1

How to Manage Consulting ProjectsPractical guide for Project Managers how to do fast and efficiently a consulting

project

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Managing a consulting project is quite challenging due to many reasons

Hostile environment No industry knowledge Short deadlines

Poor quality of dataTeam issues

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Luckily, if you approach the project in the proper way you can do the project fast, efficiently and with little stress

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I will show you step by step how to manage a consulting project

Teaching Phase Preparation Phase Execution Phase

Wrapping up the project

Life after the project

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Thanks to this presentation you will manage fast and efficiently a

consulting project

6

The things you will see in this presentation is a summary of my on-line course devoted to Managing a consulting project. For more go t

Click to check my course

Practical Project Management for Management Consultants

$45$ 0

7

What does it mean to manage well the project?

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First you have to establish what does it mean to manage well the project. Below what it does mean to me

You deliver what you promised

Within deadlines

Within the budget

Your customer sees value for money

The customer is willing to do new projects with you

The customer’s team would be happy to trust you with new

projects

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Teaching Phase

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Introduction to Teaching Phase

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If you want to do fast, efficiently good projects you have to have the right kind of people. You can say that preparation starts with proper teaching

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You will achieve it only by defining and implementing 3 things

ValuesProfile of the

ideal consultantStructure for cooperation

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Values

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Consulting is a team work so you have to define what values you want your team to follow. This is crucial as it will be something that will be the bases for the team culture

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Before you start defining specific values it is good to decide on 2 important issues

Specialist Generalists

You buy ready-made people

You grow people

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In my case I prefer generalists and people with little experience that I can grow

Specialist Generalists

You buy ready made people

You grow people

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In the case of my teams I always try to instill the following values

Independent

Creates value

Support the team

Data driven

Smart lazy

Efficient

Despise politics

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Profile of an ideal consultant

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As we discuss previously you want to turn inexperienced graduates into seasoned consultants. This gives you greater chances of success during the project

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You will achieve it only by defining and implementing 3 things

Tools Skills Areas of expertise

Sales Marketing Operations Finance

Current level

Target level

ProblemSolving

SketchingPresentations

Interviewing ManagingPeople

Excel Power Point Access VBA

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Structure for cooperation

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For your team to cooperate you have to create and teach them standards, templates as well as turn into modules as much as possible your process and end-products.

Standards Templates

Modules Tools

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Standardize everything

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Why it makes sense to standardize?

Easy to go through what you have done so far

You can reuse your products

Less versions to manage

Brain works faster with standards

You can find faster what you need

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How to decide whether to standardize

Used by manyOften used

Last for longer time

Standardize

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What other standardize?

Folder structure

Consulting

Naming of files

Proposals to customers

Typical company

Agreements

Deliverables

Analyses

Main processes

Internal documents

External documents

Main process

Dress code

Language of communication

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Rules for standardizing

Use few standards

Internal standards higher than external

Round up to closes standard

Communicate standards

Teach standards

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Standardize everything –example of Power Point

presentations

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What rules should be used for Power Point Presentations

Use the template

1 slide = 1 message

Agenda

Executive summary

Excel analysis for every slide

Sources

Dates

Backup

Next version rule

Show money

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Rules for Excel

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There are some rules that should be used when building analysis in Excel

Usage of colors

Consistency between sheets

Pyramid principle

1-source rule

Repetition of variables

Shortcuts

No mouse

Description

Data source

Master sheet

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Below there are some useful functions for Excel

Basic functions Financial / Mathematical Others

▪ SUMIF / SUMIFS

▪ COUNTIF / COUNTIFS

▪ HLOOKUP

▪ VLOOKUP

▪ MATCH

▪ SUMPRODUCT

▪ IF

▪ AND / OR

▪ IFERROR

▪ AVERAGEIF

▪ LEFT / RIGHT / MID

▪ FIND

▪ CONCATENATE

▪ YEAR / MONTH / DAY

▪ ROUND / ROUNDUP / ROUNDDOWN

▪ TODAY

▪ VALUE

▪ WEEKDAY

▪ RAND / RANDBETWEEN

▪ MOD

▪ NPV

▪ IRR

▪ ABS

▪ MAX / MIN

▪ CORREL

▪ Pivot

▪ Slicer

▪ Relative addresses

▪ Formats

▪ Hyperlink

▪ Remove Duplicates

▪ Filters

▪ Sorting

▪ Data Validation

▪ Trace Dependents / Precedent

▪ Analysis Tool Pack

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Create templates

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Templates can save you a lot of time

