Managing Consultancy Practice

Consultancy practice is an area of increasing choice for both professionals and experience corporate managers.

This unit aims to provide participants with knowledge about the consulting profession from the perspectives of the internal and external consultants. It will enable the participant to develop a set of consultancy capabilities by providing an understanding of, and the ability to apply, a set of methodologies, techniques and tools appropriate for those in the professional advice giving business.

This unit covers:

• The consulting profession
• Strategic development and management of consultancy practice
• Quality management
• Managing consultancy projects
• Quantitative information collection and analysis, soft systems, methodologies, consultancy project tools
• Basic problem solving approaches, legal and practical issues in project reporting and sign-off, consultancy project evaluation

Upon completion you will be able to:

• Understand the roles of internal and external consultants
• Create an action plan to set up a consultancy practice, either as an internal organisational consultant or as an independent external consultant in their area of specialist/professional expertise
• Describe the key factors for consultancy project success
• Perform major tasks in the consultancy project life cycle
• Demonstrate the application of appropriate methodologies, techniques and tools to a variety of consultancy project scenarios
• Demonstrate a high order of skill in analysis, critical evaluation and professional application

Contact Hours: 30 hours

In addition to these contact hours, you will be required to conduct your own private study.