Public Sector Consulting 101

Project sabotage.... it's real and happens frequently

2011-01-19T11:39:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, a brave member of a virtual change managers forum that I belong to posted a question about project sabotage. The forum founder and moderator responded that he did not believe in sabotage or use the word, but believed that "people are always doing their best".

This response pushed a button in me. I was outraged that the forum moderator and someone with supposedly 10 years of experience could be so irresponsible as to completely deny the existence of sabotage. I responded as follows.

Sabotage should be a word both org change managers and project managers use because 1) it is a common verb, 2) it exists, and 3) is practiced widely within organizations all the time, at least in North America. Sabotage is real, and it is active resistance, or better yet, pro-active resistance. Recent real-life example: A client project director communicates to other project team members via a channel she knows they cannot access, then uses their non-responsiveness as a reason to have them removed from the project and as evidence that the project is failing. This individual was obviously "not doing her best in this particular circumstance".

To deny that sabotage happens is pure folly, as is not addressing it, ignoring it, or making excuses for it. In other words, If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.... not a swan. I believe that people mean well most of the time and are basically good-at-heart; however, sometimes they do get nasty for whatever reason(s). As change managers it is part of our duty to recognize, document, report, and help address sabotage to protect the client's investment in the project.

I do not think it is going to far to say that ignoring sabotage is unethical and constitutes malpractice for change managers, because if we are not addressing it then we become complicit in it.

What concerns me more is that the denial of sabotage is yet another sign of a strong trend that I have noticed for at least the past 10 years for individuals and entire organizations to simply deny reality. This trend was most evident in the Bush White House, and seems to still be at play in Obama's administration. In my experience and observation "reality denial" is now practiced in all regions, all types of organizations, and at all levels.

Those of us who insist on engaging with reality are frequently ignored, pushed aside, or shunned, but most of all we are the messengers who get shot. As Chris Martenson says in his brilliant Crash Course series, the mark of an adult is the ability to plan and deal with complexity. How can anyone do either if they are not willing to even recognize reality? I think Martenson would say, as many others are saying or have said, that we are a very child-like society. I am hoping that maturity and reality come back into fashion soon, otherwise, Í will never work again.

Project Planning and Project Management

2010-11-15T06:37:00.000-08:00

This post is for all my past and future clients who think project planning has nothing to do with project management. (The guilty know who they are.)

1. According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), issued by the Project Management Institute (PMI), the function of project management has five main processes: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling (M&C), and Closing. The PMBOK breaks these five down further into 42 sub-processes. Of those 42, 20 fall under Planning. That's right - nearly half, and none of the other four processes comes even close. The remaining 22 sub-processes are parceled out as follows: Initiate - 2, Execute - 8, M&C - 10, and Close - 2. (per table 3.1, pg. 43)

2. If you compare the duration of the planning phase to the entire project duration, planning extends over about 80% of a project lifespan. (See Figure 3.2 in the latest PMBOK for the graphic.) This happens because plan, execute, and M&C form a continuous loop of on-going activity throughout a project. Planning is not a stand-alone, once-only, written-in-stone activity. We all know circumstances change over time for a million and one reasons. The executing and M&C processes result in changes to plans which then feed back into execution and M&C, just like the "plan-do-check-act" cycle that Deming wrote about years ago.

If you are a consultant, the first or next time a client tells you that planning is not part of project management, whip out the PMBOK and teach them something new. That old catchphrase "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." may be obnoxious and patronizing, but it is TRUE.

Giving Up

2010-10-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

You know, what hurts me more than being sabotaged and back-stabbed by low-caliber lying, cheating, dishonest people, is watching it happen to other good, smart, honest, hard-working, skilled colleagues and friends. Seeing good people that I care about suffer, having their jobs, careers, and morale destroyed causes me great pain - especially if they are young and full of promise.

In a larger sense, it seems as if the world has gone topsy-turvy, like the distinction between right and wrong seems to have disappeared. Example: I was on the phone with a former colleague and good friend the other day and she literally yelled at me for being honest with potential employers and clients about my pregnancy. Since when did telling the truth become the wrong thing to do and punishable??

I saw a news story about the governor of the State of texas who in 2004 knowingly sent an innocent man to his execution eventhough the exonerating evidence was sitting in front of his nose. What happened to the governor? He is still in office. Was he arrested? No. Was he charged with manslaughter or murder? No. Will he ever receive justice for killing an innocent man? Probably not.

There are many other recent anecdotes I could cite here, but I'll just conclude with "I can't take it anymore". I am too old and have little fight left in me. So for the time being I am just going to give up trying.

So I guess that old maxim is true, nice guys (and gals) finish last.... and the bad guys (like Perry) win, again and again and again. I can only hope in some childish fashion that the concept of imminent justice really exists and that the bad people will get what they deserve someday.

Lies, More Lies, and the Crappy Liars Who Tell Them

2010-10-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

Below is the response from Eagle's CEO exactly as I had predicted... with lots of lies about events that NEVER HAPPENED from the staff trying to desperately save their hides. My response follows. Today's poll: How many think its time for a lawsuit?

OR You can write to the Eagle CEO, Kevin Dee at Kevin_Dee@eagleonline.com, and give him a piece of your mind.

***********************************************************************
Hello,

Apologies for taking a little time on this, but as you can imagine things are a little hectic and I wanted to be sure that I was able to understand the facts before responding.

The staffing world is a fast paced environment and unfortunately we are not always so good with the common courtesies, or with clear communication.

I explored your situation internally and Kevin "thought" he had been clear in your last conversation with him that you would not be proceeding further with our client. The issue apparently was that you had already interviewed in the past with this client, and someone from a past interview deemed that you were not the right fit for this role. This apparently was the same conversation where you informed Kevin about your pregnancy, however since you would not be proceeding anyway this was never revealed to Deloitte.

Apologies again that we were not clear enough, and good luck with your job search going forward.

Also congratulations on your addition to the family.

Sincerely,

Kevin Dee, CEO

************************************************************************

Kevin,

Now I am even more shocked and dismayed. I know nothing and have never heard anything related to the events you mention below. In my last conversation with Kevin Wang on or around Sept 14th, he said the following:

1. All of my interiews with Deloitte had come back with very positive feedback;
2. That he and the other staff at Eagle had never dealt with a situation where a candidate in the midst of interviewing had announced a pregnancy; and
3. He would speak with Cindy and others about how to handle it and get back to me on next steps.

That conversation was the last I had with anyone regarding the Deloitte position. Never did I receive a follow-up message from anyone, including Kevin, about any topic. Period.

This was the first time I had ever considered a position with Deloitte or interviewed with them in my entire career and my first time associating with Eagle, so a past interview which you mention below simply never happened. Therefore, it was not mentioned or discussed in the same conversation as my pregnancy or any previous conversation.... because it never happened.

Obviously, I have no control over what your staff tells you about what happened, or whether or not you choose to believe what I say. But having events ascribed to me that never happened is extremely upsetting as I am sure you can understand. Also, that behaviour is a sure sign that lack of clarity is not the only issue at Eagle.

A truly Awful recruiting Experience

2010-10-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

In the past few years, my expectations of recruiters and clients have fallen quite a bit, but I recently went through a recruiting process where the outcome set the bar at a new low. More surprisingly, it involved a recruiter and client with "good" reputations, Eagle Professional Services (out of Toronto) and Deloitte consulting in Vacouver, BC. Below is the letter I wrote, at the encouragement of a few colleagues, to the CEO of Eagle explaining the incident. Judge for yourselves.

*****************************************************************

Dear Sir,

In August and September, I was working with Eagle’s Toronto office as a candidate for a permanent position with Deloitte consulting. Between August 12th and September 10th I had one phone interview with Deloitte’s HR office in Toronto, followed by three interviews with senior leadership in Deloitte’s Vancouver office.

On September 10th I received confirmation that I was expecting which I had the integrity and courtesy to immediately communicate to Kevin since it meant that I would only be available to work through March 20, 2011, before taking maternity leave. Since that day, I have not heard one word from either Eagle or Deloitte. The least I expected was a polite email from Eagle saying, “Thank you for informing us; however, you are no longer a viable candidate for the position with Deloitte.”

I am shocked and extremely disappointed that neither Eagle nor Deloitte has had the common courtesy to communicate with me further. This rude, inconsiderate, and unprofessional behaviour is a clear indication that neither organization is one I want to be affiliated with in the future.

Certainly, this is not news you want to receive, but I thought it was important enough that you be made aware of it. Hopefully, future Eagle candidates who find themselves in this position will be treated with more respect than I was. Should you have further questions or concerns about this incident, please do not hesitate to contact me.

The Impact of Personal Factors on Resistance to Change

2010-07-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

In the same article on resistance cited in the previous post, the Prosci author writes:

"... on top of the emotional reactions to change, resistance has other influencing factors, not the least of which is an employee’s personal situation. This includes all aspects of a person’s life including family status, mobility (are they in a position to be flexible in terms of where they live?), financial security, age, health, career aspirations (are they where they expected to be at this point in their life?), relationships at home and at work, educational background, upcoming personal events and past success in this work environment (promotions, recognition, compensation). For example, a person’s financial situation or health may cause them to make choices related to a change that on the surface do not appear logical, but when understood make perfect sense. Similarly, a change in a person’s relationship with a spouse or significant other can cause a fundamental shift in what is important to that person."

