Bob Brown's Consulting Intelligence Briefings

Are digital coaches real consultants?

Seth Godin, in a post on his blog entitled “A shortage of digital coaches,” describes the absence of a certain type of individual – a digital coach. His thesis is that there are a large number of individuals and small businesses using an increasing array of digital technology that could be getting a much better return on their investment.

He posits that there is a huge market for people with the skills to “hear what you do and how you do it and then show you how to do it better.” He goes on to give examples, describing these digital coaches as “People who organize data and put it in the right place” and “People who overhaul the way small groups use technology so they can use it dramatically better.”

If such people existed and they were to charge $100 per hour -- or some set amount per day -- for their services, could they be considered true consultants? I think the answer is yes. Certainly the good ones would be more than temporary help, more than contractors. To be effective, these individuals would use both issues-based and solution-based consulting skills to move their clients further along the digital competency continuum.

Are these digital coaches around? Sure, but finding them and vetting them doesn’t seem to me to be an easy task at the present time. Simply having technology skills does not automatically equate to having consulting skills. In an effort to help make the desired connections, Seth has set up a Squidoo group for digital coaches.

Being both a consultant and small business owner, I’m intrigued by the possibility of bringing these skills to the marketplace in a rational manner. Is this a natural extension for The Geek Squad or Firedog, or are they already providing such services?

Finally, is this something the larger consulting firms might consider in an effort to provide a “starter service” to small businesses to get them familiar with their range consulting services – and hopefully turn them into long term customers?

Here Come “The Project Police”

On a previous post on this blog and on our firm’s web site, we’ve told the story about how the term “consulting cops” came into being. Today, after quite a bit of discussion, the name was changed.

As you’ll learn by reading the story, there was always some reservation on my part as to the use of the term “consulting cops” or “consulting police.” The phrase struck me as a bit negative, implying that all consultants were less than honest and ethical. That just isn’t the case; some are. The story behind the name is a great story, but he name just wasn’t right. We’ve now fixed that.

From now on, we’ll answer to “The Project Police.” A good portion of the work we do with clients is to help them resolve troubled projects that involve external (and occasionally internal) consultants. Objectively assessing troubled projects and getting them back on track is one of our primary skills.

We’ll still address troubled projects and we’ll still carry our badges. We’ll just be operating under a new – and more descriptive – name.

Beware of consultant’s myopia

When you engage a consultant, you want them to focus on your issues and not get distracted by things around them that would get in the way of their successfully completing their assignment.

However, there are limits to just how focused you want them to be. Sometimes, there are important – even urgent – things the consultant should be able to recognize while he or she is focusing on the task at hand.

News reports from Bedford Falls, New York (I don’t really think it’s THAT Bedford Falls) describe how a computer consultant, who was driving a rental car, was so focused on following the directions on the car’s GPS system that he neglected to notice that he was crossing a set of railroad tracks THAT CONTAINED A TRAIN HEADING RAPIDLY TOWARD HIM!

Apparently, after the car got stuck on the tracks, he realized his error and got out and tried to flag down the train's engineer. Reportedly, he jumped out of the way just in time and the train slammed into the car at 60 mph; pushing it more than 100 feet down the track in a spectacular and fiery crash

It seems the driver was issued a minor summons and that he and his rental car company would be liable for resultant damages, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The whole thing reminds me of some of the occasions where we’ve been called in to review a troubled project. However, in many of those projects, the consultants who were at fault didn’t even see “the train” before the project's fiery crash.

New Year. New Approach?

Do you or your organization ever use consultants?

If it’s true that over half of all consulting engagements fail to meet the originally defined objectives, what proactive approach will you be taking this year to improve your odds of getting a better return on your consulting investments?

More importantly, what do you think your competitors will be doing?

What is Procurement’s Role?

More than one speaker at Kennedy Information's Consulting Summit, which was held earlier this month in New York City, mentioned the emerging trend of the procurement department inserting itself into an organization's consultant acquisition process.

Formerly, the almost exclusive purview of CEOs and senior business unit leaders, the hiring of a consulting firm is beginning to involve the purchasing/procurement function at some organizations. Overall, this is good news; but with this nascent trend comes great opportunity as well as potential pitfalls.

The great opportunity is that procurement professionals will bring a thoughtful and rational rigor to the sourcing of consulting services. The potential pitfall is that some of these procurement professionals will simply focus their efforts on cost reduction at the expense of other just as important factors. Undoubtedly, cost is a big issue for any organization. It is made even more so by the reticence of some of the older and well-established strategy consulting firms to be more transparent in how their fees and charges are calculated.

