Chapter 8
Working with Consultants

Professional Services – Professional Servants!

So far in this book we have reviewed the importance of knowledge as the basis of the modern economy, looked at the subject of intellectual property rights, at the need for organizations from time to time to buy knowledge as one of a number of knowledge acquisition strategies, and at some of the practicalities of transferring knowledge from external sources into our own organization. The remainder of the book looks at the specifics of buying knowledge from three distinct knowledge sources: consultant organizations, contract research organizations and finally, universities. In point of fact each of these can be thought of as 'consultants' in the broadest sense and it is true that many of the strategies we are about to review are applicable to each of these three knowledge sources.

Consultants are paid to give advice and sometimes, to assist in implementing that advice. They are not 'an extra pair of hands' - that is contract labour, a subject in its own right. What distinguishes consultants from other forms of short-term assistance is precisely that they advise or provide a package of services of which advice is the foundation and their unique contribution. The centrality of the provision of advice will help to shape both the specification of the services (the terms of reference or brief) and the conditions of contract on which those services are to be provided. In the business realm consultancy is usually provided to management and often directly to senior management.

A useful definition of management consultancy is provided by Douglas Gray:

Skills and experience are both forms of knowledge. We might add, then, that a consultant is someone who can bring to bear on a problem the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge that will enable their client to move rapidly to resolve important problems that affect the client organization.

A prospective client often prefers to negotiate an assignment with the individual who will actually carry it out. Social contact between the professional and the client is important as mutual understanding and trust are stimulated through such contact. Herein lies a significant problem for procurement professionals who may subsequently be tasked to agree a contract and advise on rates to be paid in what has become, in effect, a monopoly supply situation. The decision to appoint a particular consultant and the personal commitment to an individual or particular firm of consultants is often taken before the professional 'buyer' has become involved. This denies the opportunity to inject formal competition into the selection process and weakens the buyer's ability to optimize negotiations in terms of price and contract conditions, whilst also denying the opportunity to systematically compare different consultancy practices and, crucially, what they have to offer to a particular assignment.

Consultants target their marketing effort to the effective decision-maker (EDM) in a client organization - often a budget holder - though it must be said that increasingly consultants do recognize procurement professionals as a key client stakeholder in the acquisition process that must be managed along with the EDM during pre-contract discussions. As the scope of a potential assignment may be unclear in the mind of the EDM, he or she may welcome pre-contract discussions with potential consultants to help focus their requirements. This has considerable advantages, but the buying organization must be clear about the downside:

• contractual commitments may unwittingly be given by the buying organization
• undertakings may be given but not effectively recorded and therefore not reflected in the subsequent contract (and may later have to be incorporated via expensive contract variations)
• the EDM may draw so close to the individual consultant through social contact that they become overcommitted to /dazzled by that individual (the 'halo effect')
• the EDM may (depending on the type of organization and its approach to financial delegations) find that this is one of the few purchasing decisions they can make that bypasses formalized purchasing procedures and so be tempted to display managerial virility by making promises that, in the cold light of day, may be found to be suboptimal.

Professional buyers sometimes find that colleagues seek to justify their choice of consultant on the basis that they are sufficiently familiar with the particular professional field to know which consultant is right for the job. This may be correct and appropriate but it runs the risk of making suboptimal commercial decisions based on imperfect knowledge. In these situations the professional buyer may have little option but to rubber stamp such decisions and be denied the opportunity to add real value.

The need for consultant advice often arises in situations of perceived commercial urgency and therefore need to be satisfied in some haste. There may be an attendant feeling that to invite tenders for services and postpone informal discussions will cause delay to the assignment. This is always a false premise and it should be resisted. Any consultant worth his or her salt can enter pre-contractual discussions and/or tender² at short notice. It might be added that in these circumstances some senior managers may fear that to invite tenders, to describe the organization's problems to the consultant market at large, could invite personal or commercial ridicule. These managers may therefore wish to hush up the whole issue by inviting only one consultant to bid.

