Should you use my services

In recent meetings people have said that they want to introduce me to colleagues but have not been quite sure how to present me. Thinking about this, I realized that I am serving a rather select group, as three conditions have to be fulfilled before you will want to make use of my services. These three conditions are illustrated in the following diagram.


It is clear that if you do not have a complex issue there is no need to think about a project to deal with this issue. And while you have many issues that need to solved, not all of them are very complex. My short-hand description of a "complex project" is often that it is a problem for which you would consider hiring a team of external consultants (pick your favorite brand…………) to deal with.

If you are happy hiring consultants than this will typically be your first choice. However, there are many reasons for not hiring a team of consultants. Often, price is a consideration (they tend to be expensive) or budget limitations. Sometimes the experience is that using consultants slows down implementation as there are hand-over issues. Other times, companies are just tired of being over-reliant on consultants for dealing with issues they feel that they should be able to handle themselves.

If you now a) have a complex project, and b) do not want to use external consultants, and c) are convinced that an internal team will deliver "consultancy-grade" results on time, then you are very comfortable and ready to go. However, if your experience with internal project teams dealing with complex issues is that they never deliver on time and never deliver clear and useful conclusions then you have a dilemma. At this moment your choice has traditionally been to either go back and bring in the team of consultants or to accept the weakness of the internal team.

This is the "sweet spot" in which my experience and methodologies are of value. In my experience an internal team can deliver "consultancy grade" results if the team works in the right way. Results which are provided at a fraction of the expense of using a team of consultants, and results which, by definition, have a high degree of buy-in in the organization, and therefore are quickly implemented.

Follow the links if you are interested in more information on project planning or project management training.