Advanced Consulting Skills — A 2-Day Course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Course Synopsis

As a consultant with some practical experience, your success is highly dependant on the strength of your relationship with your client, and how well you manage that relationship throughout the consultancy assignment. You are likely to need to use your experience to influence and lead your client, in order to provide the right outcome for both the client and the organisation as a whole.

This course introduces essential techniques to enable consultants to show positive improvement and prepare them to both participate in and manage consulting assignments. It will help consultants working in an internal or external environment to move beyond simple engagement techniques and focus on building client relationships in order to add real commercial value.

On this course we use a powerful 'learning resource' called Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) that identifies your personal strengths and motivational values. This understanding acts as a catalyst for clear, effective communication, resulting in a 'common language' which can be used by everyone. It is an understanding that will take you deeper into the motivations of why people do what they do and how to work with them for greater harmony in teams and for better one-to-one interactions.

This course carries the award of 15 Professional Development Units (PDU's) for PMI re-certification.

Self-revealing, interesting and challenging. A blend of interpersonal skills and proven consultancy techniques. The course is a combination of lectures, discussions and exercises with a strong emphasis on group work and group problem solving. A case study allows delegates to apply concepts and techniques and to receive feedback on team performance.

Course Objectives

On this Advanced Consulting Skills training course, delegates will gain:

• The chance to identify and create the key ingredients of a beneficial partnership
• An understanding of clients motivation factors and use them in relationship building
• The ability to handle difficult situations with tact and sensitivity
• The opportunity to evaluate the impact of differing management and leadership styles on the conduct of a consulting assignment
• The use of advanced presentation techniques to make a case for change
• The opportunity to build a personal action plan to support application of the problem solving techniques

Intended Audience

This course is intended for:

• Anyone who works as an internal or external consultant or senior business analyst
• Anyone who works as a coach to a consulting team
• Anyone who manages a consulting team

Benefits for your Company

Organisations that employ consultants, whether they work internally or externally, need to know that they are operating professionally and are able to cope with difficult situations. This course will help your employees to build confidence in client relationships so that they can handle difficulties, but more importantly can generate credibility to win new business.

Benefits for You

You will undertake an assessment of your behaviour when things are going well for you and when you are in conflict. This will help you build confidence to cope with challenging situations. In addition it helps you pick up clues about your key stakeholders and encourage their support and buy-in to your ideas. You will practice new techniques which will help to underscore your success in the management of consulting assignments

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Outline Course Contents

Introduction & Overview

Client Fears

The Consulting Environment

The Consulting Cycle

Building and Maintaining Effective Consulting Relationships - Strength Deployment Inventory

Politics and Culture

Storyboarding

Building Influence

Change Management

Building a Business Case

Giving Feedback to Clients

Personal Action Planning