Advanced Consulting Skills Workshop - Day 1
Advanced Consulting Skills Workshop - Day 1
Advanced Consulting Skills Workshop - Day 1
Mu Sigma Proprietary "This document and its attachments are confidential. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the material is strictly forbidden"
Agenda
Day 1 Objectives, group formation, engagement lifecycle Spiel on Issue based frame work Spiel on Starburst Spiel on Thought leadership Home Work Develop hypothesis through Key Questions Day 2 Review Home Work Spiel on storyboarding Home Work Initial storyboard Day 3 Review Home Work Spiel on info matrix to facts/findings etc Home Work Refined storyboard Day 4 Review Home Work Refine storyboard and help work through problems HW - final presentation preparation Day 5 Final presentations (4*20 mins) Assessment
Day 1
Objectives
Groups
Group A Group B Group C Group D Adarsh Badal Rath Bhanu Kumar Prabhat
Chandan Panda Manas Agrawal Raghu Richa Sourav Rahul Saxena Bhargava; Banerjee Sanjukta Manoj Arthi B SriPriya Neha agarwal
When in the engagement lifecycle should you be looking for Starburst opportunities?
Sales/ Business Development Identify Additional Opportunities
Start
Close
Measure Results
Execute (Implementation)
Conduct Client Kick-off Architecture and Planning Launch Development Feed Back Results to Client
Issue-based Framework
Barrier
Hypo
Key?
Hypo
Key?
Hypo
Key?
Hypo
Key?
Finding
Conclusion
Finding
Finding
Conclusion
Recommendation
This approach creates value for both consultants and their clients
Consultant value A better chance of managing scope with the client An information gathering plan that maximizes value while minimizing effort A better way to manage delegation on the consulting team An anchor for the project anchoring it to the issues, not activities A logic flow and audit trail that ties results to engagement objectives Client value A clearer picture of where the consultants are headed A better understanding of the scope A more on target end result
Top-down thinking is only useful when you get the context, client objectives, and perceived barriers right
Context: ABC wants to significantly increase
both engagement revenues (20 40%) and engagement profitability. They intend to grow both organically and by acquisition.
Barriers:
Getting the client to articulate the barriers can be an exercise in thought leadership: thoughtful questions can make clients see their situation more clearly
Although uncovering the barriers should be done at the proposal stage, it is a useful exercise at the beginning of the engagement as well
Barriers:
Massively different cultures in the acquired company Massively different cultures spanning far flung geographies No common tools, techniques and approaches No common training A counter productive measurement system
The Client Objective, fine tuned in light of the barriers, leads to a more clearly stated Engagement Objective
A clearly stated Engagement Objective is the launching point for identifying a handful of meaningful issues to be investigated
Identifying a handful of meaningful issues to be investigated is an iterative process. Some issues come directly from barriers
After identifying issues as topics, the consultant must craft the issues as broad questions
Engagement Objective: Identify and prioritize the initiatives needed to improve collaboration across geographies and across practice areas. Issues to be investigated: What tools, techniques and training need to be in place to foster collaborative work? What corporate culture enhancements are necessary to enable collaboration across geographies and practices? What incentives or measurements need to be in place to encourage good cross- practice/crossgeography collaborative work?
Issues are the topics we will investigate to satisfy the engagement objective
The number of issues you identify should be a handful
Necessary and sufficient, MECE Easily remembered Seven plus or minus two
Hypothesis
Hypotheses represent our best guesses at what we think or suspect is going on relative to the issues
Issue: What tools, techniques and
training need to be in place to foster collaborative work?
Hypotheses:
Many basic tools, such as directories that list responsibilities and areas of specialization, are readily available to new ABC employees. Many collaborative tools are available to all ABC consultants, but lack of training has hindered usage.
Hypotheses can be stated negatively or positively and with different levels of intent depending on what is useful for you or your client
High level, positive
The culture of this firm is perfectly set to enable collaboration
Generating hypothesis is an iterative process; it requires an ability to start with an imperfect set and migrate to a better set using time honored guidelines
So, dont fall down the
You formulate key questions that, when answered, will support or disprove the hypothesis
Hypothesis: Many basic tools, such as
directories listing responsibilities and areas of specialization, are readily available to new employees at ABC.
Key Question:
? ?
Key Questions:
? ?
You formulate key questions that, when answered, will support or disprove the hypothesis
Hypothesis: Many basic tools, such as such as directories listing responsibilities and areas of specialization, are readily available to new employees at ABC. Key Question:
What basic tools that support or encourage collaboration are available to new employees?
Hypothesis: Many collaborative tools are available to all ABC consultants, but lack of training has hindered usage. Key Questions:
How many collaborative tools are available to ABC consultants? What % of ABC consultants have the skills to use the collaborative tools?
Thought leadership isnt about being the smartest kid on the block; its about helping others think better
Thought leaders provide a platform from which others can:
Launch their own thinking Grasp a new concept Focus Break through barriers Take an idea and go further
?????????
Questions
Starbursts happen every 12 seconds and blow countless billions of bits of energy and matter into the universe, creating romantic summer skies . . .
while consulting Starbursts leverage successful engagements to create more opportunities to bring value to our clients and revenue to Mu Sigma
The engagement team expands the client relationships in all directions: up, down and parallel within the client organization Identifying additional areas of value and potential opportunities that are spawned from or generated from the initial engagement entry point Moving from transactional to trusted advisor Finding and focusing on opportunities for the breath and depth of IMSs knowledge, experience, services and products
Objective of Airbus
?
Objective of Airbus
Decide whether to commit to A3XX?
Barriers?