Consultants (especially management consultants) are well aware of these factors and are justified in exploiting them. The knowledge-buying organization must ensure that its managers know of the dangers inherent in pre-contract discussions and of attendant moral obligations. If pre-contractual discussions - or to be more precise, pre-ITT (invitation to tender) discussions - are to take place, the buying organization should give several potential bidders the chance to enter these discussions and use them to help clarify the requirements. It may be appropriate to tell the consultancy firms that at this stage your organization is merely exploring the dimensions of the business problem prior to making a decision on the optimum procurement route. By all means tell them you are in informal discussions with several firms. In this pre-competitive phase you may find that the consultants are prepared, if not to offer free consultancy advice, at least to put some real effort into alerting their potential customer to all the possible opportunities and pitfalls to be avoided. In this phase, if handled correctly, the client organization can build up its understanding of the problem and potential solutions before inviting formal tenders. But the pre-tender phase must be handled sensitively, openly and in a way that will not disadvantage some bidders against others.³

Managers sometimes stand a little in awe of consultants, who present themselves as experts, able to help you solve your problems. Managers may feel quite inexperienced by comparison and be loath to reject a consultant's advice - especially where they have paid for that advice! Watch the consultant carefully in the pre-contract phase: will they try to take over the project? Will they listen to your requirements or are they working to their own agenda? The whole idea of professional services suggests a master-servant relationship. The client may need to remind themselves that (generally speaking) the customer is 'always right' and, whilst we do not want a yes man to be our consultant partner, we do want a consultant who will work within our cultural constraints, and who will recognize that ultimately (no matter how good they are as a consultant) it is the client who pays the bills and the client wants a professional servant working for them.

Challenging the Demand

It is very easy, all too easy, for organizations to make a case for expenditure with an external consultant. For many blue chip companies the costs of hiring in professional services soared - in some cases to quite alarming levels - in the first few years of the twenty-first century. This was partly because of growing regulatory burdens. For public sector organizations, growing expectations of ever-improving service delivery, and the attendant political pressures this brings, again means that professional service firms, and management consultants especially, are much in demand. So it is that there is an almost inherent pressure from within organizations to supplement their resources with externals. If for no other reason than that it gives the appearance of making progress! But consultants are expensive, however you look at it. For commercial organizations all external supply expenditure ultimately hits the bottom line. The amount of commercial sales activity required to repay investment in external services is normally significant and demands that the question is answered - is this expenditure really necessary? Before committing effort to contract for professional services, a series of questions should be posed and answered to the satisfaction of the budget manager, if not the board of directors. There are six areas that must be considered ideally before approaching an outside professional services supplier.

1. What is the purpose?
   • What is the business/organization objective?
   • Who is the business/organization sponsor?
   • What is the question or problem that needs to be addressed?
   • What benefits are to be secured?
   • What financial or operational value is to be achieved from the work?
2. What is the nature of the work and the priority?
   • What types of skill will be required?
   • What is the expected end result or main output, for example, reports, internal software, designs?
   • When is the end result needed?
   • When are the critical points in the programme?
   • What effect will any delay have?
   • Has all work in this area been fully considered?

Any difficulties answering these basic issues will necessitate more work on the requirement definition.

• 3. Are internal resources available?
  • Have you checked if any of our staff possess the skills/experience to undertake the work? As a minimum check with HR, procurement and the functional area concerned.
  • If yes, are these staff available or can the work be delayed until they are?
  • If no, could our staff be trained to do the work within the timescale?
  • If there is an ongoing need, why not employ someone permanently or on a fixed-term contract?
  • What other internal/external resources might be required and are they available?
  • Are other key internal staff ready and available to provide required assistance or information?
  • Is there a suitable internal manager available to lead the proposed work?
  • If this work introduces a new supplier, what are the ongoing costs of maintaining that supplier?
  • If this work introduces a new supplier, what are the risks of nonperformance? (and risk mitigation strategies?).
• 4. What are the costs and benefits?
  • What are the real costs involved?
    • - cost of external spend
    • - cost of internal spend
    • - opportunity cost - other opportunities that will have to be forgone.
  • Can the benefits be properly quantified?
  • Can the benefits be justified against the proposed cost?
  • What are the comparative costs of using the consultancy resource compared to alternative ways of undertaking the proposed work?
  • Can the work be done free of charge via a 'swap shop'?
  • Does the work lend itself to:
    • - no win-no fee
    • - gainshare?
• 5. Are funds available?
  • Is there budget provision available to cover the cost?
  • What other expenditure (planned or unplanned) must also be met?
  • What level of financial approval is required?
• 6. How will we 'internalize' the results of the proposed work?
  • How many people will benefit from the work in new skills acquired?
  • How many people will be able to replicate the work if required again?
  • Are we currently on a level playing field (versus any proposed external professional service provider) in terms of skills?
  • Do we need to nominate one (or more) individual to become the expert in the subject area?
  • How do we diffuse the knowledge/skills more widely to gain added value?

