Getting it right! Organizational work plan for a successful consultancy project for arts and non-profit managers and boards презентация

successful consultancy project for arts and non-profit managers and boards

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for a consultancy project.

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when:

Your project is responsive to your strategic plan and will help achieve long-term goals

when:

You project addresses a real organizational need and your organization has buy-in for the work and is equipped to use the project results
Examine assumptions about organizational needs
Test the buy-in by organizational members whose cooperation will be needed for success and address any concerns before work is started
Next steps: what is the plan? e.g. No sense having a marketing plan if you don’t have staff or budget to implement!

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when

Your project is time-limited with clear beginning, end and expected outcomes.
You cannot measure success without goals and benchmarks
Your project’s budget could be exceeded without a firm schedule

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when

You have a draft work plan for the consultancy project
Whether you use a Gantt chart or a simple calendar, managers and staff know when meetings with the consultant and joint work will happen, minimizing disruption of ongoing work

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when

You have a plan for project over-sight, project communications and project support.
Consultants, managers and staff understand chain of communications, authority and priorities

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organization and project

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organizations 
Add recommendations to your list of people/firms to consider
Even if you are leaning toward someone known to you consider and interview a range of recommendations

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experience of the consultant for indications that they know your sector and how to work with organizations of your size, especially when sectoral knowledge is very key to the project. 
. Prepare questions needing specialized knowledge to answer such as funding programs specific to sector
Ask specifics about implementation of past projects to gauge ability to work independently or with a large team as needed.

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expertise of your consultant is a match for the specific focus of the project
"social media marketing" and not just "marketing" if they are charged with a social media marketing plan
corporate fundraising, not just “fund-development” if you are charging them with a corporate campaign

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is able to be as hands-on and present in the organization or as independent as needed. 

Be frank with the consultant about what you need and don't need
Ask about their ability to attend meetings and their own expectations about frequency and method of contact

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the consultant as well as the opportunities, strengths and limitations of your organization.
Be receptive to suggestions that enhance your plan but wary of someone who wants to make huge changes to work plan
Consider whether suggested changes are new ways of looking at the problem or run upstream against your organizational culture

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authority, communication channels and priorities

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directs the consultant's work?
Who intervenes if a consultant's work is not being done, goes off-course or is being disruptive of operations? 

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the consultant? 
Are those staff members aware of how they will be expected to assist?
How well is the work defined?
Example: You will be required to occasionally assist X by research and database entries. This is not to take precedence over your regular work and should take approximately 1-3 hours work per week."  
Who intervenes if a consultant misdirects or abuses staff? 

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and how it integrates with their own work?
Communicate the project goals with staff who will be assisting
Buy-in is facilitated when staff understand and do not have unrealistic fears about the outcomes of consulting projects

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share? 
Privacy considerations need to be addressed in advance
Sharing HR or client information and lists has legal as well as organizational effectiveness implications

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projects to fail?

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an organization without the staff or finances to support the plan.
 A "think outside of the box" innovational strategy that is not doable or sustainable due to known factors

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skill set.
You picked someone with a knowledge of foundations and government funders to plan and pioneer an individuals and corporate donor campaign
You picked someone with strengths in social media marketing for an outreach to an audience that doesn’t use social media very much

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work style
You suffered with an absentee or “in your hair” consultant
Lack of clarity about work plan or organizational style led to a disconnect, disputes and ultimately caused project to fail.

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. .
Consulting project takes on a life of its own due to lack of oversight.  
Results unlikely to reflect original goals and project either becomes irrelevant or disruptive.
Results become hard to assess when it is unclear what the consultant actually did.
Staff resent a consultant taking on roles/work that is in their job description and have no referee to mediate

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to busyness and poor delegation, staff are uncooperative, stalling the project
Frightened staff unduly priorize consulting project to the detriment of higher priority work.  
Consultant, unclear of how to get needed help, goes to anyone who answers the phone for help causing duplication and confusion.  
Consultant unclear of boundaries, contacts staff at home, via personal email  etc.
Staff who have no mechanism to refuse to put in extra hours for consultancy project  ask for huge overtime payments or time in lieu due to work heaped on them by the consultant resulting in hidden costs.

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to share information needed for the consultancy.  
Staff fail to priorize information sharing because they don't know how it will be used.
Staff who misunderstand Consultant's scope share privileged information
Consultant offers the organization contact information that is not supposed to be shared. Individuals added to our contact list complain about spam, damage our reputation.
Our contact list is shared against our wishes and our contacts complain.   
We see a decline in funding results from known sources the following year and discover our list of funding contacts is being used by a competitor who has hired our former consultant

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project, not short-term opportunities or needs
Select a consultant who matches the project, the organization and the work style of the team
Provide clear oversight to the consultant and be clear about responsibilities & communication lines for the staff
Get the necessary buy-in from staff by sharing the project's goals and likely outcomes
Be thoughtful about information sharing making sure protections and permissions are clear
Track the project regularly assuring reports are accurate

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