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How to decide whether to make templates

Often UsedCan be reused

Time-consuming

Template

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Define what you should create templates for. In consulting we use a lot of templates to make the repetitive work less time consuming

Sales presentation

Consulting

Emails

Data request

Project Time sheets

Proposal

Agreement

Folder structure

Deliverable presentation

Dimensions

▪ For every product, branch

▪ All standard emails: about meetings, data request, workshop, sales emails, thank you email

▪ For every product (project type) and branch – Word

▪ For every product (project type) – Word

▪ For every product (project type) – Word

▪ For every product (project type) and branch in Excel

▪ Library of standard slides with typical analyses to choose from

▪ For every product (project type) and branch – Excel

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Create modules

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Modules is something that helps you go beyond templates and used them in a situation that seem not easy to be standardized

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Creating modules enables you to turn even things that

Sales presentation

About the company (history, experience, offices)

Problem description

Proposed solution

Pricing

Team

Contact Details

Rather standard

Unique

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Create universal structure of folders

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In most cases in consulting you will be doing a lot of different project and you may loose a track of what you have done

Supply chain

General audit

Cost cutting

Sales Force Management

Marketing improvement

Cost cutting

Supply chain

Supply chain

Sales Force Management

Sales Force Management

Marketing improvement

General audit

Supply chain

▪ After a few project you will be lost – you will not remember what was done on what project

▪ Consulting and many services are bout managing knowledge

▪ If you organize the knowledge properly you can reuse it on other projects

▪ Therefore create universal structure of folders

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Below an example of structure used for consulting project

Customer folder

Project A folder

Admin

Legal

PBC

Area A

Area B

Deliverables

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Tools

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You have to find tools for the most often done activities

Define what you do most often

Find toolsMaster the tools you

are usingConstantly improve and test new ones

▪ Analyze ▪ Excel ▪ Learn advanced formulas , formats and VBA, shortcuts

▪ Test Access, SPSS, R for specific purposes

▪ Present ▪ Power Point ▪ Learn animation, using of templates, shortcuts

▪ Test Prezio, Powtoon, Explain everything for this purpose

▪ Collect knowledge ▪ Database on Google Sheet with links

▪ Use advanced function and templates, use zapier for partial automation

▪ Test Get Pocket, Evernote

▪ Manage projects and teams

▪ Database on Google Sheet

▪ Learn advanced features of Google Sheet that will enable you managing the project or team

▪ Test Asana, Leankit, Smartsheet, Trelllo, Nobe

▪ Sell ▪ Direct sales and content marketing on events

▪ Increases your network (LinkedIn) and start propagating content marketing on different platforms (Guest blogging, reports distributed to customers, Slideshare)

▪ Use LinkedinPremium, Buffer, start microblogging on Twitter, Google+

▪ Get cloes.io for cold calling and delegate it partially to other team members

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The same goes for any department. Below an example of engineers

Define what you do most often

Find toolsMaster the tools you

are usingConstantly improve and test new ones

▪ Prepare projects for clients

▪ AutoCad ▪ Create libraries

▪ Store previous projects

▪ Buy add-on Autocadthat changes the drawing methods

▪ Time in hours needed for 1 project

▪ 16 hours ▪ 10 hours ▪ 2 hours

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List of the most important tools for consultant

Analyze Present Sales & MarketingKnowledge

ManagementMarket research Team management

47

The things you will see in this presentation is a summary of my on-line course devoted to Managing a consulting project. For more go t