Defining the Requirement

The specification, terms of reference, statement of requirement or brief must be well defined. Keep in mind:

• What do you want and why?
• Completion date
• What resources (people, materials, research) will you make available?
• What actually needs to be done?
• What external factors need to be taken into consideration? for example liaison and coordination
• What sub-tasks need to be completed before the main tasks?
• How do you want the work done?
• How should the results of the work be presented to you?
• How much can you afford to pay?

Above all, be clear why you think a consultant can help you, communicate the requirement and demand value for money. A well-worn allegation about management consultants is that they adopt a 'cookie-cutter' approach to solving clients' problems. They receive a brief from the client, redefine it to match their preconceptions and then offer 'solutions' based on a 'flavour of the month' management theory. If this sounds far-fetched, note the following observation by William A. Cohen:⁴

It is essential to clarify the deliverables and the scope of the assignment. The following elements need to be considered:

• Work objectives - general outline of the 'problem' and the type of advice required.
• Scope and approach - areas, activities, services and so on to be included and the scope to be excluded, where appropriate.
• Method to be applied to obtain the objectives of the assignment.
• Format of results required: specific deliverables. How 'success' will be measured.
• Specific phases or milestones to be achieved.
• Tasks to be performed by the client, including office and secretarial facilities to be made available. Tasks to be performed by the consultant.
• Progress meetings - purpose, frequency, participants and content.
• Output - report, recommendation, software, data and so on.
• Time - anticipated consultant days (if on day/rate basis), proposed start date, required completion date.
• Cost limitation - basis of fees, estimate of total fee and expenses, method of billing and payment terms.
• Termination.
• Authorization of additional work, and change control.
• Confirmation of acceptance.

The brief must tell the consultant what to do, by when and how much it will cost - or any cost or budgetary limitation. The brief must not, however stifle the consultant's creativity. A consultant should be told that they are expected to use their professional judgement in achieving the deliverables and be proactive in directing their energies to meet the objectives. There may be an advantage in keeping the brief short and general. Providing that regular progress meetings are observed and new objectives or deliverables confirmed, the primary responsibility is upon the consultant to ensure that the client is satisfied.

Under Section 13 of the UK Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, if objectives or deliverables are not clearly stated and agreed in a purchase contract, there is an implied term that the 'supplier' will carry out the service with 'reasonable care and skill'. This places the onus on the consultant to do all that is reasonable to provide a professional and effective service to the client. After all, it is the consultant who holds themself forth as a professional, able to advise the client in determining objectives and assist in achieving them. Under Sections 14 and 15 respectively of the same Act, there is an implied term that where time for performance is not fixed in the contract, the 'supplier' will carry out the service in a reasonable time and where the contract is silent on the question of money there is an implied term that the buyer will 'pay a reasonable charge'. In both cases the Act states that 'what is reasonable ... is a question of fact'.

Identify Service Providers

In any buying and selling situation, each party will make a provisional assessment of the other's status as a potential business associate: will this supplier be a reliable partner, delivering what I want, when I want it, at a price I can afford? Will this client be a reliable partner, telling me all I need to know in order to satisfy the order properly, will they become a nuisance during our relationship and will they pay me on time - or at all?

In the field of commercial purchasing, seller or vendor evaluation is an important task for the buying organization. The extent to which such an organization may evaluate a contractor or supplier depends on the resources and budget available to carry out the work involved. Major organizations have permanent and highly skilled teams undertaking this activity. Their contractors or suppliers expect regular approaches for extensive and sometimes intrusive information, responding to which can be a time-consuming task. A much smaller client organization, by contrast, may rely on a buyer's individual attitude to sources of supply, without minimal attempt to assess the current capacity or financial stability. A decision must be made, therefore, regarding the risk associated with the possibility of a contractor or supplier failing to meet his obligations regarding time or quality. Would the consequences of default or failure be sufficiently serious to the client organization to justify investing a prudent amount in pre-tender supplier evaluation to ascertain the present technical and financial position of potential tenderers? What then does a client organization need to know about a potential professional services supplier and how does it go about obtaining the necessary information and data? Indeed, who should undertake this work?

