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For purposes of this article, 'consultant' refers to the IT consulting firm & 'client' refers to the organization engaging the client. This is the most complex client-consultant relationship as two organizations are involved. The number of areas where a consultant is used & the frequency & duration of use are all on the increase increasing this complexity further.

Why do so many consulting assignments end in a sour relationship? What goes wrong? The client views the consultant as a group of people who are supposed to magically produce results & solve problems with little or no assistance or support from the client's organization. The consultant views the client as a source of review and aiding in achieving the billable hours target.

A consulting firm is short listed on the basis of their domain skills, which should be a consideration, but not the only one. Successful consulting assignments owe more to the people skills of the consultants rather than on their technical expertise. Interviewing, documenting, analyzing, recommending & communicating form the core process of consulting. The correct understanding of the motivations, culture, history, fears & goals of an organization determine the success of the consulting assignment. Apart from project management, knowledge management & change management skills are essential for a consulting firm.

Goal centric consulting

From day one the discussion with the consultants hinge on the problem(s) the organization is facing. The consultants' sole function is to solve the problem. What benefits will accrue out of the problem getting solved? Will the problem getting solved automatically result in those benefits? Actual implementation of the problem solving measures resulting in the desired benefits is what the organization should be looking at. Incremental delivery saves big failures from happening & reduces the rigidity that otherwise creeps in to the project. It keeps motivation level high in both parties, as the d-day is never far away. It also helps alter course mid way if things are not going right. When listing down the goals of the project, the number of goals should not be too many & completely unrelated. These are indications of too many things getting done at once, where there is no focus & the probability of the project failing increases. Division of responsibility clearly demarks the boundaries of the consultants work & the organization's domain, leaving no room for dispute & preventing situations where no one seems to own the problem. The organization is always the loser in such scenarios, therefore it is best to draw out a detailed roles & responsibility document.

Focus on change

Every successful consultant is an expert in change management. Resistance to change brings about the downfall of many projects. Prior experience in managing change becomes more important than even the experience of applying technical skills. In IT the end users are 'more' the clients than the management who hired the consultant. For the consultant, the default definition of 'client' is the person or body who pays the consultant. The management should take steps to assure the consultant not to focus on those who pay the bills but those who will be affected by the consultant's work. A study of these end users will determine the amount of change they are willing to absorb. The implementation plan can be drawn accordingly to handle the transition smoothly.

Knowledge transfer

Knowledge transfer (lack thereof) is a direct byproduct of division of responsibility. Although well defined division of responsibility is a good practise, many organizations alienate themselves from the actual activity after assigning responsibility to the consultant. Even if teams of people are supposed to work hands-on with the consultant, they are unavailable when required due to other 'priorities'. Ensure that the internal team which was to work with the consultant is available when required. This is very important for projects, which involves core competencies of the organization.

It is a sorry situation that barring a few consultancies, internal knowledge management systems are either absent or severely lacking in these firms. Lack of knowledge management systems can lead to strange situations. A firm that proudly displays the vast amount of experience in the client's industry/similar situations may actually possess none, for knowledge leaves these organizations with their employees (consultants). Finely honed knowledge management capabilities can assure faster, higher quality service delivery. Even during the execution of a project, the lack of KM capabilities is distinctly felt when a consultant working on the client's project leaves his/her job.

Personalized advice

Every business is different. Every problem is unique & needs a fresh approach. This approach could be missing due to various factors -

IT vendors as partners: Limited technological expertise may mean forcing down the technology on the client without any consideration for 'fit'. A consulting firm which is for example a partner of Microsoft will never tell the client that 80% of the IT cost is due to software (as opposed to open source software). Of course, they don't lie when they talk about easy manpower availability, professional support & extensive documentation. All software problems or all networking needs do not have a single solution.

Tech focused KM: A KM solution at the consulting firm should cover both business & technology, otherwise a particular solution or use of technology becomes routine, without proper heed to the unique needs of a client's business.


The problem still remains - what kind of a consulting model will ensure success? Unfortunately, no single consulting model is perfect. Consulting models have to differ from a troubleshooting assignment to a plan/project/product implementation to process consulting, which leaves the client with the only option; to prepare consulting models for each assignment & find a consulting firm that is the 'best fit' for the model.

The problem still remains - what kind of a consulting model will ensure success? Unfortunately, no single consulting model is perfect. Consulting models have to differ from a troubleshooting assignment to a plan/project/product implementation to process consulting, which leaves the client with the only option; to prepare consulting models for each assignment & find a consulting firm that is the 'best fit' for the model.

The above diagram maps problem ownership to knowledge transfer from the client's point of view. In an implementation project, the problem ownership rests to a high degree with the client. The consulting firm may not even know that the plan was drawn out to counter which problem. Implementation also means training, support & maintenance, but the amount of knowledge transfer is low in the sense, the client does not see the implementation as a core activity (for example, installing an enterprise wide application). While troubleshooting a problem, the client transfers the ownership of the problem to the consultants. The assignment is mostly a firefighting one, with both parties keen to solve the problem rather than capturing the 'know-how'.

The consulting assignments that fall in the lower quadrants require strong change management practices. The problem ownership is low at the client's end, leading to a situation where the people down the line who are likely to be most affected by a recommendation come to know of it when it starts getting implemented. Feelings such as "This must be so bad for us, that there was no communication regarding this from the management" & "The company is cold-shouldering us" creep in.

Projects can be mapped to the above diagram & see which quadrant it falls into. The quadrant will determine what kind of a consulting model to draw up & ultimately the consulting firm that best fits the project.

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