Gee, really? Who would have thunk it. (Pardon my sarcasm.) Is this statement true? Absolutely. In fact, it is a no-brainer. Nobody needs certification in CM to know this intrinsically. There is not an organization in the western world where assessing individual personal factors would be an appropriate or realistic part of planning a CM program. The privacy concerns are too strong, the complexities are too great, and the shifts in personal factors over short time periods too numerous.

The best policy here is for change leaders to openly recognize and state this fact up-front; that there are scores of factors a CM program just cannot (and likely should not) take into consideration or plan for except in a generic, collective way.

Could a change leader attempt to survey eployees on such personal factors? Sure, but what would the cost-benefit be? What % of employees would actually respond? Of that %, what subset would respond with the whole-hearted truth? Would the questions be seen as completely inappropriate, a total invasion of privacy, and possibly against the law? You bet.

"Change Management" is Proactive by Definition

2010-07-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was reading the latest e-newsletter from Prosci, the change management specialist company. The topic was "Resistance: understanding a phenomena that is natural to all of us". Prosci has a way of explaining the obvious in very clear and simple language, which I appreciate, but I still disagree with some of their points.

Here is the excerpt that caught my attention (my emphasis):

".... rather than simply designing a “great” solution to the call center structure and beginning implementation, a proactive change management program could have been put in place to engage and support employees through the transition. Rather than waiting for resistance to happen, or being taken by surprise when key managers resisted the change, the leadership and project team could have assumed that resistance to change is a normal and natural phenomenon."

As I have written in previous posts and articles, to describe change management as proactive is redundant. Change management is proactive by definition. Someone might say, "Well, it depends on what you mean by 'proactive'." So let me spell it out fully. "Proactive" means that your CM program is:

1) Based on predictions and recommendations resulting from an analysis of the changees, their org culture, past change history, and characterisitics of the change itself, and

2) Planned in advance of implementation.

If your CM activity is not proactive, then you are not managing change, just reacting to it.

Likewise, in recent interviews for CM Lead positions, I have faced the question of "What interventions strategies do you use?" as if interventions are the heart of change management. The focus on interventions and the popularity of this question tells me that most people do not see change management as proactive. The better your CM analysis and planning are, the less frequently you should have to resort to interventions.

No CM plan/program will ever prevent 100% of resistance to change, and some interventions will always be necessary, as will changes to the CM plan. The need for and frequency of interventions tells us how well we analyzed and planned; how well we understood the changees and their organization.

Accountability is a Four-letter Word

2010-07-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a really long time since I've written, but there has been no shortage of project/client chaos in between. This time, the question is, "What can a consultant do after being hired to bring standard project management (PM) methods and skills to an organization that shuns/rejects all forms of structure, discipline, and accountability?" Because at its foundation, that's what project mngmt is - structure, discipline and accountability.

The obvious answer is "Damned if you do and damned if you don't." If the consultant does the right thing and recommends PM practices she knows will help the client succeed, they reject it and get upset. If the consultant does not do what she knows is right and needed because she knows how the client will react, then she loses her integrity. A colleague of mine said the only thing one can do in this situation is do the best work you can, recommend what you know to be right, submit everything, then just let it go. (But of course, document everything you submit and do not receive feedback on).

Other interesting but highly dysfunctional behaviours on my current project include the following. I hope you get a chuckle out of these as I experience the pain and frustration from them every day.

1. My current project has two co-leads which is an excellent idea since it means one of them will always be there to keep the project moving and make decisions, right? But no such luck. One project leads refuses to hold meetings in the absence of the other because a) she has no clue as to what to cover/discuss, and b) she refuses to make or be responsible for a decision.

2. When collaborating on a WBS, project leads submit lame, non-action line items such as "Identified as a need" and "provide support to......". All of them meaningless and vague to avoid making any real commitments, or being accountable for real action.

3. My current project involves seven large organizations jointly responsible for a state-wide project. Among all the very senior-level representatives from the orgs who sit on the leadership committee, not one has or uses MSProject or any other PM software. How can a project of this size and complexity possibly be run without a PM application? Simple, if the leads do not have a trackable plan, the nobody can be held accountable for achieving anything. They may not have a clue about to properly run a project, but they definitely do not want to hear any clues, either.

Projects in Denial

2010-05-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

Gotta love this. My newest client was given a $16m budget to transform/redesign an entire aspect of public health in a urban area over the next three years. The announcement was made last fall, and the money awarded in February. Currently, there is no dedicated project manager, project team, or approved plan.

I was hired because one of the client leaders realized that, to be successful with an initiative of this size and complexity, they needed professional project management knowledge, skills, and tools. The transformation approach, charter, and plan I have written bring PM standard practices and methods. Now, this public sector organization has little history with or awareness of these practices and methods. Instead, it has a long history of running projects extremely casually, JIT off the sides of their desks, without a plan, adequate resources, or adequate skills. In other words, not recognizing projects for what they really are and what they truly require.

Bringing a standard PM approach and methods into this organization will naturally require changes to typical behaviours because it is a major change (a true paradigm shift) to the way projects are usually run. If client behaviours do not change, then the approach and plan become meaningless window dressing. What I have been recently asked to do is retro-fit their typical tendencies and practices (such as making snap decisions in isolation without stakeholder input) to the charter and plan I have written, which will never work since their usual practices are completely contrary to good project management.

Basically, the client wants to have their cake (in the form of professional project management) and eat it too (in the form of not relinquishing their typical behaviours).

The result here is that the PM professional(me)and standard deliverables exist ONLY to give the impression that the project is being run correctly when in reality it's just business-as-usual. For example, project leaders were hyer-anxious because they did not have a charter. Now that I have written one, everyone is happier and more relaxed, BUT THEY HAVEN'T READ IT AND ARE NOT USING IT TO RUN THE PROJECT. Deliverables like project charters and plans are not just pretty documents; they are tools with which a PM "drives" a project.

If the client refuses to change their behaviours and actually use standard PM practices, then this should just be recognized openly, and the charter and plan either scrapped or re-written to reflect reality.

Critiques from McKinsey's "The Emotional Case for Change"

2010-03-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

In an on-line article from March, 2010, McKinsey interviews Chip Heath - one of the authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. The following are some of my reactions to Heath's statements in the article.

1. First of all, organizational CHANGE IS ALWAYS HARD, NEVER EASY. I do not understand why people (especially academics from Stanford) have a preconception that change is sometimes easy.

2. Heath uses an analogy of a person riding an elephant to distinguish between rational and emotional sides of an individual when it comes to change. (The elephant represents the emotional side.) I think this is giving far too much weight to the emotional side.

3. Heath seems to convey that an executive promoting/supporting a change project and communicating to employees provides the listeners with only intellectual understanding and fails to provide emotional motivation. I think Heath is undervaluing or dismissing the influence the communicating executive holds with her audience. Hearing the change message from a leader may very well emotionally influence the listener if they have any sort of relationship with or respect for the deliverer. People can certainly be motivated by leadership communications, especially if delivered in person in a two-way forum where listeners can ask questions. In the commitment curve model, executive communications can create buy-in in addition to understanding.

4. Heath sees benchmarking as telling organizations to be more like other organizations. Au contraire, benchmarking for best practices is identifying, adapting, and adopting one specific practice from another organization that you believe will improve one aspect of performance in your organization. It is not a wholesale effort to adopt all aspects of another organization. Benchmarking is more of a pinpoint study.

5. Heath says "The idea of the burning platform is that people only change when they're scared." Wrong again. The message behind the burning platform is one of URGENCY, NOT FEAR. There is some urgent driver that is forcing us to make a decision and act. We know urgency can motivate people to act. Contrary to the image it produces in most heads, the burning platform does not equal fear. It is just a bad metaphor.

6. "As a top leader, you should make people realize that there will be difficulties, but that those difficulties aren't going to prevent ultimate success." No duh. Not only should top leaders know this, THEY SHOULD COMMUNICATE IT TO EMPLOYEES EARLY AND FREQUENTLY through a variety of channels.

7. Heath's final piece of advice is to use good news and positive messages (such as previous successes which he refers to as "bright spots") to create an emotional case for change. NO DUH. Academics get paid to sit around and think up brilliant ideas like this one which have been practiced for decades by working stiffs like me? Hmm, I must be in the wrong business.

"Transformation" is Not a New Buzzword

2010-03-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Listening to a podcast from August 31, 2009, the two speakers began with the claim that "transformation" is the new hip, hot, PC term in organizations and consulting. I am here to say that "transformation" is far from new. For instance, I took a week-long training class entitled "Business Transformation" in early 1997 which had already been existed for a few years.

I think the term transformation is preferable to "innovation" because it conveys a more holistic picture that includes both design and implementation, whereas "innovation" could be construed as just the design or the "thinking" part.

In the 90s we used the terms "re-design" and "re-engineering" after Hammer and Champy's book. Again, "transformation" may be preferable to both of these because it encompasses many types of change or innovation whereas "re-engineering" clearly connotes a redesign of a function or operation that already exists. For example, "transformation" can cover a merger or the addition of a new line of business (new product or service) but "re-engineering" cannot.

