The most important
thing to remember is that hiring a consultant is an investment, not a cost, and
should produce a return on that investment. Keep that in mind and the rest is easy.
Pre-hire
If hiring a consultant
is an investment, what sort of return should you expect? Well, that depends on
why you're bringing in an outside consultant and the nature of the work. And
that leads into the second most important thing to remember; hire a consultant
for specific things, don't hire a consultant if you don't have specific
requirements, set objectives, or defined outcomes. If you only have vague ideas
on what you want a consultant to do, you're in trouble. Of course, there may be
times when you hire a consultant to help you develop specific requirements for
a not yet defined project. In that case, the objectives for this particular
consultant would center on developing the defined objectives and outcomes of
the greater project. That's fairly common, especially for an undertaking that
is something new for your organization or is much larger or more complex than
you're used to developing.
There is any number of things you might hire a consultant
for. A consultant is generally hired for specific projects that are well
defined, which includes a defined time frame, whereas a vendor is usually more
of a long-term relationship involving regular deliveries of products or
services, or multiple projects over an open-ended time period. Consultants are
hired for their specialized skills and expertise, to bring in an outside
perspective not tied to internal culture and politics, for a fresh, creative
perspective to a particular issue, to free up internal resources for special
projects, and to educate and train the internal workforce, which can include
executive management all the way down to the lowest tier workers.
According to
IVAN ZUBIAGA, You might hire consultants for everything from developing marketing
campaigns, conducting research and development activities, technology
recommendations and implementation, process improvement, financial
recommendations, executive coaching, management systems development,
implementation, and training, and anything in between. The specific
requirements for a consultant will be different depending on what you're
bringing them in to help you with. If you hire a consultant to provide
recommendations for a technological solution to a particular issue, the
requirements you
develop for the consultant will include, of course, a final
recommendation. But you don't want to just leave it at that, that's too
open-ended by itself. You probably want to include other requirements, like
documented and substantiated backup for why the particular solution was
recommended. You might want the requirements to include the documented
methodology that was used to review the options and
determine the
recommendation. Put some thought and effort into defining your requirements for
the consultant. You're spending money for results, and you want those results
to be valid.
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| IVAN ZUBIAGA |
Interviewing
Potential Consultants:
Potential consultants for each project maybe someone you've
worked with before, they may be someone you're familiar with, but haven't
worked with, they may have been recommended to you, or they may be someone
totally new and unfamiliar to you. No matter which category they might fall
into, potential consultants should be interviewed prior to being awarded a
contract. Even if you've worked with someone before, each project is unique and
you want to ensure the best fit of consultant with the project. Even if the
project is the same, or very similar, to one the consultant has already worked
with you on if any time has elapsed since the completion of the project, things
have changed, so interview them anyway.
At this stage, you've probably already determined whether
the potential consultants have the skills and expertise needed to complete the
project. You're interested in their fit with the project, their work
philosophy, and their methodologies. Since you've defined the requirements and
the expected outcomes, you are looking at how the consultant is going to go
about achieving them. You don't want to define how they go about doing their
work, but you want to make sure that they will mesh with your internal
organization when required so that the goals will be achieved within the time
frame you've outlined.
When the Work Begins:
So, you've selected your consultant and hired them. Now
what? Do you just sit back and wait for something to come out down the road?
Probably not a good idea. You want them to do their work, their way, but you
want to monitor them and keep informed of their progress and how things are
going along the way.
In your contract, whether it's formal or informal, you
should define how you'll monitor their progress and how they'll report their
progress. A lot will depend on the scope, length, and complexity of the
project. You might require very detailed written progress reports on a weekly,
or less, basis, or you might just want a quick, informal chat on an irregular
basis. I'd lean more towards requiring a more formal, written, and regular
report, even if it's short and simple.
You don't want to get in the way, but this is an investment,
so you want to keep an eye on things. For the most part, you want to leave them
alone to do their work. But, you want to be aware of any potential glitches
before they erupt into full-blown problems. You need to know if any internal
resources have to be added or allocated and if the project will be completed
on-time and will meet expectations. It's better to know these things
beforehand, rather than be surprised with some special requests or unfulfilled
expectations.