Click to check my course

Practical Project Management for Management Consultants

$45$ 0

48

Preparation Phase

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Introduction to preparation phase

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Most consulting project are done in a bad manner. If you prepare properly you can shorten them, create more value and earn more

▪ Project Start

Task 1

▪ Data Gathering

▪ Analysis

▪ Presentation & Discussion

▪ End of the project

2 3 4 5 6 7

▪ Project Start

Task 1

▪ Data Gathering

▪ Analysis

▪ Presentation & Discussion

▪ End of the project

2 3 4 5 6 7

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There are number of thing that you should prepare ahead of time

Issue tree Presentation template Data request for the customer

Teams defined Schedule of meetings

Market research

List of contacts

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Create Issue tree

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The first you should do is to create an issue tree that will help you structure the project

Issue tree

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Below you can see an example of how issue tree is build

Area of analysis

Area 1

Problem 1

Problem 2

Possible Reason 1

Possible Reason 2

Possible Reason 3

Possible Reason 4

Possible reasonsSuspected problemsAnalysis to be performed

Analysis 1

Analysis 2

Analysis 3

Analysis 4

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Issue tree – example – chicken meat producer

Area of analysis

Transport

High costs of transport per ton of goods

Big level of waste and breakage in transport

Possible reasonsSuspected problemsAnalysis to be performed

Analysis of correlation between type of packaging and percentage of damaged

Analysis of time spent on the way and kilometers covered in that time

Analysis of designed routes, their length and the influence of possible changes

Analysis of fuel usage and kilometers covered by vehicles

Analysis of load carried on the way back

Badly designed routes

Too big fuel usage

No shipments on the way back

Low usage of resources

Badly designed method of packaging which makes the product prone to damage

Speed not adjusted to the product

Badly organized work and schedule of deliveries

Limitation on delivery time of finished goods

Analysis of level of overtime, daily organization of drivers work

Analysis of Clients’ preferences on delivery time

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Below you can see example of issue tree in Retail Chain Development

Area of analysis

Retail chain development

Low growth in sales

Decreasing EBITDA of new stores

Possible reasonsSuspected problemsAnalysis to be performed

Analysis of rents vs comparable competition

Salaries growth vs rotation – comparison with competition

Analyze the change in sales after opening new stores / on-line introduction

Analysis of number of openings vs availability of new places

Low LFL due to cannibalization (on-line, new stores in old locations)

Few new openings in locations

Increasing rents due not proper usage of purchasing power

Growing salaries to keep low rotation

High cost of building new stores

No support from the shopping malls

Not optimized formats, expensive fixtures

Analysis of contracts with shopping malls

Analysis of cost per 1 sq. m, number of fixtures, cost per fixtures

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Create Presentation Template

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The second step is to create a presentation template on the basis of the issue tree

Issue tree Presentation template

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You can see how to create a presentation template in a separate presentation. Where there is a step by step guide

Management Consulting Presentations

Practical guide how to prepare a great presentation

presentation

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Conduct independent Market Research

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The next step after the presentation template is prepared is to do market research

Issue tree Presentation template Market research

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Market research

Consulting methods

Off-line research

On-line research

Market research methods can be divided into 3 main categories

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You should also visit your customer

Get to know the

customer and his team

Visit his factory /

headquarters

See his product in stores / talk

to his customers

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Check my presentation on market research to see to carry out such market research

Market researchPractical guide for startups and entrepreneurs

presentation

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Send data request with formats

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The next step is to request data from the customer

Issue tree Presentation template Data request for the customerMarket research

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There are some rules for data request that you should follow

Specific

Sent in advance

Get direct contact

Talk it through with the customer

Remind them about the data

Ask for raw data

Ask for examples of reports

Double check integrity of data

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Define the team and roles

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Now it is time to define the teams

Issue tree Presentation template Data request for the customer

Teams defined

Market research

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The team and the structure depends on the below. Below example of a an operational audit project

