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Chapter 69
How to Work with a Consultant

Greg Scileppi

Hiring and selecting a consultant can be a success when guidelines in place and followed. Considerations include aligning the consultant with the business plan and objective, identifying technical and nontechnical skills — from programming to industry-specific knowledge — that will be required, and senior management’s expectations on the project. Preparing for a consultant’s arrival, including designating an in-house contact person and establishing a work space, also maximizes the time used to get the consultant up to speed in the organization.

INTRODUCTION

As rapid technological advancements continue to reshape the corporate world, the use of on-site consultants has gone from an occasional tactic to a constant strategy. With the migration from legacy mainframe systems to client/server architecture in full swing, consultants are brought in to provide immediate expertise on a range of projects, including systems development and programming, building databases, and directing business process reengineering efforts.

Managers reap many benefits from this approach. Hiring consultants, either as individuals or as a work team, enables companies to maintain a “core” group of permanent staff members, thus streamlining personnel expenditures. Consultants help ensure smooth work flow through predictable and unpredictable busy periods. Even more importantly, consultants provide valuable expertise and guidance that may be lacking among existing staff. Exporting this knowledge throughout the company in turn enhances the value of the information technology (IT) department.

WHAT KIND OF CONSULTANTS DOES THE DEPARTMENT NEED?

As managers develop their staffing plans, the first step is to determine what work is best performed by permanent staff and what tasks can be performed more effectively by outside consultants. Quite commonly, for example, many IT departments have a core group of permanent professionals on staff whose primary mission is two-fold:

  Supervise the successful implementation of existing projects.
  Communicate on a regular basis with line managers to identify areas in which IT can make an effective contribution.

Consultants can play a major role in both areas. To help determine the kind of consultants needed, managers should examine the project from the broadest possible view. Questions to ask include:

  How does this particular project fit into the company’s overall IT business plan? Of course, another key mission here is to determine if the company indeed has an IT business plan. In the event that it does not, this might immediately provide an opportunity to use consultants.
  For whom is the project being designed? What is its purpose? Sales, marketing. and customer service departments, for example, tend to require applications that enhance responsiveness. Manufacturing values precise measurements. Clarifying each department’s specific objectives is critical, so the manager can staff the project accordingly.
  What levels of knowledge are required to make the project a success? Do these include technical expertise in certain programming languages, nontechnical skills, such as writing, or knowledge of a particular industry or application?
  Are these skills readily available? When immediate expertise is needed, consultants can be the most cost-effective, practical option.
  What are senior management’s expectations on the project?
  Is this a routine installation, drawing on a familiar base of corporate knowledge? In this case, it could be implemented internally. Is the installation something new that requires special expertise, both technical and functional? If so, is it strictly a one-time project or does it involve the kind of expertise management will want to retain collectively for years to come?
  How quickly must the project be completed?
  How much permanent staff can the organization afford, both currently and in the future, to devote to it, given the business’s cycles?

Answering these questions helps determine staffing needs. Managers may discover, for example, that the installation of a new client/server application requires two mid-level consultants, or that customizing a “sales lead” tracking program calls for a senior consultant with experience in marketing.

ESTABLISHING A CLEAR CHAIN OF COMMAND

Of ultimate importance is clarifying how to best supervise the consultant. A senior-level consultant, for example, might well answer to both the higher ranks of the IT department and executives within the particular department that IT is serving. Midlevel consultants are often managed by others within the IT department, as are consultants who bring specialized expertise but lack supervisory skills.

No matter what experience level the department requires, managers can maximize productivity if they appoint one of their employees as the consultant’s day-to-day contact person. This does not mean, however, that others cannot communicate with the consultant. Establishing a single point of contact is primarily intended to simplify the organization of the consultant’s activities. This employee should also play a key role in helping to hire the consultant. All of this — from the consultant’s level of expertise to the responsibilities of his or her supervisor — should be clearly communicated to the IT staff to guarantee against confusion about the consultant’s objectives and scope of authority.

OBTAINING A SUITABLE SKILL SET

Managers should make sure as they clarify the project that they consider the full range of skills necessary to complete it. Though considering only technical knowledge is tempting, they should not stop at that point. As IT professionals continue to work more closely with line managers in various departments, the issue is to know more than the intricacies of a specific technology; this is vital. Interpersonal skills are extremely important if the consultant is to train end-users on how to use an application best. Written and verbal skills can also play a factor when a cogent explanation is necessary to explain the value of a new application or system to senior management.

Another major element in selecting a consultant is budget. Whereas answering the above questions should help in calculating the project’s estimated length, determining how much to pay a consultant is not always easy. Before contacting any consultants, managers should investigate rates for the skills they need. Some consultants charge by the hour, some by the project. Each has its pros and cons. The key, though, is to determine which is most appropriate for a particular department or company given its budget parameters, policies, and most of all, what is needed to complete the project as effectively as possible.

In many ways, finding a consultant is similar to hiring a full-time employee: The organization is looking for someone who can do first-rate work. The critical difference is that a consultant should require an absolute minimum of training time — that is, a brief, but comprehensive, explanation of the project and the authority to move ahead as quickly as possible.

Every IT department has probably already been approached by several consulting firms. Managers should start by reviewing perspective consultants’ background materials. Managers should then contact experts within their own companies and colleagues within their own industries. Everyone more than likely has several colleagues outside their companies whose opinions they respect. Of course, they will want to do this with discretion to avoid releasing proprietary projects to too many people.


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