What Does the Client Need to Know?

In very broad terms this problem can be deconstructed to a simple list of information. The client needs to know:

• How long has this company been in existence?
• What is its financial situation - has it the resources to do the work?
• Is it profitable? What are its trends in profitability?
• What is its track record in the technical area of particular interest?
• Who are its main clients? Take written references and follow these up with visits to other clients if at all possible.
• Who are its main suppliers - is it dependent to any extent on third parties? (If so evaluations of other 'prime contractors' may be deemed to be prudent.)
• Who are its key officers?
• Is employee turnover an issue?
• Are there any outstanding legal actions in which it is involved?
• What are its quality credentials?
• What is its overall ethos and culture? Does this match our culture?
• Who are its key competitors? what is the status of its industry generally?

How does the team go about collecting the necessary information? This is a matter of both searching for information and expecting the consultant organization to be candid with information to enable your evaluators to do their job properly. Obviously, if the consultant is hungry for work or believes they may lose business they are far more likely to cooperate.

Who Should Undertake Supplier Evaluation Work?

This is an activity to be undertaken in a systematic and methodical way. The factors to be evaluated are the technical, financial and skills credentials of the consultant organization, its facilities, its management competence/track record and its financial stability. It is strongly recommended that this is a team effort, unless the client organization has an individual of exceptional breadth and depth of experience covering both technical and commercial activities, and who is available to do this work. This activity should be overseen by a senior manager to ensure it is given the attention it deserves.

Establish Budget Costs

A surprising number of organizations, including commercial businesses, initiate discussions with external consultants - sometimes authorizing initial work - without any real idea of what the work should cost to achieve. This places them at a distinct disadvantage with potential suppliers in negotiations, not so much because the professional service firm will cheat in pricing the work, but rather because there is greater likelihood of scope-creep, as both parties explore where the correct parameters should be placed around the brief. Research should therefore be undertaken by the client organization to establish budgetary costs - in other words, costs that are moderately dependable and can be worked into a financial business case. Some suggestions for very basic and rudimentary research are provided below:

• Estimate the likely number of labour hours to undertake the work in-house and multiply by internal charge-out rates, or other internal labour rates, as appropriate.
• Contact colleagues to see if equivalent work has been done before. If so, establish the costs.
• Consult internal HR, procurement and operational teams. Look at similar work that has been purchased in the past, or similar tasks that may have been undertaken by in-house teams.
• Contact potential suppliers: when approaching external suppliers, avoid making commitments and, if possible, revealing the budget allocated. Maintain the view that competition is the strongly favoured solution. Suppliers are adept at conditioning potential customers to accept given levels of expenditure as inevitable. Keep the seller selling!
• Consult your internal finance department. They can supply overhead and accommodation costs, important where work is proposed to be done on your premises. They can also give insights into pricing the work.
• If all else fails, take a roughly calculated guess (a 'guestimate') as to the sort of costs you will encounter externally in undertaking a knowledge buying project.

Should you use requests for information (RFIs) or requests for proposals (RFPs)? This requires careful thought. It can be expensive for suppliers to respond to these requests, but it may be essential as part of the vendor evaluation or supplier pre-qualification process. You will probably want to avoid duplicating work, however, for both parties. If you follow an RFP with an ITT you may find that much information will be repeated by both sides. Where RFIs or RFQs must be requested, make it clear that no commitments are thereby entered into and that your organization, as a potential client, does not consider itself bound to invite companies that have received an RFI/RFQ to submit a formal tender at a later stage. If possible, avoid causing suppliers to have to bid twice once in response to an RFI and then again in response to an ITT. It may be better simply to issue an ITT in the first place.

Another difficult question must be considered, one especially important where you are trying to develop budget costs for the potential project: by inviting some companies/organizations to enter into pre-tender discussions, do you inadvertently (or deliberately?) give those companies an unfair advantage over others that will later be invited to tender? It is true that some companies, if they have been asked to provide information in advance of any tender invitation, will have some sort of advantage, if only because they have had longer to consider the problem and potential solutions. This may of course be to the benefit of the client organization, but it runs the counterproductive risk that some potential suppliers may take the view that one of their competitors is almost certain to win the work. In turn they may decline to bid.

