MANAGEMENT CONSULTANCY

MODULE ONE

THE LEARNING CONTEXT

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

LESSON 1

THE SKILLS OF THE CONSULTANT

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES At the end of the lesson, you should be able to: recognize the nature of consulting as a management task appreciate the effective management consultant skills

DISCUSSION Management consulting is, as its title suggests, a management activity. But it is a special form of management. Many would regard it as one of the most exciting management challenges. It is certainly one of the most demanding. The upside of this is that it can also be one of the most rewarding not just financially but also in terms of task enjoyment, achievement, satisfaction and intellectual stimulation. A management consultant is rewarded for going into an organization and undertaking a special project on its behalf. Usually the organization is a profit-motivated commercial venture. But it does not have to be. Consultants are also called upon to offer their services to non-profit organizations such as charities. Governmental and non-governmental organizations, whether local, national or international, also make frequent calls on the skills of management consultants. The types of projects undertaken by consultants are as varied as management itself. They may involve the proffering of technical expertise. They may be softer and aim at generating cultural change within the organization. They may have the objective of resolving internal conflicts within the organization. They may be concerned with helping the organization build relationships with outside parties. They may aim to help the organization gain some critical resources. They can be focused on some specific issues which have been recognized by the organizations management and have been well defined. Often, though, they are of a broad business development nature. Most will involve gathering and analyzing information and sharing discoveries with the organization. Usually the management consulting project is undertaken over a relatively short time scale-say weeks, or, at most, a few months. Increasingly, however projects with a longer timescale (up to a year or more) are in demand.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

In short, a management consultant offers his management abilities, expertise and insights to the client business in order to create value for it. Consulting activity is something that the client business decides to buy in. It represents a factor that managers decide they need in order to progress their business and improve its performance. As a factor that is bought in, consulting activity competes with all the other factors a business must buy in if it is to grow: money for investment, people and their skills, raw materials and the equipment necessary to deliver what the business offers. The client will only find the service the consultant is offering attractive if it is something that the business cannot provide for itself. Further, it must be the best investment option to offer given all the other things the business could buy in. In order to meet the challenge of managing the consulting project the consultant must develop a skill profile which allows him to call upon abilities in three key areas: an ability to manage the consulting exercise as a formal project: an ability to manage the analytical skills necessary to gain an understanding of the client business and the possibilities it faces an ability to communicate ideas and positively influence others These three areas represent distinct types of management skill. Learning and using them can be supported by a variety of concepts and techniques. These concepts and techniques are drawn from a wide range of management disciplines and traditions. However, it should not be forgotten that the effective consultant can not only call upon skills in each of these areas but integrate them into a seamless whole of management practice. We can picture these three skill areas working together as illustrated in Figure 1.1

Figure 1.1 The skills of the consultant

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

The following provide an overview of the three consulting areas: 1) Project management skills A consulting exercise is a self-contained project within a business environment. The best results are achieved if the consulting exercise is managed as such. Important project management skills include the following. 1.1 An ability to define objectives and outcomes 1.2 An ability to develop formal plans 1.3 An ability to sequence and prioritize tasks 1.4 An ability to manage the financial resources that are to be invested in the consulting project 1.5 An ability to recognize the human expertise necessary to deliver the project 1.6 An ability to manage personal time 2) A consulting exercise must do something for the client business. It must offer the business the chance of moving from where it is now to somewhere new and better. This demands both an analysis of the businesss current situation and an analysis of the opportunities open to it. Analysis involves taking information about the business and its situation and then processing that information so that effective decisions may be made from it. General analysis skills include the following. 2.1 An ability to identify what information is available in a particular situation 2.2 An ability to identify what information is needed in a particular situation 2.3 An ability to process that information to identify the important relationship within it 2.4 An ability to draw meaning from that information and use it to support decision making 2.5 An ability to recognize the businesss profile of strengths, weakness and capabilities 2.6 An ability to recognize the opportunities and challenges the environment offers the business 2.7 An ability to assess the businesss financial situation 2.8 An ability to evaluate the businesss markets and how they are developing 2.9 An ability to assess the businesss internal conditions 2.10 An ability to analyze the way in which decision making occurs within the business

