Courses portfolio: Advanced consulting skills

Programme content

Self-development and the development of other consultants

Self development: making the most of your own potential: fully understanding your own strengths and weaknesses; recognising which strengths to specialise in and what, if anything, needs to be done to shore up weak areas
Principles of coaching and mentoring
Skills in how to manage consultants' performance
Developing your personal "brand" - what you should be famous for inside and outside the practice; "managing" your boss
Creating and maintaining an effective network

Supporting practice management and development

Taking responsibility as a junior member of the practice management team and contributing to the growth of practice performance:

Different business models in consulting practices, key performance indicators and critical success factors, and how these are manifest in resource management and utilisation
Product development and championing in a practice
The practice political environment; getting things done in a consulting practice

Offering superior diagnostic skills to understand clients and the challenges that confront them

Developing insight that enables both consultancy practice and client to understand complex situations better:

Review of analytical tools and their uses; their combination into methodologies
Case method for understanding situations: case conference and case review; creating a "narrative" - an account of a situation that provides insight, and possibly alternative narratives

Business development

This is not about selling - specific sales transactions - as such, but about managing the sales process so that resources are deployed effectively in converting opportunities to sales:

The purchasing processes used by clients in buying consultancy
Principles of bid management (a project approach) and qualification
Variables in commercial terms and negotiating favourable outcomes

Client handling

Achieving optimal positioning with the client:

Principles of client relationship management; understanding politics and developing a positioning strategy; building a social network in a client
Managing communications; developing the skills of more junior consultants in writing and presenting
Techniques needed to engage effectively at C-level

Project delivery

Dealing effectively with the challenges of delivering results in practice:

Mobilising and managing temporary teams; teams that mix consultants and client staff; dealing with diversity of culture and nationality
Assessing, managing and mitigating risk (risk not being not only about disaster but also the project failing, or being halted)
Dealing with difficulties in the client environment - e.g. lack of commitment - and handling critical challenges

When is the next course?

See prices and course timetable

What our clients say

"This was a fantastic course which provided lots of relevant, coherent content that provoked great discussion and concepts for future consideration"

"Excellent instructors with deep experience"

"I would encourage a potential participant to attend this course"