Assignment management

31.3 Managing assignment execution

Consulting requires considerable decentralization of operational decisionmaking and control. Once an assignment has started, it functions as a relatively independent project, where most matters are decided on the spot by the operating consultant or the team leader in agreement with the client. This section provides a number of ideas and practical suggestions on the short-term control of assignments. It is important, however, to consider what is applicable in each particular setting (e.g. the frequency of control visits to consultants on assignment will be influenced by distance and the cost of travel).

Self-discipline and self-control of operating consultants

The self-discipline and self-management of the operating consultants is a vital factor in assignment control. They are the full-time members of the team, and often the consulting firm’s sole representatives for 90 per cent of the time of the assignment.

The consultants are in a situation where they are greatly outnumbered. They have to set an example of hard and high-quality work and intellectual integrity. It is primarily a matter of their own judgement to decide how the code of conduct and the unwritten rules of the profession should be applied in the client organization, which will have its own behavioural patterns, habits, traditions and defects. Should questions arise, the senior consultant supervising the assignment may need to help the operating team with advice and guidance.

Assignment diary. At the end of the first day of the assignment, the operating consultant should start the assignment diary. This is an essential record of activity throughout the assignment. It is written up each evening with a summary of the day’s significant events (or non-events) and of progress made. It is a necessary reference for the supervisor. Every paper or note written by the operating team should be recorded in the diary and dated (sometimes the date proves to be its main value).

Time-keeping. In general, consultants on an assignment adjust to the working hours of the client organization. But the assignment programme is usually a heavy one and the consultants may need to work long hours to complete it on time. There may be both practical and tactical advantages in starting a little ahead of the rest of the staff in the morning and leaving a little later in the evening – so long as the consultants do not appear to make a virtue of it.

A consultant’s home may be far from the client’s premises and he or she may occasionally need to travel on a working day. If this is foreseen, it should be discussed with the client before the start of the assignment. An agreement should be reached on how the working hours and days will be counted, and whether the consultant will be authorized to take time off for travelling home if he or she has worked overtime.

When the assignment is dealing with departments working two or three shifts, the operating consultant must spend enough time on each one to find out

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all that is needed. The consultant’s reception on a night shift is often illuminating – workers and supervisors may receive him or her warmly and appreciate that somebody is interested in their problems.

Sensitivity, anticipation and reaction. The operating consultant has to be sensitive to all the points that the supervisor would normally check. This sensitivity is allied to self-control. The consultant will encounter frustrations and must endure them with patience and good humour. Anger will only arouse opposition and the consultant may end up being baited. At times people may put forward ill-considered views or provide incorrect information. In screening and rejecting these, the consultant must use tact and show tolerance, taking care to give reasoned explanations. There may be attempts to use him or her in internal politics, or involve him or her in intrigues. If consultants keep their eyes and ears open, they may be sufficiently ahead of these games to sidestep them, and be respected the more for it. Genuine appeals must always be met with ready help: goodwill and cooperation only come if they are deserved.

Favours (perks) offered by clients. Sometimes clients arrange for their staff to be able to purchase goods in local shops at a discount, or allow the company’s products to be bought at cost rather than at market price. The consultant is not a member of the client’s staff, and should not expect to participate in such offers. Consultants who are invited to join such schemes should consider the privilege with care and discretion.

The same rules apply to gifts from the client. There is perhaps no danger in accepting a parting gift, made as a personal gesture at the end of a satisfactory assignment, but at any other time discretion is necessary in deciding whether and how to accept gifts.

Socializing with client’s staff. It could be argued that informal contacts with members of the client organization during and after work are every consultant’s private matter. This can be accepted, provided the consultant keeps in mind the existing relationships and tensions in the organization and their possible impact on the assignment. By showing a preference for certain people, the consultant may give signals on how he or she is viewing the situation in the client organization and what position he or she is likely to take. Conversely, informal relations can be extremely helpful in getting the job done. Sensitivity to the local and organizational culture will help in deciding what to do.