Project managers

• CEO• Asen Gyczew

Production Team

• Production Director• Deputy Production Director• Shift Manager

Planning Team

• Chief Planner• Deputy Chief Planner• Planning Specialist

Purchasing Team

• Purchasing Director• Purchasing Specialist A• Purchasing Specialist B

Sales and Marketing Team

• Sales Director• Marketing Director• Country Manager• Export Manager• B2B Manager

Project Sponsor

• Owner A• Owner B• CEO• Supervisory Board Chairman

Roles

▪ Participate in Steering Committee Meetings

▪ Supervise of the project on the behalf of Company A

▪ Select of Solutions

▪ Support in implementation (when needed)

▪ Gather data

▪ Participate in workshop and project work

▪ Carry out part of analyses

▪ Implement solutions

▪ Daily management of the project

▪ Agreeing the daily priorities

▪ Teaching the team members

▪ Supervise the teams

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Typical structure of a project

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Below you will find some example of project duration for projects done in management consulting

Business Analyst

AssociateSenior

Associate (PM)Director Partner

▪ Operational Audit

Type of project

Duration in months

▪ 3-5▪ 1-3 ▪ 1-2 ▪ 1 ▪ 0.2

▪ Performance improvement – 1 area

▪ 2-3▪ 1-3 ▪ 1 ▪ 1

▪ Strategy project

▪ 3-5▪ 3-6 ▪ 1 ▪ 1 ▪ 0.2

▪ Turn around ▪ 5-10▪ 9-24 ▪ 2-3 ▪ 1 ▪ 0.4 ▪ 0.2

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Schedule Meetings

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One of the last steps is to schedule the meetings with customer team

Issue tree Presentation template Data request for the customer

Teams defined Schedule of meetings

Market research

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List of contacts

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The last step is to prepare contact list that will facilitate the commuication

Issue tree Presentation template Data request for the customer

Teams defined Schedule of meetings

Market research

List of contacts

77

The things you will see in this presentation is a summary of my on-line course devoted to Managing a consulting project. For more go t

Click to check my course

Practical Project Management for Management Consultants

$45$ 0

78

Execution Phase – Technical Tips

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Introduction to Execution Phase

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From the preparation phase you should have a lot of data as well as the template for deliverables

Issue tree Presentation template Data request for the customer

Teams defined Schedule of meetings

Market research

List of contacts

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Now it is time to turn those data into solid end-products

Templates and dataPresentation in Power Point and

models in Excel

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Execution if you are prepared is fairly easy. Still, there are some tips that you should learn to make the execution process smother

Technical tips Tips relating to relationships

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In this section we will talk about technical tips that will help you deliver the project on time and make the customer and your boss happy

Tools for managing the

team

How to create a to-do list

Deadlines Critical chainInterim

Meetings

Proper Analyses in

Excel

Production process of the presentation

Buy-inMeetings with the customer

How to overdeliver

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Why manager should not work?

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Business Analyst

170 170 x # of BAs

▪ Deliver on deadline high quality of analyses

▪ Make the team deliver on deadlines high quality of analyses

▪ Manage relations and conflicts with the customer

▪ Sell new projects

Project Manager

Your work as a Project Manager is totally different then the work of a business analyst or consultant

86

A good project manager doesn’t work directly. He manages people and

relations

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This means that some things you should avoid doing

Create Slides

Perform Analyses

Gather Data

Sketches slides

Checks the presentation

Inspire / suggests analyses

Ask for data

Checks analyses and suggest changes

Checks integrity of data

Avoid doing

Things you should do instead

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How to manage your team?