Some client organizations take a very strict view of this problem and state that where a professional service supplier has been involved in the project definition phase of a project, they are normally to be excluded from the project execution phase. This is to avoid any possibility of collusion between the client's staff and the consultant organization. Furthermore, it demonstrably creates a level playing field for other professional services firms to bid for the main execution phase of the project. It also means that a client can select a firm with strengths in planning for the project definition phase and other firms with strengths and track record in execution for the delivery phases of the project.

Shortlisting of Suppliers

This will depend very much upon the procurement methods of the client organization and the complexity and value of the consultancy work required. Public sector organizations in Europe - and in other parts of the world - may have a range of special procurement rules that they must observe. If an RFI process is undertaken, this will probably lead to a select list of bidders or select list of tenderers, depending on your organization's terminology. The process of shortlisting may also include the following:

• basic market research
• supplier questionnaires / rfis
• initial shortlist
• formal supplier pre-qualification
• final shortlist.

A refinement of this process, which can be used in more complex projects, is to opt for a two-stage process, whereby a number of suppliers are pre-qualified, perhaps rather more than is ideal, and then a limited ITT is issued, to establish clear financial and technical markers for the work. The limited ITT may use only a reduced outline specification and is likely to elicit promises on consultant rates and perhaps dependable quotes on an upper limit to the cost of the work. By this process you will identify those consultant organizations that are really serious and establish those most likely to be the sort of supplier you want to work with. Some suppliers will be eliminated at the end of this stage and the remainder will be invited to bid against the full client specification, which itself may be developed and enhanced as a result of experience gained via the limited ITT.

Invitation to Tender

An ITT document is a formal way of requesting bids on a common basis. The process is designed to obtain offers from tenderers without collusion, normally using a formalized sealed bid system, by which tenders (legally offers) are delivered on or by a date and time specified in the invitation. Tenders are normally opened at a time and place of the client's choice, sometimes before witnesses.

There is no right number of tenderers to invite. The number must be enough to result in a good spread of bids, sufficient to give a real insight into the state of the market and into the technicalities of the work, but not so many that bidders will conclude they stand only a modest chance of winning and therefore that it is not worth responding. The author normally invites between three and six tenders, depending on the value, the complexity and the market. An in-house procurement group should be able to advise on a case-by-case basis.

Tenderers must be treated on a fair and equitable basis and should therefore be given identical information. The ITT will normally be prepared by an in-house procurement team and usually consists of:

• covering letter
• background information and data
• instructions to tenderers
• conditions of contract
• specification/terms of reference/statement of work
• returnable 'form of tender'.

It may be appropriate to brief tenderers in addition to issuing an ITT. Ideally there should be a single briefing to ensure that all bidders hear the same information and the same answers to questions raised. A briefing provides an opportunity to clarify the requirement and for tenderers to raise questions. A pre-tender briefing must be planned and executed with procurement involvement.

The ITT gives precise information about closing date/time of bid process. A sealed-bid process is desirable for all projects and should be mandatory for larger projects. Consideration should be given to requesting the technical and commercial parts of the bid to be kept separate to allow separate evaluation of the technical and commercial aspects. Each bid must be kept secure and opened no earlier than the bid return date. In-house procurement teams will normally manage this process. Note that in the UK there are common-law precedents covering the treatment of these sorts of bid process, that require the process to be carried out systematically, fairly and in a way that does not prejudice the reasonable expectations of those invited to bid.

Tenders must not be invited where your organization has no intention of awarding business.

Tender Evaluation

In most cases, certainly in tasks of any value and complexity, it is appropriate to set up a bid analysis /tender evaluation team. It is important that this team has the right level of expertise - commercial, technical, and financial. Legal advice may also be required. The following minimum factors should be taken into account:

Capability assessment

• capability / qualifications of key personnel
• management/supervisory support
• other support systems
• checks on tenderer's references.

Technical assessment

• performance and productivity
• quality
• professional competence
• technical/professional support
• standardization
• after-sales service.

Quality assessment

• quality control systems
• quality certification such as ISO 9000.

Financial and commercial assessment

• inclusion of all relevant costs
• weightings/adjustments needed to make bids comparable
• factors which might affect costs during the contract
• risk analysis
• benefits tracking and realization.

In assessing the relative costs of the various tenders for complex products and services it may be necessary to use a variety of financial analysis techniques, including discounted cash flow analysis, to evaluate the net present value of the proposed work.