On a different note, the interviewee in the podcast also said he uses the term "change management" for the process of implementation. Hmmm, I think a distinction needs to be made between implementation which is making a change and CM which is managing that change. More on that later.

Accountability and QBQ: Be careful

2010-03-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, I heard a podcast featuring an interview with the author of a book called QBQ. In the interview, John Miller claims that questions from employees about a change project such as "Why are we going through this change?", "When is someone going to train me?", and "Who dropped the ball?" are "lousy questions" because they indicate victim-thinking (why questions), blaming (who questions), procrastination (when questions), and lack of accountability. ("All questions that begin with why, when, and who sound like a pity-party.") Instead, Miller exhorts readers to switch their questions to "what" or "how" questions: "How can I adapt to the changing world?", "What can I do to develop myself?", and "How can I help solve the problem?".

I have a news flash for Miller and everyone else: There is no such thing as a stupid question (as many of us were first taught in school, then had reinforced in professional training).

1. It is human nature to react with such questions when your environment (work or otherwise)is about to undergo major change.
2. Asking questions is 1000 times better than the alternatives of a) making assumptions, or b) not giving a damn.
3. Employees inquiring for the details behind a change proposal is a sign of desire to be fully aware and to have full understand of how, when, why, where a change will take place and who will be involved how in that change. THIS IS A GOOD THING.

Obviously, I have a different interpretation of what drives the what, when, and who questions then Miller does. I see those questions stemming from a basic need-to-know because in my 15 years of change projects with large organizations, that is where those questions have come from. Miller sees those questions as stemming from dysfunctional org culture such as entitlement-thinking.

I think Miller's QBQ may be well-suited to execs and managers in an organization, but becomes patronizing and insulting when applied to employees. Applying Miller's theory and method to employees, change management programs become moot because employees are now responsible for managing their own change. In practice, this would take the form of employees pursuing change leaders and agents for information and training instead of leaders/agents delivering that info to employees proactively. The former scenario is far more disruptive to daily operations that the latter.

Miller also encourages readers/listeners to not "wait for others to make improvements in your organization." Those thought-leaders who are courageous enough to submit change proposals up the chain-of-command are frequently punished by their superiors because the submitter's thought-leadership, care, and extra effort makes the superiors looks bad. Miller also insinuates that most employees in any organization just don't care about that organization. I think this belief needs to be tempered by the understanding that many employees have the "care" beaten out of them over time, as their suggestions are repeatedly either ignored, punished, or taken credit for by someone else in the organization.

Consultant Externality Offers No Protection

2010-03-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

In a Computerworld article from 2000, the author writes the following:

"Yes"-ing a client to death

Clients generally already have plenty of nodding heads around and often look to consultants to provide a fresh perspective. It is also politically easier for a consultant to stir things up than internally employees who have to survive indefinitely in the corporate culture.

As much as this statement sounds logical - that an external consultant would have more freedom to disagree or oppose a majority opinion -- in my experience in the public sector, it is not true. Clients often start a project expressing a desire for a fresh perspective, but when they actually receive one from a consultant, their reaction is not pleasant.

I have seen many consultants punished, and sometimes severely, by clients and their own firms for daring to speak with a fresh perspective, even if doing so diplomatically and with data as evidence. Many times in my career I have been advised and warned, "Whatever the client says or requests, your answer is 'yes'." Frequently, when a consultant advises a client against a particular action or decision, that consultant is simply asked to leave the project.

In 2006, I periodically advised a project team at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The client project director, who was of relatively low-rank to be directing a systems upgrade effort, went through two project managers in the space of 4 months because they dared to give her advice on how to proceed. She ended up pulling a young consultant with zero PM experience from another project to be the PM simply because she liked him. And no doubt she liked him because he did not have the knowledge or skills to advise her on how to run the project, so he just said "yes" to everything.

This happens on almost every project I encounter. It seems as if clients are really looking for consultants to be "yes-men/women" and to support their personal agenda, instead of conducting a project in the best interest of the organization.

The Importance of Writing in Personal Branding

2010-02-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a webinar put on by IBM titled "Tips for Maximizing your Personal Brand". During the webinar, the presenter used Dolly Parton and Angelina Jolie as successful examples of personal branding, and spent alot of time advising listeners on personal dress, grooming, and even replacing worn luggage because it impacts one's image and what people think of you.

In today's information age with all the emphasis on social media, oddly at no time during the session did the presenter address the importance of writing and speaking abilities. People are much more likely to "read" you or "hear" you these days then they are to actually see you, yet all the time and emphasis in the presentation went to personal appearance.

The importance of good writing was exemplified in spades by one of the last slides which contained the word "LEARNT". As we all (hopefully) learned as schoolchildren, "learnt" is incorrect in the U.S. (and slang in Britain). Now, I am a former employee of IBM. I have always liked the company and still do. Seeing such a gross grammatical error on a slide from IBM really shocked and dismayed me, and it totally and immediately transformed my perception of the company.

Some Thoughts on Accountability

2010-02-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been running across articles, postings, and podcasts on accountability. Within organizations that I work with, this term has a negative connotation and is usually associated with some sort of punishment, assigning blame, or pinpointing failure. Also, I have witnessed many projects where people go out of their way to avoid being accountable.

Some say accountability is meaningless without a definition. To me, the meaninglessness of the term goes beyond definition. An organization can have the most robust definition in the word, but accountability is meaningless unless it is enforced.

Frequently, I see and hear accountability equated to responsibility. These are not the same thing, as anyone familiar with a RACI chart can tell you. RACI stands for "responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. It is a model for assigning levels of participation in a task among various individuals. In the RACI model, "responsible" is defined as doing the work to achieve the task, while accountable means being ultimately accountable for the correct and thorough completion of the task. In other words, an Accountable must sign off on or approve the work that a Responsible provides.

Often, the term "accountability" is equated to a promise or commitment someone makes. Heather Stagl of "The Change Agent's Dilemma" podcast starts off her definition with "Accountability is a promise to yourself and others.....". Accountability is not the actual commitment. Instead, the term connotes a future state of an individual based on the outcome of an earlier commitment. So, my current, personal definition of accountability is:

the state of being identified as the receiver of consequences for the future outcome of a commitment.

But I still have lingering questions such as, "Is accountability defined by whether or not an individual agrees to accept the future consequences?", say when that person is representing a group that is responsible carrying out the task, and "Does it matter if those consequences are positive or negative?" Any and all thoughts are welcome.

A Client Worst Practice

2010-02-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

Clients frequently ask consultants to investigate possible alternatives and make a recommendation to resolve an issue or decide on an operational change. After considering the recommendations, good clients usually make a decision, and making a decision is always followed by owning that decision and its related outcomes.

That ownership should manifest is project sponsors communicating and presenting decisions and outcomes throughout the organization and other stakeholder groups. From my experience, a lack of sponsor ownership is the primary reason projects fail. Frequently sponsors are afraid to own an unpopular decision and stand in the face of a negative reception, so they throw the consultant to the lions instead. I have witnessed this worst practice more times than I can count, and it has NEVER had a positive outcome. The illegitimacy of the presenter is quickly transferred to the results and recommendations they are presenting.

In January, my local newspaper (The North Shore News) contained an article about a public hearing on a decision to install parking metres in a commercial area. Guess who gave the presentation and answered the audience's questions and accusations? You got it - the consultant. Also you can also guess, the audience attacked the consultant's credentials and heckled him so badly that a moderator had to quell the room twice. But the audience's reaction was predictable since the consultant has no authority to make or own the decision, nor any influence on the audience, since he was not a City official. Of course, agency leaders should have made the presentation and taken audience questions (with the consultant's support from the sidelines) as they possess the legitimate authority to make and act on the decision.

Change is Not the Goal

2010-02-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

Consultants and project staff are constantly spouting terms like "change", "change project", "change initiative", or "change effort". Because these terms are thrown around so frequently, anyone working with or listening to consultants might begin to think that the consultants perceive the change as the goal or the "point" of the project.

I have met a few consultants who strongly defend their position that change is the main point of any and all projects. Most of these I strongly disagree with this position, and consider these good folks to have "drunk the cool-aid".

Some consultants will tell you "change" is the process. I say "change" is just a generic descriptor for the "to-be" or future state that the client is trying to reach. I agree with William Bridges who wrote that "transition" is the term for the process. But I think most consultants and change agents would agree that the goal or point of any project is the "to-be" state, however that state is defined or described.

As a change management practitioner, to me "change" is just a very vague term used in lieu of describing the details of a future state. "Transition" is the process that facilitates an organization moving from the as-is state to the desired to-be state. However you slice it, change and CM take supportive, secondary positions to the primary goal or point of the "to-be" state. We as consultants just need to learn a new way of speaking about change that indicates its relationship to the true goal of a project.

Client Quirks or How Not to Work with Consultants

2010-01-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

I just finished a project where the client Director had an array of fascinating but damaging behaviours. One of these was to never hold internal project resources (i.e. her operational staff) accountable for their mistakes. Her favourite person to pass the blame to, usually in a nasty-toned email, was the student intern - the youngest, least experienced, and hardest-working member of the team with undoubtedly the toughest job. If the intern was not physically present to receive the blame, then the Director would unload it on the consultant.

