 125 hours when accounting for budget and overhead of managing the consultant. As far as aligning expectations, I have mostly seen consultants provide incremental value as opposed to exponential value and miraculous benefits as marketed. Consultants can get oversold on their value proposition too easily. I also wanted to note that some consultant agreements have unacceptable terms, rivaling those of my software vendors. These include such terms as up-front payment, termination clauses and advance notice requirements, etc. Where these terms go in the new environment we are in is still to be determined, but they have to be more client-favorable.

Steve: What kind of advice can you provide on using consultants?

Will: For me, the best time to use a consultant is when you need a 3^rd party advisor. For example, suppose there is a big, multimillion dollar project going off course. A consultant with the right background can provide an independent project audit. Our needs are aligned when using the consultant in this manner. We need a specific skillset (perhaps not a scarce resource), we don’t have time (e.g., because we have 60-70 projects going on), we need a fresh look, and we need an independent view. This is the perfect type of situation for a consultant because the scope is well-defined, the scope is narrow and the timetable is short.

Steve: Great insights, thank you. Changing gears bit, I think readers may be interested in your views on the federal stimulus package and its impacts on consultants.

Will: The package has clear intent, but everyone is still waiting for the clinical IT requirements to be defined on both the medical group and hospital/ambulatory side. Less than 2% of hospitals have real Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE), so once the requirements are defined, there may be a flood of work for implementation consultants with CPOE and specific Hospital Information Systems (HIS) expertise. I’ve estimated tens of millions of dollars of eligibility for our provider organizations (medical groups and hospitals). We are working with a number of vendors and suppliers to plan for various scenarios so we qualify for these funds and deliver on the President’s vision for a more efficient and effective health care system. It’s all a new process – I’m not sure that anyone has an “inside track” as to how to get these funds.

Steve: Terrific info. Let’s change gears again and cover social media. How have things changed since 2005 when we first met via the blogging world?

Will: These days I use both Twitter and blogging, although there has been some shift towards using Twitter. I will say that consultants that I use have connected with me via social media. Some of these consultants demonstrate their expertise to me for free before I use them. These consultants may be those that are helping me with technology, preparing for swine flu impacts on my organization, or other dynamic areas. Consultants that are confident in their abilities to provide value are not afraid to pursue either risk-free or non-traditional models for engaging me.

Steve: Will, this has been a great dialogue, and I appreciate your candor for the benefit of the business community. Thanks for your time.

Will: Steve, thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed.

Will Weider is CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System, and his blog is at the Candid CIO at http://candidcio.com.

Steve Shu is a management consultant focusing on organizations that use technology, and his blog is at http://steveshu.typepad.com.

May 1, 2009

Blog Interview On Consulting For Chicago Booth Corporate Strategy and Management Group

I did a blog interview for the Chicago Booth Corporate Strategy and Management Group (student-run organization for part-time and evening program). The interview (link here) covers areas such as typical week in the life of an independent consultant, common problems currently facing clients, and the most helpful MBA training I received at Chicago.

Aside from the fund raising item I mentioned in the interview section on current client issues, I also shared the following (which characterizes one current client philosophy on approaching prospective consulting projects):

… The other theme I have been seeing more of is in the operational process improvement area. The themes here, however, have not been so much around improving profits as they have been about weathering the economic storm and making improvements that increase either customer satisfaction or quality of services and products. Clients, on the balance, are more conservative right now. Whereas the smart executives and managers may have been going for broke before and taking bigger chances, they now see making continuous improvements as a must-do (not necessarily demonstrating immediate margin or revenue improvement until after the storm lifts). As additional light, some executives are missing their revenue numbers in the current (bad) market climate, but they are making their net profit numbers. These companies are using the stable net profits as their bulletproof vest with their Boards while using consultants in very targeted ways or in controlled “entrepreneurial experiments” to help build for the future.