The result of these evaluations will provide a method to rank the bids in a systematic way. This may indicate a clear preference/winner, or may indicate areas where further analysis is required.

Award, Engagement and Debrief

It is prudent and important, for reasons of accountability, to record selection decisions and rationale. This record should as a minimum set out:

• summary of competition
• details of competing bids
• advantages of awarding contract to proposed contractor
• implications for existing organization.

A business case is usually the appropriate and logical document for recording these details. The manager or managers with the appropriate expenditure authority should record formal approval in writing before any contract is signed.

There will often be pressure to start the work as soon as possible. It is advisable strongly advisable - to ensure that the full contract is in place before the work commences. Once the work is underway, the client's negotiating position erodes with each passing day that a contract is not in place. Similarly letters of intent are not favoured, but may very occasionally be necessary. Ensure, if so, that these are properly drafted. In the very exceptional circumstances where letters of intent are essential, the full contract approval process must be observed and the signatory should prudently be at one level above that required for the actual contract document.

Signature and (where appropriate) acceptance of a contract gives effect to the engagement of the consultant. The contract should normally be commenced with some form of contract commencement meeting. This may finalize any outstanding non-contractual issues, the formal exchange of necessary information, data or documentation. It will also facilitate where necessary, introduction of the consultant to their key opposites within the client organization. Engagement is effectively the end of the contract negotiation phase and leads into the contract management phase that will last until the end of the project.

As soon as practicable after contract award, advise unsuccessful tenderers. Debriefing is best professional practice. Advice on this should be given by the client organization's procurement department, which may lead the debriefing exercise. The reasons why a tender has been rejected are one, or a combination of two key factors:

• it fails to meet a mandatory requirement of the ITT;
• it passes the minimum evaluation criteria but is not ranked as offering the best overall value for money (that is, not ranked as number one).

Although unsuccessful tenderers must not be given the prices of competitors, a general indication of price competitiveness is appropriate in any feedback. Some organizations give details of the range of price bids received, from lowest to highest, so the unsuccessful tenderer can make some estimate as to how it performed in the costing element of their tender.

Delivery

Delivery of the contractual obligations by the consultant to the client organization is often the responsibility of a cross-functional team of the client organization's staff, under the control of a project manager or contract manager - hereinafter referred to as the delivery manager. The delivery manager role should be defined in the contract.

The role of the delivery manager is to:

• ensure delivery of cost-effective, reliable service
• ensure delivery of the contract deliverables set out in the contract
• manage day-to-day aspects of the business relationship
• seek continual improvement.

The consultant organization's reporting obligations should be set out in the client's specification. A very detailed reporting plan may be one of the initial deliverables under the contract. The following outputs are normally measured:

• quality - compliance with quality management processes
• cost
• time - measured against service levels, milestones
• communications - regularity, timeliness
• benefits realization
• benefits tracking
• skills transfer.

A regular problem with consultant organizations is the client's willingness to add scope to the original brief - sometimes called scope-creep. It is obviously in the consultant's interest to be awarded follow-on work. In terms of buying knowledge, the client's primary objective is to secure knowledge transfer and then discontinue (or 'disengage') the work. Using all the techniques suggested in previous chapters, the client's objective can be thought of as a skills-transfer profile, where the 'partner' or consulted organization's involvement declines over time, whilst the client's expertise/knowledge progressively builds over the same time frame. This is illustrated in a simplistic way in Figure 14. Keep this simple illustration in mind as the project progresses.

Disengagement

A formal close-out meeting should be held once the consultant assignment is complete. It is important that this is not conducted solely against an audit checklist. There should be input from both parties with discussion on measures to be used for benefits tracking, where this has not already been decided. The agenda should cover:

Were Contract Deliverables Achieved as Set Out in the Specification/Terms of Reference?

• Were the objectives delivered?
• Were they delivered on time?
• Were costs controlled within budget?
• Were performance standards and expectations met?

What Lessons Can Be Learned?

• Try to gain feedback from the consultant organization about your organization as client.
• Could we have been clearer in our objectives?
• Could we have helped the work to run more smoothly?

Other issues

• Issues to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Next steps

• Benefits tracking-refer to Figure 13 in Chapter 7, p. 98.
• Post-project evaluation.