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You know that getting things done well, on time and within budget, requires expertise and a measured and methodical approach.
The Consulting Intelligence Approach
Consulting Intelligence has built on the intelligent consulting management (ICM) approach and developed a proprietary construct – the Consultant Interaction LifecycleSM. It recognizes that there are rarely simple and well defined start and stop points when dealing with issues or problems and that business activity is inherently part of a continuum.
Three key components make up the foundation of our overall approach:
- The Consultant Interaction LifecycleSM
- ConsultelligenceSM Knowledgebase
- Consultelligent
SM Knowledge Transfer Method
The Consultant Interaction LifecycleSM
The Lifecycle -- a proprietary construct -- incorporates an extensive amount of real-world experience related to client-consultant interactions and the result of our extensive research. It serves as the foundation for all of our services offerings.
The Lifecycle provides a structured framework -- based on our analysis of thousands of real-world interactions between organizations and their external consultants -- for both understanding a client's issues as well as formulation of a solution approach.
The ConsultelligenceSM Knowledgebase
Supporting our practitioners throughout the entire process is a unique Knowledge Base that has been developed for the sole purpose of optimizing the success of our clients' interactions with their external consultants and other professional service providers.
Information in the knowledge base is segmented in a hierarchical fashion:
Lifecycle A proprietary construct, developed by Consulting Intelligence, which encompasses the totality of the relationship an organization has with external providers of consulting services.
Stages The seven stages through which an organization progresses during relations with external providers of consulting services.
Steps The 22 steps involved in dealing with external providers of consulting services.
Actions or Interaction Points The specific points at which interactions between organizations and consultants occur or at which some action is typically taken by the client organization in order to optimize the chance of a successful consultant-involved project.
Aids At each action or interaction point, those items that will assist the organization in their desire to optimize their chance of a successful consultant-involved project. Examples include: benchmarks, check lists, technique papers, document examples, standards, etc.
The ConsultelligentSM Knowledge Transfer Method
CI's proprietary method for assessing its clients' particular needs and then developing and implementing customized solution approaches is based on both recognized consulting industry best practices and our proprietary Consultant Interaction LifecycleSM.
Consulting industry best practices ensure that the assessment and delivery portions of the method are sound, consistent and repeatable. For example, there is an integrated feedback loop that captures actual client engagement experiences and integrates them back into the knowledgebase supporting the method, ensuring that the method is always utilizing the most recent data. As a result, our practitioners do not spend time "reinventing the wheel."
By utilizing this method, we are able to ensure that minimal time is wasted in unnecessary preparation and that the resultant solution approaches are based on proven best practices. We believe this ensures the highest possibility of success for our clients.
Our knowledge transfer method incorporates 6 distinct stages:
1. Assess. Using the Consulting Interaction LifecycleSM, we determine the stage an organization is at in their dealings with a particular consultant or professional services provider. We identify and understand the client's issues and are able to view them within the context of the best practices contained in the Lifecycle.
2. Scope. Using the data produced in the Assess phase, we determine your short and long-term objectives and tolerance for change and and work with you to determine the most appropriate solution approach.
3. Develop. We develop a solution approach to enable you to meet those objectives. The result is a customized Relationship Breakdown StructureSM. In many cases, this customized "playbook" is shared with the consultant in question to get the consulting engagement -- or the relationship as a whole -- back on track and headed to a mutually agreed upon set of outcomes.
This relationship breakdown structure serves as a model or "playbook" to ensure that interactions between an organization using external consulting services -- and the consultants who are providing those services -- are working together in a manner that ensures the highest potential for a positive outcome.
4. Implement. Working with you -- and often with your consultants -- we help guide the implementation of that plan.
5. Adjust. As the plan is being implemented, we make -- or recommend you make -- continuous minor adjustments to ensure the implementation process is able to deliver the agreed upon objectives.
6. Monitor. We provide you with the tools to monitor results and mitigate the risk of the same problems from happening in the future. This can be as simple as keeping in touch with you on an occasional basis or facilitating training for your staff in Consultant Resource Management.
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