Better Consulting Engagement Outcomes

January 22nd, 2012

Whether you are a consultant yourself or a manager who leverages these professionals to help you in solving people, process, or technology management challenges, it is part of normal business practice to utilize consulting engagements to accomplish certain goals and objectives. As a manager or a career professional, it is likely you have, or will, engage with consultants (or even act as one) throughout your career. Hence, we have an abundant source of reference when entertained by corporate humors such as Dilbert and the movie Office Space. Having performed the roles of both management consultant and corporate manager, I believe there is something to be said about how both roles can improve upon how they approach consulting engagements that can increase the values and outcomes for organizations.

Understandably, as a consultant, time is cost. More often than not, when the engagement starts, the deliverables, revenue, and time lines are pretty much carved in stone. Therefore, the less the deviations from the statement of work, or the initial agreed upon plan, the better consultants can ensure profitability. This means, in dealing with undisclosed or undiscovered variables (scopes) that may cause deviations during engagement execution after signing the deal, it is more economical to minimize considerations and inclusions of these newly identified variables. Of course, a smart consultant will leverage these opportunities to pitch sales, but that is another subject for another time. However, variables that can potentially impact an engagement plan established early on usually are the important ones because if it has the ability to deviate execution, they may very well be the reasons the organization can’t achieve the outcome by themselves thus seek consulting services for help in the first place. After all, as a consultant, shouldn’t success be measured by the outcomes in terms of sustainable values instilled into the organizations’ operations throughout the entire process of the engagement? As opposed to simply checking off tangible deliverables in the contract with dates attached and call it soup.

As a corporate manager, who employs these professional services, obviously when we do decide to leverage consultants through engagements for various people, process, or technology management challenges we wish to overcome, taking the organization or operations from point A to point B, we are motivated (and most times desperate) for solutions and business outcomes. The sooner the engagement can deliver the contractual deliverables and desired outcomes, the sooner we can reap the benefits of the result. Face it, as a corporate manager, every improvement plan, strategy, and initiative to increase people, process and technology efficiency and/or productivity should have been done yesterday. Therefore, it is easy for corporate managers to focus on all the problem areas (point A) and see only the positives of what the consultants or the engagements will ultimately deliver (point B) at the end of the engagement, and overlook what it won’t account for during the actual engagement processes – the detailed approach and feasible methods of getting from point A to point B. As any seasoned manager can attest, the path is what makes or breaks reaching the desired outcomes for any project or initiative. Simply put, it is academic to define the problems at point A and state the solutions for point B, but the line between the two points, or strategy, is the key for most consulting engagements.

Below is a graphical representation of the ‘points’ made:

So if we were to take an engagement scenario and walk through the process, it usually starts with the consultant identifying and/or assessing the current state of the business or operation in question. This phase is commonly known as the ‘as-is’ state (point A). This step can take many forms such as performing a snap shot of metrics and reviewing measurements from the business operation, or through more interactive ways such as interviews, surveys, and/or observation by the consultant. The desired outcome from the engagement can either be well-defined objectives by the corporate manager as part of the reason for the engagement, or recommendations by the consultants based on their ‘as-is’ analysis where finding of deficiencies becomes the desired outcome in the ‘to-be’ state (point B). Armed with this information, the consultant and corporate manager can talk up a storm about employing industry standards, best practices, and changes that need to be made in order to reach the promised land of where all the deficiencies of point A are to be resolved in the ‘to-be’ picture. With both sides motivated, it then becomes a mad dash between the points. And my ninth grade geometry teacher would be proud to hear me say this: “the path usually employed as the strategy is following the shortest distance between two points – a straight line”.

Let us now take a step back from this scenario and analyze it a bit by taking a closer look at the line (strategy) between the two points. Is a straight line the only approach? Is there another option to reaching point B? Of course there is. In fact, there could be as many as depicted in the graphic illustration below.

The curved lines, illustrated in the above figure, show option 1 and option 2, and simply mean the strategy is employing a phased approach to either amplify its progress during onset of the engagement (option 1), or ramping up for a J-curve incline at later phases (option 2). Of course there could be a more feasible approach anywhere between these two options presented, or even more ideal than a straight line strategy. As stated earlier, how the strategy is formed to progress through the two points is what ultimately decides if the desired outcome is actually reached, or if the engagement simply is a checklist exercise between the two parties. So this bears the next question: what influences the strategy formation to determine optimal approach between the points? Well, we now circle back to the variables mentioned earlier that are often overlooked during engagement planning, but have the potential of deviating the engagement plan and/or outcomes. The illustration below provides an example of various potential variables that influence engagement strategy.

As you can see, there can be many variables, unique to every organization, that are less structured, difficult to measure, and difficult to accurately assess through snap shots and/or surveys to be accounted for but yet have high potential to impact execution of any strategy. Therefore, a more optimal shape of the strategy line can be better formulated through taking these variables into consideration, factoring their level of influence, probability of occurrence, severity of impact to the progress, etc. Once again we circle back to the fact that accounting for these variables during an engagement is not in the best interests of a consultant, but yet it is the key to a successful engagement for both parties.

As a consultant, a common statement I make to my clients is, “you are not unique as many organizations face the same challenges”. However, this is only a partially accurate statement. Different organizations may display the same problems in their ‘as-is’ state of people, process and technology management, and wish to reach the similar outcomes at the ‘to-be’ state, but the variables preventing them from doing it themselves most likely are very different. Since strategy and execution account for most of the engagement duration and cost, I have realized this statement is actually incorrect; every organization is unique regardless of how many organizations I’ve consulted for. Therefore, the strategy for each organization most likely has to be different, otherwise it is simply academic where there are plenty of books and Google search results that can answer all our management challenges and show us the path to overcome the challenges without leveraging consultants. I am guilty of having allowed myself to fall into this problem at either side of the engagement throughout my career, and this is not to say that there aren’t any consultants and/or corporate managers who are very intelligent and successful at incorporating variables to formulate sound strategies throughout their engagement processes. I am pretty sure there are studies, experts and/or companies that do have very well established, efficient and systematic ways of approaching consultancy that addresses this challenge. However, I believe sharing this thought will allow us to be mindful of this subject, and help consultants to improve their processes of delivering value and achieving desired outcomes for their clients, as well as for corporate managers to improve on how they focus on the engagement process for developing sustainable values from the engagements.

Happy consulting!

Kan