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

3) Relationship-building skills Analysis skills offer an insight into where the client business might go. Project management skills offer an ability to deliver the project necessary to move the business forward. However, these skills are only of very limited use if the client firms management and influential outsiders cannot be convinced that this is the right way to go and that they should offer their support to the project and the direction it offers. Gaining this support demands relationship-building skills. Some critical relationship-building skills include the following. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 An ability to build rapport and trust with the client An ability to question effectively An ability to communicate ideas succinctly and precisely An ability to negotiate objectives and outcomes. An ability to convince through verbal, written and visual mediums An ability to use information to make a case for a particular course of action An ability to develop selling strategies An ability to work effectively as a member of a team An ability to demonstrate leadership

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

LEARNING ACTIVITIES Answer the following and submit a typewritten report. 1) Discuss the type/s of projects a consultant undertakes in your company. 2) Project management and analysis skills are limited in use if you lack the relationshipbuilding skills. Explain.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

LESSON 2

ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGY

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES At the end of the lesson, you should be able to: understand what can active learning strategy is appreciate the benefits an active learning strategy offers recognize the four stages of the experiential learning cycle apply an active learning approach to the consulting project

DISCUSSION Learning is a process which enables a manager to make the right decisions in the light of the particular aspects of a situation and desired objectives. Sometimes a manager will use a particular idea or concept top make sense of a situation and formulate a course of action. Such a formal approach to decision-making is very important in management. At other times, and quite frequently, a manager will make decisions without using formal concepts. The decision making appears to be on an intuitive basis. What is really happening here is that the concepts the manager is using to evaluate the situation and formulate the decision are so well known and understood by him that he feels no need to bring the concepts up to the conscious mind before they are used.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

Understanding an idea at such level is a result of what is known as deep learning. This means that any knowledge gained is understood in such a way that not only can it be recalled but it can be called upon almost intuitively to make sense of some situation. It can be used to develop a real understanding of that situation and can be used to support effective decision making in response to it. (see Figure 1-2)

Figure 1-2 Dynamic learning of management skills Active learning is an approach which aims to make the most out of any learning experience by encouraging the learning to occur at a deep level. It is a philosophy of learning developed by Kolb in 1978. Active learning turns conscious learning of formal ideas in to effective management tools that support good practice as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Figure 1-3 The experiential learning cycle Active learning is a very natural way to learn. It reflects the way we learn in a general sense from our experiences. Approaching it in a conscious manner just makes it more efficient. A good way to approach active learning is through the experiential learning cycle. This cycle has effective learning we shall explore each stage in depth.
______________________________________ Management Consultancy

Analysis - is the process through which we make sense of a situation. It is what we engage in before making a decision. Though this process sounds rather formal we should not forget that we use analysis all the time. When we cross a road, for example, we analyze the situation by looking to make sure that there are no cars coming. There are different levels of analysis. Some are relatively informal, others are more formal. Some use quite simple rules, others very complex ones. The way in which particular rules are used in order to achieve an analysis are referred to as the analysis strategy. The type of analysis strategy adopted depends on six factors: a) t he complexity of the situation faced, b) experience of the decision maker, c) the formal knowledge the decision maker can call upon, d) t he significance of the decision, e) the cognitive style of the decision maker, f) pressure to justify the decision to others. Experience - the experience stage is the one in which the learner actually with specific situations, makes decisions, implements them and experiences the resulting outcomes. Experience is about using the knowledge you have. It is the actual doing stage of the learning cycle. Reflection - reflection represents an examination of a decision and an evaluation of the effects resulting from that decision: its outcomes. This has two main parts. The first is considering the decision taken and seeing how it relates to the outcomes that have occurred. The second is considering the desirability of those outcomes and whether they are the outcomes one would seek again in the future. Planning planning is the stage which makes use of the investment in analysis, action and reflection. It is concerned with deciding what moves to make in the future. Planning is the process of making a decision as to the best way to approach a situation the next time it is encountered.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

LEARNING ACTIVITY

Identify an are of knowledge or expertise that you have developed. This might be an interest or hobby. Consider how you went about learning this. How much formal learning took place? On reflection, did you use active learning even if you didnt recognize it at the time? Give a brief presentation of your reflections. Submit a typewritten report to your professor.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

10

LESSON 3

STRATEGIES FOR ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF CONSULTANTS

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES At the end of the lesson, you should be able to: appreciate assessment strategies used for evaluating consulting exercises recognize the way in which the assessment procedure can be used positively to guide the consulting exercise appreciate the fact that consulting is a team activity and that rewards must be earned on a team basis

DISCUSSION The assessment of consulting exercises Consultants are assessed by their performance in gaining and running consulting projects and delivering their agreed outcomes on time and on budget. Specific elements that will be considered in the assessment of a consultants performance will be: selling the consulting exercise to clients and gaining new business; defining projects and agreeing objectives to the satisfaction of the client; delivering outcomes in a way that meets (or better exceeds) the clients expectations; contributions to the growth and development of the consultants own business organization.

