1. Clarifying the Consulting Role
- Understanding the need for consulting services
- Identifying barriers to consulting success
- Exploring various consulting approaches and strategies
- 5-Step Consulting Process
- Guidelines for successful consulting engagements
2. Initiating and Managing Consulting Engagements
- Qualifying client motivation and level of commitment
- Clarifying business issues, potential solutions, and desired outcomes
- Identifying and assessing risk(s)
- Establishing and maintaining credibility
- Managing stakeholder expectations
- Determining strategy and approach
- Identifying milestones and estimating workload, capabilities
- Forming and leading teams
- Writing a research proposal, terms of reference, and business case
3. Understanding and Influencing Client Thinking
- Understanding differences in people’s personalities and styles
- Identifying our own thinking and behavioural tendencies
- Using physiology to expand our communication range
- Narrowing perceived inter-personal gaps to create rapport
- Questioning technique
- Active listening
- Body Language
4. Gathering Information
- Understanding various methods and selection criteria
- Designing surveys
- Planning and conducting interviews
- Facilitating workshops and focus groups
- Document search and other support methods
- Managing discussions and taking notes
- Ethics and legal issues
5. Data Analysis
- Quantitative versus qualitative methods
- Quality issues – reliability, validity, generalisability, and triangulation
- Discerning patterns in data and handling extremes
- Looking for disconfirming evidence
- Distilling findings: issues, causes, impacts, and solutions
6. Information Presentation
- Representing raw data
- Confidentiality
- Report writing
- Audience analysis
- Presentation design, flow strategy, and framing
7. Engagement Close-Out
- Cross-checking back to initial Brief and Proposal (promised deliverables)
- Review of effort versus plan
- Presentation delivery skills
- Objection handling
- Gaining commitment and moving to the next step
8. Generating Opportunities
- Being proactive versus reactive
- Identifying consulting opportunities
- Reviewing the Services ‘sales’ process
- Value propositions
- Differentiation
- Defending rate / charges
- Relationship management
- Phasing and generating re-buy
9. Continuing the Consulting Journey
- Reviewing material covered and relevant reading
- Future advanced skills programs and one-on-one coaching