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To manage you need 2 main tools that will help you keep track of the project and the people

Presentation template

To-do list

Storage

Communication with the team

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As said previously as PM your day will be mainly about meeting with customer directors but you should spare some time for the team as well

Status Update

Meetings with customer team

Analyzing & Checking

▪ 9:30-10:00

▪ 10:00-15:00

Meetings with customer team

Meetings with customer team

Meetings with customer team

Status Update

▪ 15:00-17:00

▪ 17:00-18:00

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There are some rules for that will make it easier for you to manage your team

Daily updates with the team

Weekly update with the customer

Internal Deadlines very aggressive

Get early buy-in

From the beginning create end products

Transfer end-products to the customer

Educate the customer how to use the products

Double check integrity of data

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Let’s have a look how a 7 week project should look when it comes to execution

▪ Project Start

Task 1

▪ Additional Data Gathering

▪ Analysis and slides preparation

▪ Presentation of intermediate works

2 3 4 5 6 7

▪ Transfer and teaching

▪ End of the project

▪ Creating the product using critical chain method

▪ Fine tuning

▪ Getting buy-in

▪ Overdelivering

▪ Selling new projects

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Tools that your team will need

94

You have to find tools for the most often done activities

Define what you do most often

Find toolsMaster the tools you

are usingConstantly improve and test new ones

▪ Analyze ▪ Excel ▪ Learn advanced formulas , formats and VBA, shortcuts

▪ Test Access, SPSS, R for specific purposes

▪ Present ▪ Power Point ▪ Learn animation, using of templates, shortcuts

▪ Test Prezio, Powtoon, Explain everything for this purpose

▪ Collect knowledge ▪ Database on Google Sheet with links

▪ Use advanced function and templates, use zapier for partial automation

▪ Test Get Pocket, Evernote

▪ Manage projects and teams

▪ Database on Google Sheet

▪ Learn advanced features of Google Sheet that will enable you managing the project or team

▪ Test Asana, Leankit, Smartsheet, Trelllo, Nobe

▪ Sell ▪ Direct sales and content marketing on events

▪ Increases your network (LinkedIn) and start propagating content marketing on different platforms (Guest blogging, reports distributed to customers, Slideshare)

▪ Use LinkedinPremium, Buffer, start microblogging on Twitter, Google+

▪ Get cloes.io for cold calling and delegate it partially to other team members

95

The same goes for any department. Below an example of engineers

Define what you do most often

Find toolsMaster the tools you

are usingConstantly improve and test new ones

▪ Prepare projects for clients

▪ AutoCad ▪ Create libraries

▪ Store previous projects

▪ Buy add-on Autocadthat changes the drawing methods

▪ Time in hours needed for 1 project

▪ 16 hours ▪ 10 hours ▪ 2 hours

96

List of the most important tools for consultant

Analyze Present Sales & MarketingKnowledge

ManagementMarket research Team management

97

How to create a to-do list

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To do list will help you to arrange you work into smaller actionable pieces

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There are few rules that will help you write down the to-do list and make the best out of them

Put everything on a list

Use multiple lists

Specific actionable things

Divided jobs into small tasks

Set pace

Use calendar as one of the lists

Go through lists regularly

Use tools to track tasks execution

Put project as to-do list

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You can use different type of list of to-dos

Next Actions

Lists by status – by Getting Things Done

Projects Waiting forSomeday

Maybe

Home

Lists by place – by Getting Things Done

Work On-line Calendar Phone

To be done

Lists by status

CurrentlyDoing

Done

Topic Research

Lists by production stages – example of udemy course

Presentation Script RecordingPost-

productionUpload

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I use 4 types of lists

To be done

Managing me

Expecting from others

Recurring items

Managing personal team

Master list

Monika

Lidia

Michael

Lisa

Project done for customers

Project A

Project B

Project C

Project D

Supervising startups

Startup A

Startup B

Startup C

Startup D

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Deadlines

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Why you need deadlines?

To know when it has to be done

To set priorities properly

To manage properly Parkinson Law

To communicate with the rest

To create sense of urgency

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We have 2 types of deadlines

Internal External≪

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Critical Chain

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One of the biggest problem for efficiency is the so called Parkinson’s Law – Work expand so as to fill the time available for its completion

107

People when asked to evaluate the time certain things will take build in buffers

A B C

A + B + C

A + B + C

A B C Central buffer

Declared time

Buffer time

Real execution

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Interim Meetings

109

Let’s have a look how a 7 week project should look when it comes to execution

▪ Project Start

Task 1

▪ Additional Data Gathering

▪ Analysis and slides preparation

▪ Presentation of intermediate works

2 3 4 5 6 7

▪ Transfer and teaching

▪ End of the project

110

There are number of reasons why you want to make frequent meetings with the customer