As an independent consultant, I increasingly need to use my network to read the market (as opposed to having information flow to me from "The Firm". Don't know whether others are seeing similar things or not. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

April 9, 2009May 30, 2015

Crash Course Consulting Reading List

Readers of this post may be interested in The Consulting Apprenticeship (update May 30, 2015).

Situation: You are stuck on a desert island with no lifeline access. What are the essential books and tools you need for management consulting?

Well, I can’t say that I have a complete list compiled, but here is a crash course consulting reading list (PDF doc) that I have provided in the past to new consultants (including experienced professionals new to consultative methods) as bread-and-butter references and knowledge areas. May provide ~80% coverage of a core foundation for general management consulting. Perhaps it is of use to new consultants and/or those looking to develop their consulting practices. I know that this list could probably use expansion and updating – I tried to create a list that was based on pre-packaged, ready-to-go stuff, and there are some limitations with that method.

Please feel free to post in the comments section any other sources you think others may find useful.

Update (8/3/09): Updated the reading list a little. For example, I included some blogs from traditional management consultants that shed light on the practice and industry.

Update (8/21/09): Updated the list to include some strategy books and other books recommended by consultants.

Update (9/1/09): Updated the list to include the latest versions of two of the best professional services sales books ever (by Ford Harding). If you are a professional services or consulting organization and could use help and/or an introduction to Ford, feel free to let me know, and I can broker a connection.

Update (2/3/2010): Got some great feedback from Florian Hollender at Killer Consultant. Based on his feedback and some other things on my mind, I updated the consulting reading list. Includes more updated blog and book references to Michael McLaughlin‘s material, some links on client facilitation, and books on negotiations and innovation. The reading list also includes some more consulting blogs.

April 9, 2009

How A Consulting-Style CV Differs From A Traditional Resume

Management consultants often create CVs that are included in firm directories or as addendums to proposals to clients. The structure of these CVs often differ significantly from that of traditional, chronological resumes used to apply for jobs – namely "consulting-style CVs" are used to highlight project experience and either functional skills or focus areas. This is in line with a consultant's desire to land projects and fill temporary skill gaps in a client organization as opposed to landing a permanent position within an organization. It is also in line with sales processes for consultants – a big part of the purchase evaluation process by clients is whether a consultant has "done it before" as opposed to getting a comprehensive chronology of employment.

Consulting CVs often cover the following areas:

Brief background (e.g., position or role in firm, industry background)
Functional expertise and skill areas
Sample consulting engagements
Education background and/or prior employer background

A consulting CV can vary depending on many things such as:

whether a named consultant is to be presented (e.g., versus representative consultant)
confidentiality requirements
where one is at in terms of the marketing, sales, or contracting process
the desired project that one is trying to sell into (e.g., CV may try to focus more narrowly as opposed to being broad)
how the consultant is to be positioned relative to other consultants on the project and the engagement workstreams
culture of consulting firm
culture of client
treatment of publications
treatment of consulting practice areas
years of consulting experience (e.g., positioning new consultants versus more experienced ones)

Here's a link to my consulting CV (PDF file), and it is provided as an example only since I have found few public examples or references in consulting books on the consulting-style CV. I do not claim that this CV is best in class, primarily because a CV should be tailored for context and impact. For example, some resume folks would argue that one use more situation-, task-, action-, result-type characterizations in the project descriptions and use more active voice. I totally agree with those characterizations and strategies at a block-and-tackle level. The purpose of this post is to highlight the macro-level difference of a typical, consulting-style CV that I have seen used in different firms. A core difference is on the emphasis on projects rather than chronology or functions.

Edit (4/9/09): I am not an expert on resumes. For those that want information on writing better resumes and getting permanent consulting jobs, a great site to visit is Management Consulted.

March 15, 2009

An Example of Consulting Engagement Workstreams

The term "workstream" is often used in consulting, but offhand I cannot think about where it is defined for new consultants to reference. A workstream is not a fancy concept, yet it is an important construct that often has ties to consulting proposals, engagement management and division of labor, and processes used with the client. Note that not all consulting firms will characterize workstreams the same way that I describe them here, but I have found similar structures used in a number of consulting organizations that I have worked with.

