Internal Consultancy Skills

 

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Course Timetable

This is a 2-day classroom or remote online course delivered via . This fast-paced and highly concentrated learning experience draws on the extensive practical consultancy and change management experience of the course facilitators. The program is highly interactive and includes practical consulting case studies and simulations, and practical tips, tools and techniques to help you get even better results as in internal (or external) consultant or business partner.

The emphasis is developing client management skills and on the practical application of techniques. About two-thirds of the course is structured around a practical case study "simulation" that follows an internal consulting process from inception to completion. In the consulting simulation you will be working in a team of up to 7 colleagues, and each team will prepare for and run a series of meetings with our facilitators who role-play a number of "client" managers. This ensures you will have the opportunity to participate directly in dealing with the "client" and developing your consulting skills and confidence. You will apply a number of consulting techniques and approaches and receive personal feedback from our facilitators to help you develop and practise the people-skills and relationship-building techniques essential to successful performance as a business partner or internal consultant.

Courses with up to 16 participants

For a course with up to 8 people, participants will work as one team on the main consultancy simulation and skills development sessions. For larger courses (up to a maximum of 16 participants) participants will do their preparation for these sessions in 2 teams.

Each team in turn will have the opportunity to observe, analyse and then run a number of client meetings designed to illustrate the use of consultancy skills and techniques and to allow participants to learn, practise and fine-tune the practical application of a range of techniques and approaches. The course facilitator (our consultant) will be the "client" in these meetings. This ensures each participant has the opportunity to receive personal feedback to help develop their consultancy style and performance. Each of our tutors is a practising management consultant with a large client base and can draw on recent practical experience of handling real-life situations with clients.

Larger courses (up to 24 people)

We use a 2-day timetable for in-house courses. If you have a particularly large group (up to a maximum of 24 people) we can run the course over 3 days using a modified course structure: half the course (say, 12 people) attends the Day 1 timetable on the first day, the other half (the other 12 people) attends the Day 1 timetable on the second day, and the entire course (up to 24 people) then attends the Day 2 timetable on the third day of the course. This way we ensure that even on large in-house courses participants still have the opportunity to practise and receive guidance and feedback on their consultancy techniques in small groups.

The content of our online course is identical our traditional classroom based course. You will practise using a consulting process, skills, techniques and tools introduced by our highly experience course facilitator who will then guide you through a practical consulting simulation. Over the 2 days, you and your fellow course participants will take a consulting case study simulation from beginning to end. For the practical consulting simulation sessions you will collaborate with your fellow course participants in breakout rooms with cloud whiteboards to maximise teamworking and discussion and ensure you develop practical consulting experience. You and your team will then run live simulated consulting meetings with our facilitator who plays a number of different 'client' or stakeholder roles. Following each simulated consulting meeting you will discuss how your team performed and your experienced course facilitator will offer feedback and additional practical tips and consulting techniques to help boost your consulting skills. The emphasis is on learning by doing.

2-Day Course Content and Programme

Course times: The course starts at 9am and finishes at 5pm each day.

1. The consulting process What is consultancy? Understanding client needs The 7 Steps to a successful assignment Nine important ways for you to ‘add value' How and when to use ‘Expert' and ‘Process' modes	6. CONSULTING SIMULATION: Presenting Recommendations Practical consulting simulation and skills development session in small groups, each facilitated by one of our experienced facilitators How to present 'bad news' without alienating your client How to read and respond to your client's behaviour The 'scapegoat' trap and how to avoid it 20 ways for you to run better consulting presentations How to present your findings for maximum impact How to handle the tough questions 6 effective ways to handle difficult people in presentations Gaining your client's commitment to the next steps
2. CONSULTING SIMULATION: Initial Meetings Practical consulting simulation and skills development session in small groups, each facilitated by one of our experienced facilitators How to manage successful initial client meetings Establishing credibility and professionalism 22 ways for you to run better intial meetings 13 critical issues for the initial meeting and how to deal with them The 80:20 rule and why you will fail without it How to develop highly effective questions Four powerful techniques to boost your active listening	7. SKILLS PRACTICE: Client Management Reviewing & practising techniques: Discussing, reviewing and practising techniques with other course participants Essentials of successful client management Difficult situations and how to deal with them A simple-but-effective 7-step process to help you say 'no' How to put together highly effective client-consultant teams Applying proven techniques to handle 'difficult' clients
3. Developing your Consulting Skills Feedback & action planning: Review of Personal Consulting Style results Benchmarking your consulting style against over 500 Australian internal consultants Using the Consulting Style Profiler to develop your business, client and self-management skills Over 150 action steps to boost your effectiveness Measuring your 'Emotional Intelligence' against our consulting benchmarks 10 important ways to boost your 'Emotional Intelligence'	8. "MARKETING" and Positioning Yourself as a Business Partner Discussion & action planning: Reviewing your team's current role and perceived value. Preparing a plan of action to re-position yourself and your team as a value-adding business partner Moving from 'cost' to 'added value' Mapping your client's needs Identifying consulting opportunities to add greater value Building powerful networks and sponsors 30 practical ways to re-position your team as a business partner Developing your 'marketing' action plan
4. Consulting Tools & Techniques How to use simple consulting tools collaboratively to diagnose the problem How to involve your client in identifying solutions they will own Using the Organisational Health Check, SWOT, Ishikawa and Force Field Analysis to influence your client Using consulting models as powerful communication tools	9. Personal Action Planning Using the Personal Development Workbook Building your personal network Developing your personal action plan
5. CONSULTING SIMULATION: Information Gathering Practical consulting simulation and skills development session in small groups, each facilitated by one of our experienced facilitators The secrets of successful information gathering meetings The confidentiality barrier and how to overcome it 20 ways for you to improve your information gathering How to deal with dominant people who are more senior The keys to building rapport and overcoming resistance Questionnaire surveys as a powerful information gathering tool