When to Start a Consulting Project
By Adrian Travis, President
When I meet with executives, the notion of ‘the right timing’ frequently comes up as a question as part of the scoping and structuring process. While there’s never a convenient time to undergo an intensive consulting project that is going to challenge staff and drive business results, there are some relatively good pointers that I can provide. In deciding when to engage in a consulting project, an executive’s prime consideration should always be maximizing the likelihood of a project’s success.
First, a good question to ask is whether your consulting partner has the right people available. Often projects generate sub-optimal returns because a client is in a rush to meet an artificial deadline, or feels pressured to engage by certain point in time – to placate upper management, to meet the constraints of a particular fiscal year, for example. Take the time to ask your consulting partner when the ‘best possible’ staffing scenario would be from their perspective. The relationship should be a two-way dialogue. You should seek to have not only the most seasoned consultants on your project, but also the ones who are motivated and would enjoy the particular consulting assignment. If a consultant is slightly out of their element, or might not be a match for the particular working culture, or geographic location for the project, you can expect lesser results. Be wary of any consultancy that can accept a project on short notice. Strong consultancies have good people and a backlog of work, and typically book their teams three to six months ahead – because there is demand for their expertise. You wouldn’t trust a roofing or plumbing contractor who could start work immediately, would you?
Second, steer clear of starting a consulting engagement in the summer, or immediately preceding the holiday season. While most workplaces never stop, there are some periods of time in the calendar year that significant involve staff vacations, and may slow the pace of delivery on any consulting project. Consulting teams need unfettered access to your staff, and enough people in the workplace to get things done. Also consider the vacation schedules of the consultants staffed to your project – ideally they should be focused on the project.
Third, ensure the setup is done right. A well-run consulting project involves advance data collection, nuanced stakeholder communication, and ensuring that there’s a very clear set of operational and financial objectives for the project. Part of this process is meeting with your consulting partner enough so that there is a clear understanding of the particular problem, and your business objectives. Always ensure that your staff are thorough and careful in providing the right data and information.
The makings of a successful consulting project are rooted in good preparation. If you ensure there’s a good project team on your assignment, ensure that your people are 100% available and engaged in the process, and there is enough time for proper setup and diligence, you stand a much greater likelihood of a resounding success.
7 Steps to Making Your Meetings More Effective
All too often, our schedules become completely booked with back to back meetings and leave us questioning at the end of the day whether our time was spent effectively. The truth is, meetings are one of the most expensive time wasters in business. According to a study performed by Altassian, the average employee attends 62 meetings per month. If we assume the average meeting is 1 hour and the average American worker is paid $24.57 per hour according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average monthly cost of meetings is $1,523 per employee. The cost of meetings continues to grow exponentially depending on the number of team members and their seniority.
However, when executed effectively, meetings can be the necessary instrument for a team to drive improvement and deliver results. Keywords, when executed effectively!
Here are 7 steps to making your meetings more effective:
- Clearly Outline the Goal/Objectives of the Meeting
First off, ask the question, do we need a meeting to meet this objective. If not, then go with the alternative and do not hold the meeting. Once there is an objective, communicate this to all attendees so they can be engaged and understand the reason they are devoting their time.
- Distribute Agenda and Materials Prior to the Meeting
All effective meetings have an agenda and more importantly, they follow the agenda. The agenda should be distributed prior to the meeting to allow participants to prepare useful contributions. Other materials that will be reviewed or referenced should also be distributed whether this be performance dashboards, budgets, or schedules.
- Ensure Attendees Come Prepared to Contribute
Although distributing the agenda and materials before the meeting will allow for participant engagement, this is not all that’s needed. It’s also important to establish the expectation with your attendees that everyone will be consulted/called to contribute.
- Keep to the Time Contract
37% of meetings start late and an even larger percentage run over time. To ensure meetings are no longer than intended, start and end the meeting as per the agenda. It can also help to designate one participant as the timekeeper to prevent the meeting from running over.
- Table Discussions that don’t Align with the Objective or Agenda
A certain degree of discussion is obviously needed during a meeting. However, when this discussion does not follow the agenda or is not driving towards the goal, the meeting facilitator should step in and reschedule the separate the discussion.
- Assign Actions to Owners with Due Dates
For a meeting to be effective, there must be follow up actions. Effective meetings do a good job capturing these actions and assigning them to a sole owner with a due date. To close the meeting, it’s always good to review the decisions, action items, accountable owners and due dates.
- Follow up on actions assigned prior to the next meeting
Effective meetings are only 20% meeting, 80% of the work associated is with effective follow-up and preparation. Without effective follow up on the actions assigned the meeting becomes a waste of time.
Following these steps will ensure your meetings are not an unnecessary cost to your organization and instead a tool used to achieve results. It is important to remember that good meetings do not just happen, they are managed events!