My dad -who’s been in this business for over three decades- taught me a long time ago “a consultant must always keep a notebook”. And really, this is the single most important piece of advice you can get. Take your notebook everywhere you go and take note of everything. As a consultant you’ll be asked to absorb information like a sponge. You’ll be expected to build a detailed understanding on the processes and needs in a very short span of time. After a few workshops you might even be asked to answer questions about their business that they’ve not had the time to answer themselves. You won’t be able to digest everything on one go, so you better make sure you can fall back on some solid quality notes. And here’s where I update my dad’s advice. Keep a digital notebook. Really, there’s no better way. you’ll probably be faster typing than writing, you can go Ctrl+F and find things in the blink of an eye, you can move pages and reorganize your notebook seamlessly, add images, links recordings, etc. Paper is not just outdated and not environmentally friendly, it is also below par performance. Evernote is my absolute favourite in this regard, but I must admit MS Office’s OneNote is pretty good as well.
A picture is worth a thousand words. And in this business it can save you from inexplicably long meetings, redundant discussions and from those pesky endless e-mail threads where 3+ people reply in different colours repeating the same idea over and over expressed in different words just to make sure they get it. You’d be amazed at how much you can summarize and get across with a few boxes, arrows and stick men. If you’re holding a workshop to explore or design a complex process, make sure you’ll have a whiteboard or a flip-chart. If you can’t have one of those and the crowd is reduced, this is where a paper notebook still comes in handy. Just make sure to take a picture and add it to your digital notebook afterwards. Then, once it’s right, make it presentable and add it to your deliverables. It’ll likely clarify a lot and make your deliverables much lighter to read.
Resist the temptation of sticking to the “high level” picture. Too often you’ll find people discussing about just having to implement certain things without further explanation as to why. Don’t settle for that. Always dig deeper and try to find out what the real business need behind the requirement is. Be prepared to answer why. The end-to-end is important. Granted you won’t always have the time to find out all the details, but make sure you are on the right track to doing it. Never answer “I don’t know” unless you’re prepared to follow up with “but I’ll find out”. It is too easy to just say “we’re only doing the high level piece of work”, but unless you understand the details it’s unlikely you’ll be able to propose new creative solutions that add real value, know their implications and put forth an argument that holds against the very tough questions that senior stake holders may have in store for you.
In every large enterprise software integration project you’re likely to have several stake holders. Business people, operations people, technical people and every shade of grey in between. I’ve held 15 people workshops to agree on modifying the definition for a single field. Not a very agile environment, true, but in large corporates that’s just the way of it. Now, every one of your stake holders will have dozens of concerns, each one with their own challenges and implications. Addressing everyone of those will likely require several actions. No matter how good your notes and memory are, something can slip. So, here’s where I like to keep an inventory of “pending stuff” -things I need to investigate, things I’m waiting on, things I’m not sure of yet, things that are delaying delivery, etc. Anything and everything that needs actioning goes into my inventory. Use a spreadsheet for this and make sure you can classify and filter depending on different areas of concern, or stake holders involved. This way you’ll be able to substantiate how much work has been done, what’s pending, what blockers you may have, what’s delaying you, what each stake holder owes you, and so on. It’s a little bit of extra work every day, but it does pay off.
Make sure you know what your deliverable is and when it’s due. If your lead has not defined a deliverable for you, then it’s up to you take the initiative. No matter how good your analysis is or how much you’ve done, it does not look good if it’s all in your head. Put it in writing, diagrams and prototypes. Find out what conforms to your client’s methodology. If they have none, then propose one. Always be prepared to have something to show for your work, and make sure it’s quality work. Often we’re tempted by the urge to understand everything before we commit them to paper or code. By starting to deliver something very early on you allow yourself to progressively validate your understanding of the business’s needs, you empower your stake holders to give you feedback and think of what might be missing, you provide visibility on the real scope of your work and any design or analysis issues you may have and you build your client’s confidence in your work.
This may seem less important that the things I’ve mentioned before, but actually it is paramount to being successful. It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do if other people don’t feel comfortable working with you. You don’t want to be the super-smart know-it-all pitbull who has to be kept on a leash and muzzle. You’ll never get to lead your own project like that. Be humble, be friendly, be a team player, be helpful and be cooperative. Don’t be so serious all the time. Build some rapport with your colleagues and stakeholders and make sure to develop a genuine interest for their concerns. Nothing beats finishing a project and having the people you’ve worked with say “thank you, I hope we get to work together again in the future”. Consulting is not just about strategy, technology and processes. It’s ultimately about fulfilling the needs of people, and you will need other people to do it properly.