Control by supervising consultant and client

The supervisor should visit the assignment as frequently as its circumstances warrant. Visits are usually more frequent if the operating consultant is new, or if the assignment is going through a difficult period. Dates of visits should be known to all parties in advance so that appointments and other preparations can be made.

The supervisor should spend time with the operating consultant and client together and separately, to find out how each regards the other and the progress of the assignment. The supervisor should also consider progress in relation to the wider policies and interests of both the client company and the consulting firm.

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With the operating consultants, the supervisor may check some or all of the following points:

●that frequent and satisfactory contacts are being maintained with client personnel;

●that assignment progress is up to date and under control;

●that the assignment diary is in good order;

●that the operating consultants are not under stress from any form of harassment by the client;

●that in their anxiety to reach an early balance between financial benefits and fees, the members of the operating team are not tempted to go for a quick return from some potentially dangerous scheme;

●that the opportunities for reporting to the client on progress are being used;

●that the operating consultants’morale is high, and their enthusiasm unflagging.

The supervisor should always be ready to act as a sounding-board for an operating consultant’s ideas and as an audience for rehearsal of presentations. He or she should discuss the operating consultant’s performance frankly and constructively with him or her, giving approval for work well done and guidance where improvement is necessary.

With the client, the supervisor should check:

–whether he or she is satisfied with the overall progress of the assignment, the contribution made by the operating team, and the relations that have developed between the consultants and the client’s staff members;

–whether he or she has met all agreed obligations and inputs to the assignment.

To make control efficient, the client organization, on its side, must have its own rules for examining the progress of operating assignments. The scheduled interim reports submitted by consultants should be studied, views of staff members collaborating with consultants collected, and the consultants’ working methods and behaviour observed.

There are periods, particularly in the early stages of an assignment, when the work shows no tangible results. The supervisor may notice signs of fretting, impatience, lessening interest, or simply “cold feet”. The symptoms to be watched out for could be:

●people “too busy” to spend time with the consultants;

●defensive or reserved attitudes and a reluctance to talk;

●remarks like “Your man is taking up a lot of our time”, “When are we going to see some results?”, or “You people are costing us a lot of money”.

The supervisor has to take these signs for what they are worth. They are not to be ignored, but neither are they grounds for panic. They have to be countered by whatever overt or covert means are appropriate. It could be that the client is

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not being sufficiently involved and does not know enough about what is going on.

From the sessions with the operating consultants, the supervisor might find that the assignment is in fact behind schedule. If so, short-term correctional measures may be agreed.

Short-term adjustments in the workplan

Sometimes, unpredictable occurrences might require a short-term plan to be superimposed on the overall plan of the assignment, in order to break an impasse or find a way round a knotty problem.

For instance, the number of operating consultants may need to be temporarily increased beyond the originally planned figures. However, the option of introducing more consultants to complete the work in a shorter time is not always available. The addition of extra consultants does not reduce the time proportionally – as a rule, four consultants require more than one-quarter of the time that one would need. There are various reasons for this, one being the necessity to coordinate and sequence activities. Also, the capacity of the client to increase the pace is limited since the consultancy is an addition to his or her normal workload. Additional consultants may even hinder rather than help in such a situation.

One way of gaining time is to allocate junior or trainee consultants to parts of an assignment that suit the particular stage of their personal development. This can save time at little or no extra cost to the client. In other cases, the client may be able to increase his or her personal involvement and thus speed up the assignment.

Major adjustment of the assignment

Supervision may reveal a need to reorient and restructure the assignment quite substantially. In long, complex assignments, such as business restructuring, reorganizations or new marketing strategies, this is quite common. In such a situation, it is unacceptable for a consultant to ignore the need and to continue along the originally agreed lines, because this is more comfortable and/or lucrative.

If the consulting contract has been properly drawn up, it will provide for a flexible and fairly quick adjustment, which may be suggested either by the consultant or the client. If such a need is revealed, the consulting firm should take the initiative and suggest to the client organization how to proceed, and how the workplan could be best adjusted.

Supervisor’s report

The supervisor should keep notes and give reports to the management of the consulting firm in much the same way as the operating consultants keep the

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assignment diary. He or she may have five or more current assignments and cannot rely on the recollection of one control visit after making several others. These reports are for internal use only.