A simple example. The trainer who was a seconded internal resource and had worked with the Director for years, made many major errors such as giving incorrect information to trainees about project dates, times, plans, objectives, and roles and responsibilities which would confuse and upset the trainees. When someone complained to the Director, she went to the change management consultant and asked "Why did this happen?" instead of addressing the trainer. This behaviour was so consistent and overt, that it got to a point where external resources like the intern and consultants could easily predict it and laugh about it before it even happened.

Unfortunately, this behaviour is all to common in client-consultant relationships, and it usually comes from a very high level in the organization. The client has an easy target for blame whom she/he can abuse with no impact on long-term relationships, and the target has no recourse but to leave. Some clients knowingly hire consultants for this purpose, so they have someone to blame and/or fire if projects do not work out. But for most clients, like the one above, it is a subconscious behaviour that they are not even aware of. Either way, it is highly dysfunctional and destructive, and an excellent example of how NOT to work with consultants.

The Bad Guys of Government Consulting - Part 3

2010-01-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Oct 4, the Vancouver Sun reported (Cash still flowing despite scandal, pg A4) on a healthcare tech company which, despite being investigated for fraud and influence peddling, is still being paid $320K a year by four regional health authorities.

You've got to love this set-up. The president of the company selling the technology was also a consultant to the province's eHealth program. How sweet a deal is that? Just a tiny bit of conflict-of-interest, wouldn't you say? Also, RCMP alleged that the president, Dr. Jonathan Burns, 1) double-billed the BC Ministry of Health a few years ago, and 2) offered favours to a former health minister responsible for the eHealth project budget, who is also under investigation.

The kickbacks involve the minister's entire family as Burns reportedly hired the minister's wife and daughter in addition to offering the family condos and travel. In return, the minister supposedly raised Burn's hourly consulting rate to $195. The minister and his wife, also a government employee, have retired, but both their children are stil government employees. If that isn't the cherry on top of this whole story.

And this guy is still getting paid by the government? To say that "consultants" like Dr. Burns give all consultants a bad name is an understatement. When the accusations are of criminal behaviour and considered news-worthy, the damage to other healthcare consultants is severe. Never would I want to be put or even considered in the same group as this ass. Allegations like this are far too common in the public service and make honest, hard-working consutlants with integrity like me sick to their stomachs.

Wouldn't a simple background check have revealed Burns' conflict of interest and prevented a contract award from the start?

"Systems work; people don't"

2009-11-11T20:01:00.001-08:00

Last week, someone on my project team made a very wise observation that "Systems work; people don't". As negative and depressing as this sounds, when it comes to transformation projects involving technology, this statement is a real nugget of truth.

If we look at a project in three parts - people, process, and technology - the technology part has a much greater chance of success if the team simply goes through the standard practices of business requirements, testing, interfaces, etc. (and here I do not know a lot). With the people part, a team can communicate, train, and manage change through best practices until they are blue in the face, but there is never any guarantee of even the smallest success.

The technology will never manifest its doubt and fear of change by spreading damaging rumours or sabotaging the project in other ways. People will. Technology will not ignore the messages you send it (Like "change this field or that function"). People will ignore messages about new procedures, processes, or even new forms to use. Technology will not skip training or encourage others to skip training as an act of rebellion against a change. People will. And depending on the amount of time and change management resources available, a team may have little to no chance of identifying whose the saboteurs might be before-hand. Whereas, a team can tell in advance if a system is not working properly through testing.

What Change Management is Not

2009-11-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, my project manager said to me, "Many users are not happy with the training schedule, from a change management perspective." This statement is so full of misconceptions, I was struck dumb and did not even know where to begin to respond to it. The one response I did manage to eek out was "PM, training IS change management", which she still did not understand because she simply repeated her previous statement to me. (Reminder: We are working on a large, complex transformation project involving installation of new systems, the creation of a department within the organization, and a radical change in processes.)

Let me itemize here for my own piece of mind, all the misconceptions contained in the PM's statement:

1. Change management is NOT about how happy users are with the training schedule
2. The training program is a product of several variables; survey results on how users would like to be trained is not one of them
3. Success of a training program is not judged by how much users do or do not like the program. It is judged by how well KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) are transferred to users.
4. Change management is about increasing a user's awareness, desire (or buy-in), knowledge, and ability to make a change; it is NOT about increasing their happiness.
5. Training is a major pillar of a CM plan. User happiness is not.

One could also interpret the PM's statement as saying that trainee happiness is more important than KSA transfer. For example, the CM team has scheduled a particular training class based on room availability, trainer availability and downstream project tasks that rely on the outputs of the class. When asked to register for this class, trainees contact the team to express their displeasure at some aspect of logistics.

I find project staff, especially PMs, have a tendency to change their definition of CM to whatever suits them in a particular moment. This often results in comments about how the CM team or plan must be failing because users/trainees are not feeling "all warm and fuzzy". I think this tendency is fed by the perception that Change Managers are "Drs. Feelgood" that come into an organization, make everyone stand in a circle, hold hands, and sing "Kumbaya".

Let me spell this concept out clearly for all current and future project team members:

CHANGE MANAGEMENT IS NOT ABOUT MAKING PEOPLE FEEL GOOD, NOR CATERING TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES. IT IS ABOUT ENABLING THEM TO SUCCEED IN A NEW WORK ENVIRONMENT.

Well, you may argue that trainee happiness with the training program would contribute to an increase in their desire/buy-in to the change. This is pure polly-ana. The causal relationship between the two is slim-to-none. Desire/buy-in is most impacted by WIIFM - "what's in it for me" where the "it" refers to the coming changes, not the CM plan. A training class that suits one user's preferences does nothing to answer that crucial question. Desire/buy-in does not equal happiness.

Change Management and JIT: You cannot have this cake and eat it too!

2009-09-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

Back in February, I was hired by a large, healthcare org as their "Senior CM Advisor" to provide the following CM services on a systems implementation project.

To review and provide direction on best practices for ensuring optimal organizational change management, and
Provide techniques and templates as well as guidance on best practices for aspects of organizational change management such as communication plans, training plans, and organizational readiness.

As per my usual standards, I did quick assessments and recommendations resulting in communication and training plans, along with org design action plans that these folks needed in order to be even somewhat successful. I was also there to guide and transfer CM knowledge to the CM Lead who is an internal resource. The problem was nobody ever listened to me me, read my reports/work products, or -- god forbid -- used any of them to run/manage the project.

I recently confronted the CM Lead and PM with this fact (not mentioning that the project pays $150/hour for me to give advice that nobody uses. And it's great advice theat they should heed!) The CM Lead apologized and said she would make more of an effort to listen and use my ideas, tools, and templates. In the two weks that she has been doing so, lo and behold, the team is working much more collaboratively and efficiently, and resources are happier all around.

The PM had a completely different reaction. She said, "This project has always been run JIT, and we have been very successful so far. That's the way it is. Get used to it." One cannot have change mngmt in a JIT environment because JIT violates the entire premise of CM as proactive, planned, and managed. Trying to do reactive or JIT CM contradicts the whole concept. In a JIT project, change is not really managed becuase there is no element of predictive analysis or planning. Really, you just have comms and training or "change damage control". This is why nobody was reading my work products, because they're proactive, and not JIT. The weirdest thing of all was when I explained this to the PM, she completely agreed with me. I did not then ask her why she hired me. So the question becomes how long I can continue working in this role with little satisfaction.

"Hey consultant, how are my staff performing on the project?"

2009-09-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

Steve Shu recently posted a bit about providing feedback on client staff to client management. My immediate reaction was, "Only in my dreams!". Rarely has this happened to me. In fact, I can only think about the few times this has occurred informally on my current project, and I am only asked about the intern (who seems to annoy everyone but me), not the actual full-time employees seconded to the project. It would not surprise me one bit to discover that few public sector consultants are asked for feedback on their client team members. I cannot think of a driving force that would entice a public manager to ask such a question.

Has anyone out there (all 2-3 of you) ever been asked for feedback on client project staff by a client manager? Really, I am dying to know.

My experiences being asked for an on-the-spot evaluation of a student intern prompt me to ask other questions. The intern has the role of communication specialist, but she is also the project's training coordinator, booking rooms, requesting user system access, printing materials and such. It is not a light work load nor a glamourous one, but it is critical. And she is very proactive, constantly pursuing her action items and going through her to-do list. Of course, everything she does requires input, direction, or approval from other team members, and usually some combo of the three. People snap at her all the time, but she seems to brush it off quickly and just keep going.

I think the rest of the team is annoyed because they 1) forget what is was like to be young and energetic, and 2) they do not work with young people who are energetic and enthusiastic, but need constant attention, direction, and/or QA of all their work. Also, that fast-paced project model of constant collaboration among tem members is highly unusual for these folks as well. They are accustomed to working alone on highly repetitive tasks with few regular meetings.

What are your thoughts and experiences working with interns? If you are an intern, please share your perspective.

How Do You Define Consulting?

