Using Consultants in Change Programm

Consultant have been working with companies since the early post World war II era, when McKinsey and Boston Group Consulting Group began offering strategic planning advice to corporate executives...

Considering today's pressure on cost, it is important to understand how consultants can help you and how you an make the most of their services. 

Here is the help a consultant can bring you for your change initiative:

1. Diagnostic : a team of junior consutants gathers information both inside and outside the organisation with the goal of :
• determining where the company stands in terms of some measure of organisation performance
• the company problem's and the root causes with respect to that performance measure
2. Capabilities assesment : the capabilities of the companies human and physical resources are assessed
3. Strategy developement : working with management, the consulting team developes a strategy for reaching the desire level of performance.Depending on the situation, that strategy mai include various doses of employee training , process reengineering, organizational restructuring, and even some new information technologies.
4. Implementation : consultant team provide training and work with employees team to plan the change programm and operationalize the strategy.

As you move throught agenda, consultants should gradually assume background roles. Thus, the best appraoch to using consultants is bound to be heavily situational. If the goal is restructuring, change consultants can and should play a major role. They have very specialized knowledge and experience for these rare events. But if the change involves changing how people work, put your own people in change and use consultants as facilitators.


Sources : Surviving Change, Harvard Business press