Top Ten Expensive mistakes in Consultancy
Consulting
1. More promises, lesser action: The sales person you are employing has to basically sell your products. They are paid in accordance to their contribution to the total revenue of the company. Thus many sales representatives tend to make elaborate promises in the beginning to gain an entry in your team. They may be impressive and thus bag in numerous projects which they might find difficult to handle and fulfill. You are thus left with an unhappy team and a disappointed client. To avoid such situations, the proposals must be cross checked by a delivery team prior to the submission to the client. You can thus keep the quantity of work under control which is reviewed by the delivery team.
2. Never commit to time and budget before the project: You should never commit to anything regarding time and budget before having a thorough idea of the work at hand. If the client insists you to quote a bid wit regards to time and budget then you can easily tackle him. Bid for the portion of work that you have knowledge about. You can tell the client that you will bid the other unknown parts of work after initial part of work is executed.
3. Never recruit inexperienced personnel in important projects: Project management is never an easy task. If you assign some inexperienced PM then have a back up in the form of a mentor or an advisor to supervise their progress.
4. Casual handling of project potentiality: The potential and scope of a project should be expertly managed. Innumerous consultants are ready to do anything to please clients. Even if this is a good attitude but too much of pleasing can be a bit of bother at times for some clients. You will have an exhausted team member and you will start doing free work.
5. Being rigid with clients over project changes: If changes are feasible within the scope of a project (without compromising on time etc) then you should pursue them if the client wants. This maintains a healthy relation with the client.
6. Start working before understanding the complete work: In case the client is unable to seal requirements then:
- Your team must be influential in guiding the client to seal the requirements.
- Top management of the clients must show complete support regarding project goals and direct team members to proceed.
- The client should be aware of any alteration in project schedule or project capacity in case of delays in gathering supplies.
7. Lack of lucidity with client: Sometimes hiding project facts like delayed schedules can be intelligent but this does not work all the time with clients. Your client will always find out the facts you are hiding. So you should convey all the major problems to the client rather than disturbing the client with small manageable issues.
8. Never allow your client to mange the project: Your client can have innumerous Pm of his choice but you should employ at least one of your PM in each phase. One of the important roles of the PM is to differentiate the project team from the client and to efficiently manage the scope of the project. If the client insists in managing the project themselves then there is sure to arise some disagreement with the interest of the project which you have to sort out yourselves.
9. Reducing project time: There will always be pressure from the client to deliver the project on time. You should never try to deliver the project faster using lesser resources. Every angle of the project like resource, work and time should be proportionately used.
10. Never overstaff your project: It is always tempting to overstaff your project to obtain an elaborate bill. You should remember that the client is always going to find out your intentions. This is very detrimental in the future relations with your client.
Tags: consultency, mistake, overstaff, time