What is a workstream, and where does it fit in the context of a consulting engagement? Let's start with the latter question first.

A consulting engagement is often framed around solving a specific problem statement for a client. In a prior post on articulating problems statements, I hinted that a consulting problem statement usually must be decomposed into smaller problems statements.

To answer these problems statements, the consultants usually need to put together a set of engagement activities that provide the frame for answering the overaching problem statement and subproblem statements. Engagement activities are often grouped together in coarse groupings often running in parallel. These coarse groupings are called "workstreams", and each workstream often has prime consultant and prime client point. The structure is pretty much in line with standard project management practices, but key adds from a consulting perspective are the problem statement and consultant-client touch points. See the figure below which has four workstreams covering strategy, technology, finance, and business plan development.

As additional context, the problem statement for the above engagement was to help the client develop a business strategy and plan for entering the market as a new entrant in the wireless network and applications provider space. So as an example, the first (top) workstream is geared towards helping the client determine what business model and applications should be investigated in more detail by brainstorming on services and looking at the competitive envionment for plausible and defensible openings.

To close off this post, I think that it's important to note that the cadence and regular review structure with the client (e.g., see milestones at bottom of figure above relative to workstreams) are important processes. See my prior post illustrating why in consulting the process is an essential part of the deliverable. Readers may also want to refer to an earlier post I had on engagement managers (who own the entire set of workstream above) and the essence of management consulting.

February 20, 2009

Good Find and Thoughts on Management Consulting and Recruiting in 2009

Gautam Ghosh has both a good find and interesting comments on management consulting recruiting in the current environment. A few themes permeate his post: 1)laser-specific recruiting, 2) hybrid experience, and 3) focus on productivity. I can't really comment on #1, but as for #2, I have known a number of ex-consultants return to their prior consulting firms after having left once for operating companies (in some cases, the returns have been even more numerous than once). For whatever reason, returning to your prior firm (or even to the consulting field again for that matter) used to be much more rare. On #3 regarding productivity experience, this has been confirmed by account executives that I work in conjunction with – the turndown in the global economy has really created a stronger demand for those with operations or cost reduction experience (over other areas such as growth managers).

Update 2/20/09: An older post of mine that may be interesting to reflect on in a down market … "Don't Become An 80s Rock Drummer"

January 30, 2009

Personal Account of 1 Year of Blog Atrophy

It's been over a year since my last post. At the beginning of 2008, I basically burned out on blogging. My hands hurt, I developed other interests, there were too many blogs out there, and I needed to spend more time with my family. None of that has changed for me, but outside of those areas there are some things that have changed that are making me reconsider blogging again on a more regular basis:

Need to stay up-to-date with the times on a professional basis: In 2005, I noted that blogging as a corporate skillset was in its infancy. In 2009, I got feedback that I should have included my blog address on my CV/resume. In 2009, I also ran into a marketing and sales situation where expertise with social networking tools was a key differentiating need.
Need to feed my support structure and network on a passive basis: By suspending my blog, I lost some touch with my larger family, relatives, and friends. Now as context, I don't just keep in touch with these people via computer technologies. That said, content on my blog helped to keep my network passively in touch. It also helped to serve as a conversation piece when we got to talk live.
Need to stay up-to-date with technology on an active basis: When I was blogging, I was much more in the know about social networking tools and their real implications (social and economic). Now, my knowledge has become a little stale on things like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I'm sure that refreshing my knowledge will be like riding a bike, in that it all comes back to you, but having been away for one year, I have been feeling more disconnected with the power and pulse of the Internet community.

Each year I have reconsidered my motivations for blogging and the angle that I would take. Do others have observations about their own experiences in the past year?

Bonus link: For readers interested in consulting, there's a new management consulting blog by ex-McKinseyite Kevin Gao at http://managementconsulted.com. Looks like a very unique stopping point on the web in the consulting space.