Project Management Training Courses
How to Manage Consultants (HC)
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All our workshops are available on an on-site basis. |
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A dynamic and practical 2-day management seminar, highly acclaimed internationally by both the industry and government sectors
How you will benefit from this seminar:
- You will learn how to make your consultants work for you and not against you
- First-time clients and small businesses will learn how they can afford to use consultants
- You will learn how to deal with consultants more effectively
- You will learn how to reduce consulting costs and increase profits
- You will be able to establish productive working relationships with your consultants
- Communicate your needs and requirements better
- Write better defined and clearer project briefs
- Get your projects done on time and within budget
- Upgrade your skills and improve your career prospects
- Learn skills that will benefit other aspects of your business life e.g. time management, negotiation skills, interviewing and project management
CONTENT SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
- Survey – consulting issues that are most important to you and your organisation
- Personal introductions – about yourself and your expectations
FOCUSING ON CONSULTANTS
- Consultants – who they are and how they operate
- Advantages and disadvantages of using consultants
- Internal consultants – when and how to use them
- Ten reasons why you may consider outsourcing services
- Avoiding outsourcing pitfalls
- The right and wrong reasons for hiring outside consultants
- How to recognise qualities of top consultants
MODELS OF CONSULTATION
- 3 types of client-consultant relationship – which one should you use and how?
- Various roles consultants should and should NOT play
- Why do role confusions occur?
SELECTING CONSULTANTS
- How to justify the use of consultants on your project
- Developing the process and criteria for evaluation and selection of consultants
- Establishing your needs and requirements
- Problems with under and over specification of requirements
- The 7 most common project proposal flaws and how to spot them
- 4 things to look for when comparing and evaluating proposals
- Recognising the 7 types of bias in hiring consultants and minimising its impact
- Interviewing and evaluating consultants
MANAGING CONSULTING PROJECTS
- 3 ways to create a consulting contract
- Various types of consulting contracts and charging methods and which one to choose and when
- How to negotiate favourable consulting contract terms
- 6 tactics you can use to reduce consultants fees
- An overview of contract law
- 14 items you should always include in your consulting contract
Case study: Withdrawal of tenders
MANAGING CONSULTING PROJECTS
- What is project management – an art, a science or just rubbish?
- 5 aspects of each consulting project
- Goals of an engineering system or project - technical, economic, operational, health and safety, environmental
- Estimating and budgeting issues
- Balancing risk and cost
Exercise: Budgeting dilemma
CONSULTING PROJECT TEAMS
- Team issues
- Team roles and personalities
- 3 ways to manage a consulting team
- 7 most common team problems and how to overcome them
Teamwork and negotiation game: The road to billing!
HOW CONSULTANTS SOLVE PROBLEMS
- Dealing with problems (the ice block theory)
- Fallacies (fault reasoning)
- 2 ways to finding a solution to client’s problems
- Changing your frames of mind – paradigm shifting in consulting
Problem solving exercise: The case of pokey elevators
MONITORING AND CONTROLLING CONSULTANTS
- 10 most common client complaints
- 5 basic client management styles
- Methods for effective control of consultants
- Comparing proposals with final reports
- Evaluating the evaluation process
Case study: From negotiation to litigation in construction industry
COMMUNICATING WITH CONSULTANTS
- Levels of communication
- The impact of your communication
- 4 types of consultants and how to communicate with them
- Barriers to effective communication – how to identify and remove them
- 7 rules of communicating with consultants
- Progress reports and meetings – practical communication issues
Game: Broken squares
CRISES MANAGEMENT
- SWOT analysis
- Dispute avoidance and minimisation
- Signs of trouble
- The psychology of a crises
- How to use flexibility and contingency plans instead of fire-fighting
- Strategies for conflict resolution
FOCUSING ON CLIENTS
- Analysing yourself and your organisation
- ANALYSIS: various types of clients and where they go wrong: discover which type are you!
- How to maximise your learning from consultants
- Client’s fears about consultants and how to overcome them
- EVALUATION: your consulting ethics
- Productive and counter-productive client’s attitudes and strategies
- Common mistakes clients make an how to avoid them
WHY CONSULTING PROJECTS FAIL
- Individual factors
- Organisational factors
- Corporate constraints and resistance to change
- The games consultants play