2009-07-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Do you have trouble explaining what you do to relatives and friends? Mine still don't really "get" what I do. Funny story - my Dad worked for the government, and at his retirement ceremony he introduced me to an audience of federal workers and told them my job was "downsizing the government." Frustrating, but not wholly unexpected. How do you bridge this gap and describe what you do to the people you know?

Cardinal Rule #7: Thou Shalt Write

2009-06-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Consulting frequently feels like a marathon of writing. One is constantly drafting or revising reports, presentations, proposals, meeting minutes, workshop results, letters, budgets, and you-name-it. Documentation is critical on a consulting project for several reasons, a few of which are:

1. Consultant and client learning
2. Consensus building (creating a shared understanding)
3. Fulfillment of contractual commitments
4. Accuracy of findings
5. Capture decisions

Good consultants take copious notes at most meetings. In full view of everyone, they document ideas, decisions, action items, and keep a parking lot of tangential items. It is a key way for consultants to learn about the client, and gather information that will help determine their recommendations. (Afterwards, they always follow up by distributing meeting minutes to all attendees.)

If you are meeting with consultants, and they are not taking notes (or recording the session with your permission), then its quite likely that whatever is being discussed will not be retained or captured anywhere for future use or consideration, nor factored into future recommendations or plans.

Change Management requires Time and Skilled Resources

2009-06-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

Awareness of the purpose and value of change management (CM) has definitely risen among my clients since I began practicing CM in 1998. However, I am still astonished at the number of clients and/or PMs I encounter who vastly underestimate the effort and skills required to do CM correctly, even on large projects that impact thousands of users.

In many cases, CM work is downplayed and assigned to a team member (who does not have adequate skills or experience) to accomplish "off the side of their desk". Just before go-live, project leads face reality and the true size of the change burden. And that is when my phone rings. Of course, the expectation is that I am going to come in and accomplish change miracles one month before go-live. I am here to tell you that it ain't going to happen, folks.

Think of the communications (comms) effort alone on a project touching 3000 people in an organization that may have 25 or more communication channels. You will need a full-time CM specialist for 4-6 weeks to do adequate data collection and write a decent communications plan. Then, you will then need a communications resource to implement that plan (write and deliver messages) every day until well past go-live. And none of this even touches the CM work on training, stakeholder management, or readiness assessment.

CM requires the same if not greater skills and resourcing as process redesign or system/technical roles. On a recent transformation project (not just system install) impacting 8000 staff in a large organization, there was a project team of about 20. 4.5 of those individuals were responsible for all CM planning; comms delivery; training plans, materials, and delivery; process redesign and documentation; and org design, while the other 15.5 were all working on the system.

I once ran into the president of a small consulting firm who thought one person would suffice to cover both the PM and CM roles for a large transformation project impacting 17,000 staff. Go figure. I don't know where this lunacy comes from.

Designing an effective CM program is very difficult to do well. CM is one of those services that really does require a master's degree and several years of experience. This level of expertise does not come cheap, but then again, the planning tasks don't take long to accomplish. It is a short-term investment with long-term payoffs.

Cardinal Rule #6 - Thou Shalt Speak in Plain Language

2009-06-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have heard not a few complaints and many jokes about "consultantese", referring to the language and buzzwords frequently used by consultants and nobody else. Heavy reliance on consulting lingo such as “paradigm” and “leverage” is a sure sign of a feeble mind not capable of thinking for itself or expressing itself clearly.

When it comes to establishing a solid client relationship, consultantese immediately gets in the way. A good consultant will refrain from using lingo because the last thing she wants to do is create a wall between herself and the client. When a hot-shot, recent business-school graduate tells a client, “Based on the 80/20 rule, we will have the bandwidth to help you leverage X, Y, or Z technologies and change your operational paradigm", that client should just run for the hills.

More Observations on Change Management

2009-06-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

This post continues the observation that people have many different and competing ideas of what change management (CM) is. Contrary to some beliefs, CM does not equate to any of the following:

- conflict resolution or management
- personality type testing
- focus groups
- management or executive retreats
- alternative dispute resolution
- trust-building exercises
- team building sessions
- newsletters

BUT.... and there is always a "but", a CM plan can utilize one or all of the above if the situation calls for it, and the resources and time allow it. For instance, one or more focus groups may be conducted as a means to assess an organization's change readiness. Likewise, if an organization has the time and money, and management retreat may be run to build build buy-in among stakeholders (i.e. get everyone on board with the project goals). In my career, I have seen CM plans that included newsletters, focus groups, and personality type testing, but none of the others listed above.

In my project work, any efforts in team building are usually reserved for the project team at the whim of the PM. For some reason, the change manager is frequently called upon to deliver team building sessions eventhough this is clearly a PM responsibility. As an "add-on" CM responsibility, team building falls into the same category as project team communications. It is part of project team care and management; not organizational care and management.

Truly Bad Guys - Part II

2009-06-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

The people harmed most by criminal behaviour are the consultants and staff who are simply seeking an honest day's work, and make the mistake of agreeing to take a job with these firms.

Guilty firms like 1 Source can hide their past behaviours from future clients, media, etc., and clients will recover from losing their investment in a project, but the staff who were harmed will have to live with that experience until they retire.

They will either leave the experience off their resume in which case they will have to explain the gap to future employers, or put it on their resume and then have to explain why their stint was so short and why they left. Also, consulting in D.C. is a small world where firms partner or compete with other frequently. Reputations are built quickly and spread fast. Having a firm with a poor reputation on one's resume may cost you an interview or two.

(I will not touch on the long-lasting physcological affects of physical and sexual harrassment since this blog is not the appropriate place for that discussion.)

Watch out for the Truly Bad Guys

2009-06-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a consulting firm's behaviour is not even a question of integrity but a question of legality and criminality. As we wrote in an earlier post, consulting is a profession that is ripe for con artists since the title is open to anyone, there are no required certifications or educational degrees, and a client can only do so much to assess a consultant's abilities.
The true story below shows why clients should take the time to do thorough due diligence before hiring a consultant or firm.

Take the case of 1-Source Consulting in Washington DC. 1 Source was founded in 1999, and in 2003, they "won" two small contracts with the CIO's office of the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security where every consulting firm was trying to get a piece of the money pie. The president of 1-Source had an existing personal relationship with an employee in the CIO's office. As it turned out, the contracts were absolutely empty. In other words, there was no actual work going on.

Consultants (again all young and female) were brought in by 1-Source and assigned to desks at the client site, but only one was ever given a PC. The client "project manager" was never around, never tasked or even spoke to the consultants, and never responded to calls or emails. Statements of Work were never seen. One consultant who had been there the longest, meaning a few months, was asked to re-write the same procedural manual over again three times with no specific feedback as to why or what was wrong with it.

The few admin staff who worked back at 1-Source's office left their jobs within a few months and most of them sued 1-Source for lack of pay for hours worked or sexual harrassment. Everything these guys did or touched was pure poison. At a 7AM meeting, the "president" of 1-Source shoved a new hire sitting next to him on a bench seat for no apparent reason. She was very petite and fell over on the bench nearly smashing her head on the table.

These folks were criminals from every angle - government fraud, sexual harrassment, physical abuse, and who knows what else was going on. And they are still in business. Current and future clients considering 1-Source will never find out about these past incidents. They will see a nice website with the right buzz words like "synergy" and "customer satisfaction", read some trumped-up resumes, and make alot of assumptions about whom they are dealing with.

From what I have witnessed in my short career, I often think that consultants should have the same reputation as lawyers. The only reason they do not is because legal work is more public while consulting is more private and not exicting enough to make the news.

Cardinal Rule #5 - It's All About Integrity

2009-06-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

Good consultants value their integrity above all. This trait goes beyond not disclosing client confidential information. They keep their word and their commitments, to the client and each other. If they sign up to produce a deliverable by a certain date, then they deliver a quality product on-time.

Good consultants are aware of how their work impacts other members of the team, the project manager who has to report progress to the client, and the client. They are also aware of the inter-dependencies that exist between team members tackling different tasks, some of whom may be dependent on your work as an input to theirs. Likewise, if a project manager says they will provide a certain resource or skill set, they do not “bait-and-switch”. Every time a consultant fails to keep a commitment, a chunk of damage is done to the team’s and the firm’s reputation, reliability, and professionalism.

Part of maintaining one's integrity is telling the whole story. Good consultants do not hide less-than-stellar findings and recommendations from the client because they fear a negative reception. It is a consultant’s ethical duty to report all issues and findings from an objective stand-point. Not reporting the whole truth or reporting only “rose- coloured results” may gain approval and smiles for the consultant in the short-term, but will likely result in the long-term in project failure and a zero return for the client on their investment.

Yes, many clients will "shoot the messenger" upon hearing not-so-stellar findings. I am sure this happened to most of us, and we have also seen it happen to many others. I have been verbally abused, I have seen other consultants verbally attacked. Twice in my career I have been asked to leave projects, and I know plenty of consultants that were also asked to leave. As a consultant, accept that this will happen to you in your career.

At this point, almost everyone would advise you to "not take it personally", but that is the most ridiculous advice I have ever heard. If you care about your work, and your relationships with your client, you cannot help but take it personally. I have two pieces of advice: 1) know that the problem is the client's ("bad news not allowed here"), and not you, and 2) know that it will pass in time. But you will still be able to sleep and look yourself in the mirror knowing that you did the right thing.