But surveys by both Kennedy Information and Consulting Intelligence show that price alone is not the most important consideration of most clients.

Demonstrable experience and competence in: the consulting process, the type of industry and the type of issue to be addressed all typically rank higher when clients are asked what's really important in hiring a consultant.

The presence of the procurement professionals should be welcomed and can be of great service, provided they put in place processes to quantify and document relevant experience and competence. This will involve acquiring new skills to enable them to effectively assess experience and competence.

The one thing the procurement professionals can't do is dictate to their internal customers which firm – or team within a firm -- to use for a specific project . That decision must continue to be made by the responsible business unit executive.

Have a Question For Our Consulting Survey?

We’re now working on Part 2 of The 2007 Consulting Survey^SM, which will document the experiences consultants have had with their clients and how they feel about those experiences. Part 1 of this year's Survey, conducted in Aprol, documented the experiences clients have had with consultants and how they felt about those experiences.

If you’re a consultant – or a client of consultants – and would like to suggest a question to be included in Part 2, we would like to hear from you. Click here to send an email directly to our survey team.

As usual, a summary of the survey results will be made available at no charge to Survey participants. If you are a consultant and would like to ensure you receive an invitation, click here.

For more information about The Consulting Survey^SM, which is conducted by Consulting Intelligence and co sponsored by the American Management Association and the Institute of Management Consultants USA, click here.

Thoughts on the use -- and abuse -- of RFPs

Based on my experience, many organizations seem believe a primary reason for the RFP process is to deflect future blame if the winning consulting firm fails to perform successfully. After all, the consulting firm was the “winner” of a very robust evaluation process. It was their fault – certainly not the fault of the team that selected them – if the project runs into trouble or fails.

While the RFP process is often a robust evaluation process, it typically measures the wrong thing. What an RFP measures is the ability of a consulting firm to respond to an RFP. That may – or may not – have anything to do with their ability to help resolve the particular issue or issues you and your organization are facing.

The main reason I’m against RFPs is that many clients – or their procurement staff – think consultants and consulting firms are simply interchangeable. That just isn’t true. Consultants are people, with all the individual nuances and variability that implies. Included in that variability are the consulting firm’s “A” team members as well as the “E” team members (who may be on the way out the door but probably don’t yet know it). In addition, there are different individual specialties within consulting firms: strategy, project management; engagement management; data architectures; business analyst; business process reengineering; CRM, etc.

In our research, organizations have told us the most important determinant of success of a consultant-involved engagement was the makeup of the team of consultants supplied by the consulting firm. The next most important determinant of success was the makeup of the principal engagement participants from both the consultant’s side and the client’s side. The specific factors that client’s cited related to: experience, competence, attitude and chemistry. The successful teams – and thus engagements -- had experienced and competent personnel with a proactive and “can do” attitude and those teams demonstrated evidence of bonding based on transparency and mutual respect. These are things that can’t be defined or codified in an RFP or in a response to an RFP.

Often, many consultants or consulting firms could be of assistance. How do you select the “right” one? After following an appropriate process to narrow down the list of possible candidates, we recommend some sort of presentation by the consulting firms as to how they would address your specific issue. That will require the consulting firms invest some time in getting to know you and your organization. Not all will be willing to make the investment. The key is that YOU, as the future engagement sponsor must be willing to make the investment of time to meet with and educate the consulting firms you are seriously considering. If you have responsibility for the issue, it’s not something you can delegate.

While I am generally not a fan of RFPs, I am a huge fan of actual Proposals.

When you think you’ve got the right firm – and the potential of the right team within that firm – invite them to participate with you in the preparation of an engagement proposal that clearly defines the issue and the recommended solution approach. This should be a joint project which would involve your active participation. You should actively consider paying them for their time.

Then, you can evaluate the working relationship during the proposal crafting process. In an ideal situation, you’ll decide to go ahead after the jointly prepared proposal is finished. The money you have paid for the proposal is simply regarded as part of the overall total cost of project (TCOP). If the proposal falls short or you decide not to go ahead with the engagement, you have the benefit of a clearer understanding if the issue and of at least one possible solution approach.

I believe the proposal process is important – and the jointly prepared proposal is my preferred approach – because it brings two teams together to define the relevant issue(s) and craft a solution approach. It avoids having one side define the problem and then charging the other side with fixing the problem.

Often, the result is a document that more clearly defines the real issue(s) to be faced and a real world approach or approaches to resolving them. That's one way to begin an engagement. Unfortunately, many engagements begin with much less.