The assessment of a student consulting exercise must reflect these concerns. It provides an assessment that is realistic. In doing so it highlights the important elements of the learning experience. It will ensure that the skills developed on the exercise are genuinely transferable to professional context. This assessment is individual. Ultimately, of course, a managers organization is assessed by the highly competitive market place for management skills. And this is an assessment of the firm as a whole. The manager succeeds or fails as a member of a team. Team working must be recognized as an element of assessment and effective team working rewarded.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

11

Assessment of the project proposal The project proposal is a critical part of the consulting process. The proposal defines the scope, objectives and outcomes of the project. It is the formal declaration of what the project will achieve for the client. It is critically important that what the project aims to achieve is both unambiguous and understood by the client and consultant team. What makes the client satisfied with what a consultant delivers is not so much the outputs but the outputs relative to expectations. A good consulting exercise will still be disappointing if the clients initial expectations were too high. This can be very frustrating for the consultant team, especially when the outputs delivered are, on their own terms, good. So t he project proposal is more than just a statement of what the project will achieve. It provides a look for managing the clients expectations. Some of the elements that will be examined for assessment purposes are: Are the objectives will defined? Are the outputs the ones which the client will appreciate and value? Are they appropriate, given the opportunities and challenges the business client faces? Are they realistic, given the resources available to the consultant team? Are they achievable, given the skills and abilities of the consulting team? Are they phrased in a way which will have an impact on, and which is comprehensible to, the client? Do they reflect real discussion between the client and consultant team? The project proposal need not be a long document. Many would argue that is should be no longer than one page. However, despite being short, the project proposal is the platform on which the consulting exercise is built. For this reason it is worth while investing a good deal of time, energy and though in the proposal. A good proposal gets the exercise off to a strong start. A weak one will hamper the project at the outset. There is a real danger it will never catch up! Assessment of the final report The final report is the means by which the consultancy team deliver thief findings and recommendations to the client. It is the product a consultant offers. It is through the final report that the consultant is judged. The final report is usually presented in a written format and may be backed up with a presentation using visual aids. There are as many forms of final report as there are types of consulting project.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

12

There are a number of elements by which the final report might be evaluated. These include: Background research. Is the research based on a full and proper evaluation of the business, it situation and its environment? Evidence of understanding and insights. Does the report reflect a genuine understanding of the issues the business is trying to address and a positive attempt to come up with innovative solutions? Effective use of conceptual frameworks to generate insights and understandings. Have the theories and formal models that are available to guide business thinking and to assist in innovation been called on and used properly? Quality of recommendations. Are the recommendations innovative? Are they right for the business? Actionability of recommendations. Are the recommendations practical and do they make a call to action for the business? Organization of the report. Is it easy to find important information and findings? Does the report build an argument for the final recommendations in a logical and coherent manner? Quality of presentation. grammatical errors? Does the report look professional? Is it free of spelling and

Use of language to sell ideas. Is the language appropriate for the client? Does it strike the right tone? Will it motivate the client to implement the recommendations? Use of visual devices. Are visual devices, diagrams and charts used to good effect in aiding communication? The critical element that underlies all evaluation, though, must be: Does the final report actually deliver what the project proposal said would be delivered? That is: Have the original objectives been met and have the stated outcomes been achieved? If not will the client be disappointed by the result?

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

13

Assessment of the project log The project log is a personal record of the project. Its main use is as a place where reflection on the learning experience can be undertaken. Some important elements in the assessment will be: Is it a true and an accurate record of the project? Does it reflect attention to the objectives and outcomes of the project as a whole and specific stages within it? Is there reflection on negative experiences, an attempt to understand what went wrong and how the mistake can be avoided in the future? Is there reflection on the dynamics of the team and how team members work together? Is there reflection on your own style of management, how you motivate other members of the team and how you might develop you leadership style? Remember, there are no marks to be lost through being honest about the project and your performance on it in the project log. There are marks to be gained if you offer evidence that you are using the project as a positive opportunity to learn actively.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

14

LEARNING ACTIVITIES Answer the following and submit a typewritten report. 1) Explain why a project proposal is a critical part pf the consulting process.

2) What is the importance of assessment strategies used for evaluating consulting exercises.

______________________________________ Management Consultancy

15