A friend of mine was fired by a client two years ago when she presented a finding that there was a particularly problematic staff member. A year later she found out that the client had finally faced the music and fired the problem individual. Vindication like this is nice, but also infrequent. In a time when many industries are rife with false data, fudged reports, and cooked books, integrity in consultants is paramount.

Observations on Change Management in Public Sector Projects

2009-06-04T13:20:00.001-07:00

Having practiced change management for over ten years, I keep running into a few niggly problems. The CM I refer to here is organizational CM which I define as:

The proactive diagnosing and resolving of organizational barriers to make changes acceptable and achievable in the organization, and minimize the impact of change on productivity

The recurring problem is that since CM is such a vague term, people tend to define it very differently, and then go on to build assumptions based upon their own definition. Most consultants and clients see communications and training in the CM bucket, but that's where any shared understanding typically ends. On my current project, the CM Lead is also partially responsible for org structure changes, process redesign and documentation, and post go-live support. It is an impossible workload for her and her two seconded, very junior resources who have no project experience.

Part of the issue in this case is that the CM lead's title was originally "business change lead" which to me is a very different animal than CM. A business change lead would be responsible for all aspects of transformation outside of systems whereas a CM lead has a narrower scope of mainly comms, training, and stakeholder management. The PM has never set the record straight with the team as to CM's role and responsibilities, so everyone has a different expectation.

There are consultants and others out there who will use and abuse CM for their own purposes. On a very large project last year (involving 3500 users), a few project team members attempted to foist the responsibility of drafting the support plan on the 3-person CM team that was already responsible for user access and security in addition to comms, training, etc. Fortunately, the CM lead was able to deflect it.

The most common scope-creep forced on change managers is the responsibility for project team communications. This one really pushes my button. Project team comms are the sole responsibility of the PM and the project administrator (if there is one). I am stunned any time a PM asks me or another CMer to take this responsibility because they are relinquishing their authority and control by doing so. Don't they see the risks in doing this? From a CM perspective, communications should focus on stakeholders external to the project team; those impacted by the change, not the people delivering it. These are two very different audiences whose messages should be kept separate and distinct.

It is vital at the beginning of a project, that the project manager define roles and responsibilities to include what does and does not fall into the CM bucket, and then to staff the CM team accordingly. Also, CM is NOT a vague, catch-all term. It is a very precise and tangible service with methods, tools, and templates.

Fraternizing with the Client

2009-05-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in postings. One of our authors has been out of the country for many weeks. But we're back now in full force.

In my years in consulting, I have witnessed many degrees of client fraternization. A round of golf on occassion causes no harm, but a few late nights at the bar can drastically alter a business relationship. I have seen consultants "go native" where they perceive themselves to be a member of the client organization to the degree that they begin to use the term "we" instead of "them" when referring to the client. "Gone natives" lose all objectivity, understanding of roles and responsibilities, and frequently lose sight of the project purpose. "Going native" is frequently cause by spending too much time socializing with the client in non-work settings.

I once worked with a consultant who always chose to socialize with the client after-hours instead of going to dinner or debriefing with his project team. You can imagine what happened. Perceptions of this guy quickly changed on both sides of the table. Relationships soured, accusations of slacking and favoritism flew, and project team cohesiveness and morale suffered. So, do not choose to socialize with your client over socializing with your team if the two events coincide. One good idea is to save the dinner/celebration with the client until the end of the project.

A more egregious instance of fraternizing. In 2001, a consulting project director developed a tight relationship with the Director of the client agency in the early stages of the project. Between the two of them, they worked out the organizational aspects of the transformation before any consulting work was done. Then they brought consultants in to produce deliverables as window dressing and to spend the budgeted $9m. And the "window dressing" aspect was more than apt since the project director populated the team with young, single, good-looking, female consultants from all over the country because that is what the agency director liked to see walking around his office. Of course, there were more than a few inappropriate affairs that began in this environment.

People are not stupid. They can sense when there is a "smokey back room" going on, even if the perpetrators are adept at hiding it. And when they realize their work has no meaning and is just for show, you can bet behaviours are going to change. The bottom line: Maintain a friendly, professional relationship in order to maintain your objectivity, your ethical standards, and serve your client's best interests.

2009-04-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

Buzzwords Got You Down?

Then lighten your day by reading the adventures of Action Item - Professional Superhero! --->

Project Management basics

2009-03-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago I joined a 13-month project that was already 4 months in. At my first team meeting, I was shocked when a long-standing team member said emphatically that she did not know what each team member did nor who was responsible for what. She had some idea, but not nearly a complete picture. As it turned out, there were many subtasks and one large deliverable that had never been assigned an owner. What ended up happening, as you can probably guess, is that multiple team members picked up these tasks because they saw the need, which meant that precious resource hours were being wasted on redundant work.

It is supremely fortunate to have a project team of all "self-starters"; however, even self-starters need to be given clear structure and Rs&Rs. Otherwise, they will be duplicating effort, working nights and weekends, and burning through your project budget.

As a sometimes project manager, I distribute the project team org chart with detailed roles and responsibilities for each team member early and often. I post it in multiple places both real or virtual, and bring it up frequently at team status meetings to remind everyone how " all the pieces fit together", and more specifically how any one individual's piece relates to the pieces of others. Remember, there are almost always deliverables downstream from yours for which your deliverable is a key input.

Tangent #3 - Women Bullies?

2009-03-15T19:37:00.001-07:00

An article entitled, "Workplace Bullying: What Can You Do?" on monster.com by John Rossheim, cites that "One in six American workers experiences workplace bullying.... and most bullies and their targets are women. However, 42 percent of the perpetrators are men."

I don't know which part of this statement is more disturbing:

1) that one in six American workers are bullied
2) that most bullies are women
3) that most targets are women.

As a woman, I am more shocked and upset by statement #2. (In my book, it is always much worse to be the perpetrator then the recipient.) My first thought in reaction to this is that to fit into and succeed in a still-male, corporate culture, women are either conciously or unconciously adopting practices like bullying.

But it is the plethora of disturbing questions that arise around why women predominantly apply the practice to their "own kind". Do female co-workers make easier targets due to gender politics, or because the perpetrator thinks that a bullied woman will not fight back or report the misbehaviour? In graduate school there were anecdotes and case studies about women in certain industries (I remember one was nursing (!)) "eating their young". This phrase referred to the systematic abuse and bullying of young, female new-hires until they quit. I am sure some social psych or gender psych author has an explanation for this.

Cardinal Rule #4 - Thou shalt practice full disclosure

2009-02-19T13:07:00.001-08:00

Good consultants do not hide findings and recommendations from the client because they fear a negative reaction. It is a consultant’s ethical duty to report the whole story of their analysis and all findings from an objective stand-point.

Some clients have a tendency to “shoot the messenger” when they hear a less-than-stellar finding from a consultant. That comes with the territory, so don't take it personally. Nobody likes bad news, but a mature client who is truly focused on improvement and progress will listen carefully and take the consultant’s message and recommendations to heart. Mature clients will not use a finding of weakness or "opportunity for improvement" as an opportunity to blame the consultant.

Not reporting the whole truth or falsely reporting only “roses and candy” may gain approval and smiles for the consultant in the short-term, but will likely result in the long-term in project failure and a zero return for the client on their investment. Practice full disclosure and you will sleep better at night. If your client attacks you for a negative finding, know that "it's not you, it's them".

Cardinal Rule #2 - Thought leadership (continued)

2009-02-17T13:54:00.001-08:00

So what does through leadership actually look like in practice? Well, a thought leader who is running a client workshop to resolve one or more issues will have multiple alternatives or suggestions prepped and in their "back pocket" to stimulate brainstorming among the group. Likewise, a thought leader will walk into a process redesign session with a "straw model" or even two. Another common mark of a thought leader is the reference and use of best practices; bringing them into workshops, sessions, and deliverables wherever BPs will add value.

"Consultant-as-thought leader" seems to have been dying a quick death since about 2002 which depresses me to no end. Whenever I have used this phrase recently among consulting colleagues, I have received mostly blank stares. On one of my recent projects, I assigned two consultants (one of whom was supposedly a "training expert") to run a training planning kick-off workshop with the client.

They did not want to or see the need to prep facilitation questions beforehand

They did not stand at the white board or the front of them room during the session

They did not present initial ideas or suggestions to attendees to stimulate discussion or consensus

They did not capture ideas and agreements in full view of attendees

Best practices were not mentioned

As you can imagine, the session and travel involved was a complete waste of time and money because there were no concrete ideas put forth or recorded as to how to deliver training to the target audience. So, you can be any kind of expert -- training, supply chain, CRM, whatever -- but that does not make you a good consultant nor a thought leader. Thought leadership comes from 1) APPLYING your knowledge where it will help in a project, and 2) SHARING your knowledge with the client.