Make sure that you are creating value

Create relationship with Manager / Director

Educate the customer about your approach

Involve the customer and make him co-responsible

Make the customer participate in the project

Get the customer accustomed to the end-products

Get to know his negative remarks on the product

Look for new projects

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Create Excels that are ready for external user

112

Analyses should be made from the start according to the standards and look like end product

Clear structure

Master sheet

Description

Use the pyramid principle

Use color coding

Put sources

Keep track of versions

Don’t create too big sheets that are difficult to track

113

Production process of the presentation

114

As you may remember from previous lecture you want to transform the data you have gathered into a presentation

Templates and dataPresentation in Power Point and

models in Excel

115

For this to happen you have to follow some rules

1 person is in charge of the whole master presentation

Different people can have assigned different parts

Every day you have to combine parts into 1 master

Every slide has to have a Excel to back it up

Don’t throw slides – shift them to backup

Keep track of versions

Everybody does his own slides

At the end you can send the presentation to graphics

department

116

In practice the person that keeps the master has to assigned specific slides (sections) to specific person

117

If you are in charge of the master file you assign specific parts of the presentation to specific consultants

118

At the end of every day they should send you updated version of their part and you should put it in the master

119

How to get a buy-in?

120

What is a buy-in?

Customer agrees with you

He is happy with the project outcome

He will support the project publicly

He will gladly pay for your service

He considers the project value for money

He will want to work with you in the future

121

How to get the buy-in?

Make sure that you are creating value

Meet with him often to create a relationship

Educate him about your approach and the

products

Involve him and make him co-responsible

Show him how he can benefit from it

Overdeliver

Prepare him to sell it to the whole organization

122

Meetings with the customer

123

Let’s have a look how a 7 week project should look when it comes to execution

▪ Project Start

Task 1

▪ Additional Data Gathering

▪ Analysis and slides preparation

▪ Presentation of intermediate works

2 3 4 5 6 7

▪ Transfer and teaching

▪ End of the project

124

There are plenty of reasons why weekly updates with the customer as well as informal meeting are so important

You get his feedback early and often

You have an opportunity to educate him

Understanding difficult things takes time

You get exposure for you and the team

Increase chances of future projects

Helps you define how to overdeliver

You become more of a 1 group than opposite sides

125

How to overdeliver

126

By overdelivering we mean doing more than expected and faster

Define the expectations

Doing more

Doing Faster

127

The things you will see in this presentation is a summary of my on-line course devoted to Managing a consulting project. For more go t

Click to check my course

Practical Project Management for Management Consultants

$45$ 0

128

Execution Phase – Tips regarding the relationships with the

customer

129

Introduction to the soft tips

130

From the preparation phase you should have a lot of data as well as the template for deliverables

Templates and dataPresentation in Power Point and

models in Excel

131

Execution if you are prepared is fairly easy. Still, there are some tips that you should learn to make the execution process smother

Technical tips Tips relating to relationships

132

In this section I will show you short tips regarding the relationship with the customer

Be humble / human

Build relationship with people

133

In this section we will talk about soft tips that will help you deliver the project on time and make the customer and your boss happy

Befriend everybody

Give credit and don't steal

ideas

Downplay your estimation

Show in good light others

What and when you

should admit

Concentrate on the problem not on the

people

Other tips

134

Befriend everybody

135

Usually people talk to their pears. You and your team should build all sort of relations with the customer team

CEO

Director A Director B

Manager 1 Manager 2 Manager 3

Specialist A

Specialist B

Specialist C

Specialist A

Specialist B

Specialist C

Specialist A

Specialist B

Specialist C

Project Manager

Consultant A

Consultant B

Consultant C

136

Give credit and don't steal ideas

137

You are competitive creature and you want to be in the spotlight but you should not steal ideas from the customer’s team. Always gives credit to specific worker

138

Downplay your estimation

139

You will be tempted to show the customer the maximal potential savings / results he can get by implementing what you have created.