Liaison with the operating consultants

Whether the location of the assignment raises difficulties of communication depends on the type and size of the consulting firm and the geographical spread of its operations. Many operating consultants may be working a long way from their headquarters for extended periods.

Though the consulting firm may have a newsletter, and may hold regional staff meetings and perhaps an annual conference for everyone, an operating consultant may feel out on a limb for much of the time. The main line of live communication between him or her and the organization is through the supervisor.

The supervisor’s visits are, therefore, important occasions for discussion of the consulting firm’s news and for some informal talk on what is going on. The operating consultant should be made to feel that he or she still belongs to an organization. The worst feeling consultants can harbour is that so long as they are bringing in the fees nobody cares much about them. Supervisors thus have a responsibility to both their firm and their operating colleagues to keep the whole as close-knit as possible. Without this, operating consultants on a long assignment may begin to identify too much with their clients and lose their independence and objectivity.

Health and morale of operating consultants

A consultant’s morale is unlikely to be high if he or she is not in good health. Consultants on assignments tend to go on working when client staff would go on sick leave. Furthermore, a hotel is not usually the most sympathetic place for someone who is ill. The supervisor should watch the operating consultants’ health carefully; delaying a visit to a doctor could mean a serious illness.

A drop in morale can also occur without a loss of physical health. Isolation from one’s family, frustrations of the assignment, or uninspiring surroundings all contribute. One of the tell-tale signs is that a consultant begins to hate the sight of the place he or she has to work in.

Learning by the consultants and the firm

Assignment management is a key opportunity for encouraging and assisting learning and knowledge management in the consulting firm. Normally the team leaders and supervisors are more experienced in the areas covered by operating assignments. While their more junior colleagues may have a better educational background, especially as regards recent economic, business management, information technology and other developments, they are likely to have gaps in their practical experience and broader understanding of client issues.

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Experience has shown that learning must be a managed process. Team leaders and supervisors must know that they are responsible for the coaching and professional development of the junior colleagues in their teams. Time needs to be allotted for this – a quick and superficial visit by a partner, during which an operating consultant does not dare to ask any questions, is of little help. Meetings should have a technical content, not just checking if a deadline will be met and a report properly presented. Individual discussions with operating consultants can be extremely useful and encouraging for them, and can be used to touch gently on issues for which collective discussions are less suited.

The senior consultant and the whole firm also learn from operating assignments. Most innovations in consulting are the result of creative thinking, experiments and collaboration with clients during operating assignments. Team leaders and supervisors are responsible for identifying innovations, helping operating consultants to carry them through, providing additional technical inputs to perfect the approach to be taken, and making sure that the whole firm is promptly informed and can learn from every innovative project.

This, however, must be an organized process enjoying the strong support of higher management, not a mere declaration of noble intentions. The short-term pressure of client demands and billing targets is strong and there will always be a temptation to postpone indefinitely activities (which are seemingly unproductive) to build up the firm’s collective know-how.

Assignment progress control by higher management

Periodic (e.g. monthly) progress reviews of all assignments should be made by higher management in the consulting firm – by top management in small organizations, and by divisional or regional management or by a senior partner in large organizations. The reviews should be based on reports submitted by supervisors and/or team leaders, information received from clients (complaints, changes implemented, additional requests), and the senior managers’ own intelligence gathered through personal contacts with the clients and the consulting staff.

Assignments that are on schedule and present no technical problems do not require detailed discussion, except for those that are approaching completion; higher management should become involved in these by studying the report, planning a visit to the client to present the conclusions, and preparing for the transfer of the assignment team to another project. Problematic assignments should be reviewed in more detail, in particular if the supervisor concerned is not in a position to redress the situation by measures that are within his or her competence, and needs help from superiors.

Whenever necessary, assignment progress reviews by higher management should also discuss technical problems that have arisen. This may be the case with assignments that are particularly difficult, where new consultants or new supervisors are employed, or where new and unfamiliar methodologies are applied. It is very important for the operating teams and the supervisors to know that someone higher up is interested, not only in smooth delivery and regular

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