Cardinal Rule #2 - Thou Shalt be a Thought Leader

2009-02-13T10:21:00.001-08:00

Okay, now we're finally getting around to Cardinal Rule #2, first mentioned in the January 14th post. As a young consultant at IBM, the concept of thought leadership was beaten into our heads through endless repetition. According to Wikipedia, the term "thought leader" (TL) was first used by Joel Kurtzman of Strategy & Business magazine. Wikipedia defines a thought leader as:

"a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among their peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights."

When it comes to consulting, there are parts of this definition I agree with and parts I do not. First off, "TL" is jargon so refrain from using it around clients. Secondly, a TL is not necessarily a futurist, or not only a futurist, and I say this because I think consulting is more immediate and tactical than futurism. Three, innovative ideas - abso-friggin-lutely, although you may not receive recognition for generating them. (I often find that the true deep-thinking consultants get used and abused by their colleagues rather than rewarded. But that's another post for another time.)

Four, consulting is about sharing or better yet explaining innovative ideas, much more so than promoting. Good consultants convince the client of the rightness of their ideas with evidence. Lastly, "actionable distilled insights" is unnecessarily fancy language for tactical recommendations or action steps/items. There are two basic parts to any consultant recommendation: 1) the idea, and 2) how to make it real. They are equally important, and you cannot have one without the other.

To be continued in the next post............

Cardinal Rule #3 - Thou shalt ask just the right questions

2009-02-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

Returning to our consulting process from Janaury 13th for just a moment, I want to make one point of clarification.

hypotheses --> data --> findings --> conclusions --> recommendations

What this flow is missing is the statement of the client issue(s) prior to hypotheses, because it is the isue or issues that drive hypotheses. That is the question or problem the consultants have been asked to resolve. So the flow should actually look like this:

issue statement -->hypotheses --> data --> findings --> conclusions --> recommendations

During the "hypotheses" stage, good consultants formulate just the right questions for data collection (or "discovery" as some call it, but that's too legalese for me), and not too many. They think about what they need to know before meeting with client staff, and prepare a list of questions or data needs. For instance, if the client's issue is high staff turnover, consultants may ask questions such as:

- "What was the number of grievances filed each year for the past 5 years?", or
- "What orientation programs are required for new hires?"

By planning their questions beforehand, good consultants collect all the data they need and none they don't, and avoid wasting the client's time.

The other side of this coin is that good consultants never, ever assume anything. Assumptions are a consultant’s death-knell. If you ever hear a consultant say, “Well, I assumed that….”, show them the door immediately. If you are a client, the next time you hire consultants, ask to see their data collection tools whether they be interview guides, surveys, and/or facilitation guides.

Consultant Lingo - Gotta Love It

2009-02-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Before diving into the signs of a good consultant, I want to touch on the ever-present topic of consulting lingo. KGao recently provided a very comprehensive and entertaining dictionary at ManagementConsulted.com. A few of those terms I actually like and use, but most annoy the hell out of me. And I can't believe he did not include the two most over-used and annoying terms of all time, "leverage" and "paradigm".

Reading KGao's list prompted me to think about why it is consultants and other professionals develop their own lexicons.

1) to distinguish ourselves
2) to separate ourselves from others not like us
3) to indicate that we are a member of the "consultant tribe" (not the "lawyer tribe" or "engineer tribe") and/or
4) to give an immediate indicator to our client that we gained substantive knowledge from our $100K Ivy educations.

However, when it comes to establishing a relationship with your client, all of these reasons get in the way. The last thing a good consultant wants to do is create a wall between themselves and the client, especially a wall based on language.

Imagine a client's reaction when a consulting team walks in and immediately and brashly starts tossing lingo around like a football. Annoying to say the least. Whenever I hear a 26-yr-old, b-school grad tell me about her "project which leverages X, Y, or Z to change the client's operational pardigm", I smile, give a gracious thank-you, then leave.

Also, over-use of consulting lingo is a sure sign of two things:

1) a cover-up for lack of substance, and
2) an inability to think for oneself and express oneself.

You'll get alot more mileage out of saying what you mean and meaning what you say in plain english or whatever language you speak.

Non-fraudulent Consulting

2009-02-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

The previous post makes an excellent segue to a discussion of traits that make for a good consultant. But a little more background is necessary first.

Private companies and public sector organizations spend billions every year on consultants. In 2005, organizations spent $6.7 billion on consultants; 40% of this in IT.[1] How many of these projects are successful and a render a return on the investment? According to ZDNet.co.uk, in 2007 70% of government IT projects in the UK failed. In the U.S., $80-145 billion was spent on failed or cancelled projects.(Hass and Avery) These project failures lead to millions of wasted dollars.(Espiner and Lewis, 2007) As a consultant to the public sector over the past 13 years, I have witnessed a few of those wasted millions myself.

Several studies have been done and causes cited as to why so many consulting projects fail; from inadequate project sponsorship, to lack of resources, to poor change management. From my observations over the years, I have long thought that if clients knew what to look for in a consultant, they would make better hiring decisions, and increase the likeliness of project success. If I were a client seeking to hire consultants for a project today, I would look for the following traits.

1. Treating the client like a customer (see previous post on customer service)

2. Asking lots of questions and asking the right questions.

3. Being detailed and thorough

4. Constantly writing

5. Listening actively

6. Leading the thinking

7. Showing your work

8. Being honest and open

9. Integrity, integrity, integrity

From the consultant's perspective, these traits become the "cardinal rules". We will discuss each one of these rules in upcoming posts. As usual, please feel free to weigh in on the cardinal rules or suggest others at any point.

[1] The Kennedy Information Study – 2005 cited in “Gaining the Competitive Edge in Management Consulting”, http://www.cmc-canada.com/.

Is management consulting just a fraud?

2009-02-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

While trolling other blogs recently, I came across an old post (Nov, 2006) at joelonsoftware.com by Joel Spolsky wherein he gives a great, generic example of why management consulting is a fraud and a game. I also came across a paper from 2007 on the consultant-client relationship (Seidl and Mohe) which contained the following quote from the former CEO of Volkswagen:

"If you want to ruin a company, you only have to try fixing it with the help of external consultants".

Ouch, that really hurts. It also reminds me of that famous line about consultants, "A consultant is someone who takes your watch, tells you what time it is, then charges you $200."

Well, from what I have witnessed in my time as a consultant, much of it is a fraud with the watch analogy being very apt. I have seen consultants:

1) copy content from a previous consulting report produced a few years back, present it as their own findings, then charge the client for two weeks of work,
2) make up fake quantitiative data and gleefully submit it to the client as real,
3) cite content from the client's strategic plans and other documents as their own findings and conclusions,
4) launder money through a fake contract with an accomplice who was a manager in a government agency, and
5) engage in all other sorts of unethical and unbelievable behaviours.

The longer I stay in this field, the more of these ethical lapses I observe, and it causes me no end of concern. There are rotten apples in this field just as there are in other fields. Unfortunately, due to the esoteric nature of the work, consulting is a field ripe for con artists whose only skill is talking a good game. By the time the client discovers that there is no substance behind the talk, the consultant or firm has already made their money.

But I am here to testify that there is a portion of consulting that is not fraudulent, which does bring value to clients, and a proportion of consultants that really are skilled and sincerely care about their client's success. Future posts will discuss traits of this consultat sub-set.

It's Still About Customer Service

2009-01-29T17:41:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, a former colleague of mine back east shared a story about a consultant who had recently made the transition from academia to consulting. This individual was given the assignment of writing a summary of the project purpose and objectives. She based the document on existing documentation and what she had been told about the project by colleagues. She would submit one draft after another to the client who kept rejecting them.

As usual, I could only shake my head at this story. This anecdote supports my observation that the simple but valuable practice of meeting and talking with the client seems to be going the way of the dodo. Only through meeting and talking with the client can a consultant really understand their situation and their concerns from their perspective. Also, how else are you going to connect with the client and establish a relationship?

I am seeing more and more evidence that many consulting firms have forgotten or choose to ignore that consulting IS STILL ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE; therefore, many new consultants never learn this. No wonder there is a strong tendency among consultants today to rely completely on the documentation, such as the contract and proposal, or what they can find on-line for information on the client's organization.

Getting to know your client and establishing a relationship CANNOT be done via documentation and email. Would you expect a faceless entity to know enough about your business and situation to give you good service without talking to you? No. What level of confidence would you have in that person? Little.

Good consultants treat their clients like customers. They meet and talk with the client frequently. It's a basic practice, and well worth the time.

Organizing for Success

2009-01-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

What does this phrase mean to you? I'm especially interested in how you structure and name files and folders on your computer and in Outlook. I've seen everything from no structure whatsoever to including the date and author in every file name. I'm looking for (there's no other way to say it)..."best practices."

What is a Consultant - Part Deux

2009-01-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

Merriam-Webster's entry for consultant is as follows:

Function: noun
Date: 1697
1 : one who consults another
2 : one who gives professional advice or services : expert

The inclusion of "expert" surprised me. I have never been comfortable with the label of "expert". Even after 13 years of consulting, I would never claim to be an expert in anything. Also, I am instantly suspicious of consultants who label themselves as experts.

A few years ago, I received a resume of a consultant with 8 years of experience who claimed she was an expert in over 20 solution areas. Highly unlikely to say the least. My own standards for "expert" would be someone with 20 years of experience who is also published on the topic.