Achieved results

Estimation

Supply Chain Sales &Marketing

Production HQ

140

It seems counterintuitive but you should always downplay your estimation (savings, potential improvements). Try to manage expectation as probably only 60-70% will get implemented

Achieved results

Estimation

Supply Chain Sales & Marketing Production HQ

141

There are plenty of reasons why it such a move will benefit you

You manage expectations ahead of time

You play with mental accounting

You project yourself as humble

The estimation you make will become the goal for sb

It opens new possibilities for new projects

In this way you account for random things

142

Show in good light employees of your customer and your team

143

You want to be a star which is ok. Yet as a Project Manager try to give a lot of attention to your team and the team on the customer’s side

144

There are plenty of reasons why it is in your best interest to put the customers’ team in the spotlight

You increase the buy-in

Your credibility increases

Customer is less likely to argue with you

Customer is more likely to pay you

You strengthen your team

You boost the ego of your people

The team will want to work longer and more for you

You open new routes to upsell new projects

145

Concentrate on the problem not on the people

146

Whenever there is a problem there are two ways to approach it. You can look for the culprit or to try to solve the problem

147

By focusing only on the problem and not on the culprit you gain a lot

You cool down the emotions

You avoid the snowball effect that can destroy you

You solve the problem fast

You kill any future politics

You establish yourself as a true leader

You may change the attitude of the whole organization

148

Admit when you don't know something

149

Time and again you will not know things specific for you customer. There are plenty of reasons for that

Customer is using slang

You have smaller experience in the industry

You are not getting all the information

They have problems with formulating the real issue

150

By admitting when you do not know you gain a lot

You strengthen the attitude to concentrate on problems

You stop being at disadvantages

You have more chances to get to the real issues

You show respect for the people you work with

You build relations

Since you learn from them there are more likely to learn

from you

151

Other tips

152

Below other small tips that I recommend implementing

Admit mistakes

Avoid politics

Eat in the same place as ordinary employees

Participate in integration activities

Gradually relax the dress code

Spend time to talk over the coffee with random

people

Bring cookies to meetings

Make the meetings short and sweet

153

The things you will see in this presentation is a summary of my on-line course devoted to Managing a consulting project. For more go t

Click to check my course

Practical Project Management for Management Consultants

$45$ 0

154

Wrapping up the project

155

Introduction to wrapping up the project

156

In the Execution phase you were trying to turn the template and issue tree into a final presentation supported by a few GB of analyses

Templates and dataPresentation in Power Point and

models in Excel

157

To wrap up the project there are 4 things you should do

Prepare the final version of deliverables

Train the customer to use your deliverables

Transfer deliverablesSell future mini-projects

▪ Make the presentations self-explanatory

▪ Make the Excels idiot-proof

▪ Add sources

▪ Add table of content

▪ Arrange meetings with customer team to show them how to use the tools

▪ Make them use the tool and check for mistakes, omission

▪ Prepare instructions (written or recorded in video / audio)

▪ Make a table of content

▪ Handover files to the PM on their side

▪ Handover tools to the people that will use them

158

Prepare the final version of deliverables

159

Your main deliverables will be presentations and analyses in Excel

160

Train the customer to use your deliverables

161

Below other small tips on how to train the customer how to use the end-products

Make the end products idiot-proof

Provide instructions (written or recorded)

Meet one-on-one with the future user

Meet in bigger groups to explain general rules

Make a table of content

Make the users play with the products

Have a few meeting with the customer PM

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Transfer deliverables

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When we talk about transferring the deliverables we have in mind 3 things that have to be done

Hand over files Arrange a meeting with all the team members

Arrange a meeting with the Steering Committee

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The things you will see in this presentation is a summary of my on-line course devoted to Managing a consulting project. For more go t

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Check my extensive presentation on productivity hacks to see how you can me 10x more productive

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If you need more detailed version on productivity hacks you can check our course on productivity hacks

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