Diploma in Management Consultancy - Course Content

The Diploma in Management Consultancy is a qualification that develops the knowledge, skills and behaviours to operate as a management consultant. It is intended for people who want to enter management consultancy from a functional discipline, or for those who wish to develop the skills and knowledge needed in the field of management consultancy.

Aims

To help you learn, as a developing management consultant, about:

• professional practice
• professional development
• organisation structure and culture
• entry and diagnosis
• interpersonal interaction
• group techniques
• communicating with impact
• managing consultancy interventions
• effective project management
• tools and techniques for effective consulting

Structure of the programme

The Diploma syllabus consists of 10 units, which in our programme have been combined into five modules. Each module consists of a programme of distance learning and a face to face training course; the duration of each course and the numbers of hours that each of the modules is expected to need are shown in the table below.

Core programme

The design of each module covers pre-course work, a training course, post-course work, diploma work and the asssessment.

The Core Programme is taken by all participants in the training, while the Diploma work and assessment is taken only by the Diploma candidates.

The Core programme covers all the units in the syllabus; the Diploma work covers their practical application and demonstration that you have understood them. Pre-course work consists of preparation for the face to face training course, which may include:

• completion of questionnaires or profiles, some of which may be returned to the lead tutor for pre-course analysis
• defined work on any case study materials or other pre-reading
• preparation of exercises to be done on the course
• examples or cases from the student’s own experience and any other research that might need to be done
• setting personal learning goals

The training course consists of:

• input, usually through tutor presentations and tutor led discussions, together with individual exercises
• group work putting the input into practice, often based on a consulting case study and sometimes skills practice through role playing exercises
• review of the group work, to capture the learning points arising

The post-course work is based on the consolidation and application of the learning. We use an approach that we call SmartPractice to help in the transfer of learning into performance back at work. This includes individual activities, group work with other course participants and engagement with colleagues back at work.

Diploma work

The key element that distinguishes the Diploma work, which is in addition to the Core programme, is that students must demonstrate that they have met the standards implied by the learning outcomes defined for each of the modules. To this end, there are distance learning elements consisting of:

• input, through structured reading and audio-visual presentations
• individual exercises including questionnaires and research activities
• applications of the learning, both on-screen and in the course of daily work
• coaching support
• assessments of various kinds

Each unit covered in a module will be assessed. The assessment will be based on:

• the satisfactory completion of the work prescribed for the module
• the candidate demonstrating that they have reached the learning outcomes of the module

Each module contains a schedule of the work required to be completed for assessment.

It should be possible for those who initially do not take the Diploma option to do additional work at a later date that qualifies them for it by undertaking this additional Diploma work.