Being a consultant does not make one an expert, just as being an expert certainly does not make one a consultant. If I were a client, and a consultant came to me and said "I am an expert and I have the answer to your problem.", I would immediately be doubtful. What could that consultant know about my organization, or the history and drivers of my problem? Nothing, unless they happen to be a former employee of my organization.

Consultants do not bring "the answer". What they bring is a method to find the answer.

Or in most cases "answers". A consultant who brings a ready-made answer already has a personal agenda which will cloud their objectivity. Consultants are not and should not be "in the know". They should be "in the process of finding out". Consulting consists of methods, processes, and discipline, not a bag of answers.

Tangent #2 - Join My Grammar Campaign

2009-01-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

1. My latest grammatical annoyance is the near-death of the term "fewer", and the constant mis-use of the word "less". My favourite example was a statement Starbucks was printing on its napkins not too long ago about recycling. It was something like "Less napkins. More plants. More planet." Argh! - I was steamed, and should have written to Starbucks about their gaffe. (It should have read "fewer napkins".)

A simple rule I like is that "fewer" should be used with items that can be counted such as oranges, dollars, monkeys, etc. "Less" should be used for items that are indivisible like sunshine, money, or food.

Example: "We had less sunshine this spring then last spring; therefore, the grove produced fewer oranges."

I entreat all current and future readers of this post to join me in my campaign to revive the term "fewer", and put "less" in its proper place. Thank you.

2. Not too long ago I was working on a transformantion project for a regional health services organization. The team members responsible for BPR had released the first draft of their redesign report. Throughout the document, the authors has used the word "latent" when they meant "late".

According to Merriam-Webster, latent is:
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin latent-, latens, from present participle of latēre to lie hidden; akin to Greek lanthanein to escape notice
Date: 15th century
: present and capable of becoming though not now visible, obvious, active, or symptomatic latent infection>
latent applies to a power or quality that has not yet come forth but may emerge and develop

If one wants to convey the concept of late, then just say late, or maybe use untimely. (And I bet you were questionning what grammar has to do with consulting.)

Pardon the Tangent

2009-01-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in an AP story, "Kellogg's recalls more peanut butter products", the author described Keebler-brand crackers as "venerable". Now, I do not know about you, but since when did crackers become venerable?

Merriam-Webster has the following entry for venerable:

1: deserving to be venerated —used as a title for an Anglican archdeacon or for a Roman Catholic who has been accorded the lowest of three degrees of recognition for sanctity
2: made sacred especially by religious or historical association
3 a: calling forth respect through age, character, and attainments ; broadly : conveying an impression of aged goodness and benevolence

I have heard of venerable institutions and venerable historical figures (The Venerable Bede), but crackers will never be venerable no matter how long the brand has been around. That is like calling Coca-Cola brand soda venerable. If one means "old", one should say "old", or in this case maybe "long-time mainstay of American supermarkets". But please do not venerate a cracker.

Cardinal Rule #1 - Thou shalt not make **** up

2009-01-15T17:53:00.000-08:00

As promised, here is one recent example of what happens when consultants pull recommendations from thin air and do not show their thinking (It's like "showing your work" on a math exam.)

In phase two of a transformation project, the consulting team issued a report of recommendations to the client. One section of this report recommended a ratio of customer service reps to customers of 1:260. This recommendation had zero supporting material. Zilch, nada, nothing, not one iota, not even a footnote. There was no data to back it up in any appendix, no findings nor conclusions. However, being blended with hundreds of other recommendations in that report, the ratio did not draw any attention or become a problem until the next phase of the project, Design.

Part of the Design phase was a new organization design which included the same recommended ratio, but thus time it stuck out like a sore thumb. For obvious reasons, the client reacted strongly to the recommendation and naturally rejected it because it was unsupported.

There was no continuity on the project team from phases 2 to 3, so the phase 3 team had to go back to the primary author of the phase 2 report who then assembled a supporting argument for the recommendation after the fact. This unplanned "revisitation" put the project behind schedule and jeopardized the budget. When the phase 3 project manager finally presented the new organization design, everyone including the steering committee was aware of what had happened. What impact do you think this had on the consulting team's reputation and relationship with the client?

What is a Consultant?

2009-01-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

With the clarity of morning comes the realization that this topic should have been my first, but oh well. It will have to settle for second. As more readers appear, I hope this post draws alot of comments and opinions.

For the first half of my career , it was very clear to me what a consultant was, and everyone I worked with, consultant and client, seemed to have a shared understanding.
Consultants partner with clients, usually on a project basis, to help clients achieve a particular objective. In this partner role, consultants should bring to the table methodologies, tools, industry knowledge (best practices), and objectivity. (The client brings institutional kowledge to the table.)

Put simply, a consultant’s job is to think strategically, innovatively, and objectively on behalf of the client’s business. Like external legal or financial counsel, a consultant should be seen as a trusted advisor. Mark Haas of IMC USA has a good summary of the consultant's role in "#962 - When Your Client is a Former Consultant".

Sometimes, consultants are referred to as “contractors”. Indeed, we do sign contracts. But the term “contractor” often connotes a staff augmentation role rather than the afore-mentioned partner role. Augmenting operational staff is an important function and can be vital to business success, but it is not consulting because it does not require thought leadership. Some consultants can and do provide staff augmentation services; however, it is rare for staff augmenters to take on a consulting role. (Coming soon..... Cardinal Rule #2 - Thou shalt be a thought leader.)

Over the past few years, I have worked with an increasing number of consultants whose MO is to wait for the client to tell them what to do and what the solution should be. They cannot seem to grasp the concept that they should be leading the client and leading the thinking. I am also running into an increasing number of clients who expect this as well. I wonder if this comes from having a "staff augmentation" mindset or model, as opposed to the "partner/advisor" mindset? Or, is consulting work shifting more and more to staff augmentation? But I cannot believe that the partner/advisor model is a dying breed.

Death Knell for the Consulting Process?

2009-01-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

For my first substantive post, I really wanted to nail a humdinger. A post about the most universal or common consultant issue. One that we could all relate to and have an opinion on..... but that would take brainpower I do not have today, so I'll just start with the mundane question laid out in the title.

In graduate school and new consultant training, we were trained to think or operate in a precise manner. Back in the mid-90s it was referred to as "issue-based consulting" and probably several other terms. Basically, issue-based consulting is the process of:

1. formulating hypotheses about the client's situation
2. using those hypotheses to drive your data collection
3. issuing findings from the analysis
4. conclusions from the findings
5. and finally recommendations for action based on the conclusions.

In a nutshell:

hypotheses --> data --> findings --> conclusions --> recommendations

(Not the consulting process of "initiate - analyze - design - implement") This was the first thing we were taught in consulting school and the most fundamental to our practice as consultants.

The value of this process was immediately evident to me and I never questioned it. The crux of what we do as consultants is think for clients. The consulting process described above makes that thinking transparent, so the client can understand, follow it, and participate in it both when we are there and after we have left.

Thinking or operating transparently brings us to one of my cardinal rules of consulting;

"Thou shalt not make s*** up", or more appropriately,
"Thou shalt not pull recommendations from thin air."

But that is a different post for a different day (or more like a week of posts).

The process also lends validity and objectivity to our recommendations whether they be a new org design or a redesigned process. Being transparent with our thinking shows that we did not make recommendations based on uninformed opinions, or simply "cut-n-paste" them from somewhere else.

Starting in 2002, whenever I have described this process to most project teammates, their eyes glaze over, or they look at me as if I am speaking Greek. Also, I am increasingly witnessing problems from not using this approach:

1) There is no transparency
2) The client cannot tell what you are doing and therefore starts to doubt or suspect
3) Without this approach, the consultant does not have any approach and simply cannot fulfill their tasks

I will write with an example of this tomorrow since this post is so long. Right now, I am curious to know the following:
1) How many of you were trained in this thinking process either in grad school or as a new consultant?
2) What value do you place on it? and
3) Whether or not you have witnessed or sensed its demise, and to what degree?

Introduction

2009-01-12T15:25:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would be saying this but, "Welcome to my blog." (There is just something about the word "blog" that I do not like.) This blog is a series of observations about the world of management consulting in North America in which my colleagues and I practice. I have been journaling about my experiences in consulting since 1996, and figured it was well past time to move that operation on-line.

Admittedly, I am very late to the blogging game. But better late than never, right? This blog will focus on the small and local; those daily situations in which consultants and clients find themselves, and what is happening to the fundamentals of the practice. But I am not trying to kid anyone here. The primary purpose of this blog is as a cathartic release for me just as my journal and ears of my friends used to provide (and still are to some degree).

However, the power of a blog opens my experiences up to the perspectives and reactions of others which I am truly looking forward to. Being a consultant, it naturally occurs to me to ask:

1) To what degree will my experiences be shared by readers of the blog?, and
2) Will my opinions and feelings about those experiences be confirmed or contradicted?

These statements sound sort of like hypotheses, don't they? Well, no surprise there. Anyway, I hope all visitors to this blog come away with one or more of the following: a chuckle, an insight, an epiphany, a connection, a knowing smile, some empathy, a fresh take, or confirmation that the grass is not greener somewhere else.