Communicating recommendations is a critical step in having a successful consulting project. A poor communication strategy for delivering recommendations can result in a project that is never implemented and limit the consultant’s ability to generate additional projects from the client.
As with a project proposal, it is important to consider the audience. The gate keepers, the influencers, and the decision makers must see the value in implementing the consultant’s recommendations. If the value doesn’t have sufficient appeal to everyone affected, the recommendations may be just another report filed away and not used. Additionally, a presentation that is too lengthy will risk losing the interest of the attendees.
A successful communication strategy will have the following elements:
- Inclusion of the project sponsor in the planning of the final presentation to insure support of recommendations.
- Statement of the objective of the consulting project (problem statement or project objective),
- A description of the environmental factors (the situation analysis discovery of elements directly related to the challenge),
- A description of the situation as it exists with the challenge in place and what it would look like with the challenge removed.
- A recommendation that addresses the challenge.
- A story of execution success (benefits) to get buy in support and commitment to execute.
- Presentation of the full project report.
Include the Project Sponsor in the Communication Strategy
It is very important to include the client or the sponsor of the consulting project in the communication strategy. The project sponsor is likely the one who convinced organizational leadership that the consulting project was important. Some in the organization might have had some legitimate objections to proceeding with a consulting project.
By including the project sponsor in the communication strategy, the consultant can have some confidence that the presentation will address any concerns members of the client organization may have.
Statement of the Objective of the Consulting Project
This is a restatement of the consulting project objective that was defined in the letter of engagement and explanation of the organizational benefits derived if the objective is met. For example, when describing a marketing objective for the ABC Products company in Chapter 7, The consultant might say:
The objective of this project is to identify the reasons for ABC’s: (1) inability to effectively navigate governmental bureaucracy when pursuing projects, (2) inability to influence product sales by its distributors, and, (3) the reluctance from many customers to embrace new technology.
A successful strategy to address these issues could result in a two percentage point gain in market share.
The size of the soil stabilization market is over $20 billion and each shift in market share to ABC Products by 2% would result in an increase in revenue of $40 million.
This opening to the presentation of the recommendations sets the focus of the presentation and gives a reason for the attendees to stay engaged ($40 million).
Description of Environmental Factors
After stating the objective and potential outcome of a successful consulting project, the consultant should provide a summary of the situation analysis and specifically highlight those findings that are related to the challenge facing the client. Using the George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport from Chapter 2 as an example, the consultant might start with information that all of the attendees are familiar with and recognize;
The Houston Airport system is limited in resources. In fact, a Lean Six Sigma study concluded that 720 employees would be needed in order to run the airport efficiently without process variation. At present, the airport is running its operations with 585 employees or 18.75% fewer employees than recommended by the management study. Currently, management is using historical knowledge and feel of the operations to make staffing decisions.
This provides a basis for further describing additional findings resulting from the consulting project situation analysis. Such as:
The situational analysis provided information that identified obstacles to allocation the scarce resources to areas of greatest need. Among those were: (1) turnover in supervisory positions, (2) allocation methods changing when new supervisors are assigned, (3) large area assigned to service personnel and (4) personnel having to serve in several areas to cover shortages and emergencies.
This allows the consultant to demonstrate that the consulting firm has done its homework and recommendations will be evidence based.
Description of Situation with Obstacles Removed
Using the airport example, the consultant could indicate that with the limited personnel and current scheduling procedures
there will likely be a continued increase in traveler dissatisfaction at the airport, a decline in employee morale and an increase in employee turnover. If the objective to create a model to efficiently allocate staff is met, the traveler satisfaction levels will increase, employee morale will improve, turnover will decline and emergencies created due to poor allocation of personnel will be eliminated.
Recommendation(s)
After describing the objective, the environment and the potential outcome of a successful achievement of the objective, the consultant is in a position to present the consultant’s recommendation(s) that will achieve the objective. The recommendations should be evidence based and tested to insure that the recommendations have a solid foundation.
For example, for the Bush Airport project the consultants recommended an Excel based spreadsheet model for allocating personnel. As part of the research a model was created and extensively tested prior to presenting the recommendation to the senior airport management team.
Tell a Story of Success
A story that ties the recommendations to a positive outcome improves the chances that the project will be viewed favorably by the client and that the recommendations will be adopted. For example, in the colonias project mentioned in Chapter 2, The objective was to find a means of providing a sustainable, profitable business that would provide housing for the most economically disadvantaged populations in the world.
It would be easy enough to tell a story that showed the benefits of providing affordable housing for the poor. It might be even more powerful to show how such a project would provide technology to provide all levels of housing more economically, creating opportunities to capture large segments of the housing market at very high profit levels.
Present the Final Report
The presentation made to the client’s management team is a summary of the report. The report will have the full details of the situation analysis and research performed. The recommendation will be fully described and a strategy, tactics, and execution plan will be included for deployment of the recommendation. The final report not only provides background and the objective for the consulting project but also provides a step-by-step description of how the recommendation can be implemented.
It is important that all sources of information are properly identified and test procedures and results are fully disclosed. This allows the client to fully understand the research and testing and, if desired, provides the client the ability to test and prove the foundation supporting the consultant’s recommendation(s).