The Consulting SurveySM Website

We’ve just brought up the website for The Consulting Survey^SM. at www.theconsultingsurvey.com.

We believe this is the first annual, broad-based survey of both consultants and their clients.

Part 1 of the survey gathers information on the experiences individuals and organizations have had with consultants. This part will document key elements of client satisfaction, the perceived benefits – and risks – associated with engaging external consultants and the specific qualities that are considered most important when evaluating a new consultant.

Part 2 of the survey gathers information on the experiences that individual consultants and consulting firms have had with their clients. This part will document how consultants perceive the capability, competence and cooperativeness of their clients, the various approaches and methods they use when working with clients and the specific qualities they believe are the most important when deciding to work with a client.

On the new site you’ll find additional information on Part 1 – The Customer Survey and on Part 2 – The Consultant Survey. We also explain how the results of Part 1 will be presented in June at ConsultingWorld^TM, which is co-sponsored in 2007 by the American Management Association and the Institute of Management Consultants USA. Visit ConsultingWorld^TM at www.consulting-world.org.

For those consultants who might be interested, you can sign up to participate in Part 2 of the survey, scheduled to be open for input in September.

See you at ConsultingWorld^TM.

New and Improved Consulting Survey is Released

Our last survey on client’s satisfaction with their consultants -- released in December -- has just acquired a second life, but not before being substantially improved. Those of you who missed it have another opportunity. The survey, newly renamed The Consulting Survey (SM), has been expanded and will be open for online input until April 16, 2007 (see below).

The new survey, co-sponsored by the American Management Association and the Institute of Management Consultants USA, will measure key elements of client satisfaction with consultants’ performance; the perceived benefits – and risks – associated with engaging external consultants and the specific qualities that are considered most important when evaluating a new consultant. The survey will also measure clients’ perceptions of the trustworthiness of consultants compared to other professions. That could be interesting!

If you’re with an organization that uses consulting services, you’re invited to take the survey by clicking this link. In return for your generous contribution of about 10-15 minutes of your time, you can receive a copy of the survey results and, if you choose, two additional free reports on how to best select and use consultants.

If you’re a consultant, you’ll have your own opportunity to be heard later this year. We’ll be releasing a second, companion survey to measure consultants’ experiences with -- and perceptions of -- their clients. Look for that around June. I’ll make an announcement here when it’s ready for input.

Results of the first survey will be included in a presentation I’m scheduled to give at ConsultingWorld (TM) Grande Conference of the Americas, to be held June 24-26, 2007 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The conference is co-sponsored by the American Management Association and the Institute of management Consultants USA. My presentation is entitled, “It’s All About the Client.”

If you’re a consultant, I hope to see you there. For a pdf file of the conference brochure, click here.

Revealing a Consulting Client's Name

We've just posted an update to the "Our Clients" section of the Consulting Intelligence website.

Helping an organization resolve problems or issues relating to their use of external consultants or other professional services firms is the reason we exist.

We may help an organization locate an appropriate consultant and then assist them in negotiating their contract. We can also provide ongoing advice and counsel as the consulting engagement unfolds.

In other cases, a client engages us in to help them understand, acquire and use best practices for dealing with consultants. In these cases, we can provide various ways for them to access and benefit from our proprietary Consultelligence(sm) knowledgebase of best practices. We can also develop a plan to quickly transfer updates to our best practice knowledge directly to their internal team.

Often though, we're brought into difficult situations where the bond of trust between the client and their consultant has been eroded. Some situations could be characterized as "strained" at best. The project may be seriously behind the agreed to timelines or perhaps way over the original budget. Communication between the parties may be suffering as a result; or may have broken down completely.

These can be difficult -- and potentially dangerous -- times for any organization. When things are not going well, the last thing an organization wants is news of their problems to be widely known. At such times, the most important thing is to get the project back on track -- if it can be rescued -- or killed off quietly. Swift and decisive measures, conducted in a discreet manner are called for. We understand this.

To protect our client's interests in those difficult situations, the news of which might negatively impact an organization's reputation, we have adopted a simple approach to publicly identifying our clients. Our policy is consistent, regardless of the services we provide an organization.

Consulting Intelligence does not disclose the names of its clients. If asked, we will neither confirm nor deny that an organization is -- or has ever been -- a client of our firm.

We recognize the value of being considered a trusted advisor to our clients. We take that trust -- and the responsibility that goes with it -- very seriously.

Given the type of special kind of consulting practice we have, this is how we address the issue of publicly identifying our clients. Would you do it any differently?