A dynamic management consultant instructor stands out as a professional with high ethical standards, extensive education, a proven record for transforming businesses into more efficient organizations, and an ability to communicate with colleagues. This person approaches consulting education with energy and enthusiasm, inspiring every participant to achieve results in business consulting. Don’t you want this person as your next consulting education instructor?

The key to finding a quality program with dynamic instructors is evaluating the program provider’s reputation. Assess the ability of a consulting education provider to target consultants with specific needs. To select a first-rate program and to walk away with valuable skills, look for a program that is:

* Tailored to management consultants in your field and with your level of experience. Each seminar should be specific to your needs; otherwise, you will not get the right tools to develop in your career. Select a consulting education program that will help you move from one level of management consulting to the next; for instance, look for a list of prerequisite skills and/or a target audience for each seminar.

* Structured to facilitate group communication and understanding. Some experts teach consulting education seminars without a good grasp of how to facilitate learning in small group or large group settings. If you research the reputation of each instructor, or better yet, take a training program from a provider recommended by a colleague who had a great experience, you can ensure your investment is not wasted. A great instructor will use the seminar time to help participants learn from each other and maximize their takeaways.

* Supported by online postings of program materials. A professional provider of consulting education makes it clear to prospective participants what each course will cover. Look for a schedule, a course outline, a list of course objectives, a summary of the course instructor’s background and experience, assessments, and potential uses for the course.

* Supported by follow-up consultations with an instructor. A quality consulting education provider charges a handsome some for participation, but its product is supported by ongoing support from an instructor. You make an investment in increasing your knowledge base, and your instructor helps you to understand the application of your new learning when you return to work.

The next time you attend a consulting education program, remember you may have selected a well-designed course, but you gain more from your experience by leaving work commitments behind and focusing on your learning.

Inspired by a recent poll to find the most attractive employers which was dominated by management consultancy, Guardian Careers is running a live webchat on the sector.

To explore the management consultancy role and industry, a panel of experts working within the sector, including professionals working at some of the companies that topped the poll, recruitment specialists Top-Consultant.com and the Management Consultancies Association will be online tomorrow, Jan 27, 1pm to 4pm ready to take your questions.

Please use this opportunity to find out more about these tops firms and the careers of those working within them as well as to discuss the issues facing the sector and its employees.

The discussion is now open for advance questions: http://tinyurl.com/y9lpouj

The topic of Project Management is very popular among professionals today, as project management skills can really help to advance your career.  Choosing the right project management course becomes the next challenge many professionals who want to build their project management skills.  This article outlines the top considerations for identifying the best project management course for you as an individual, as well as how to get the most out of it personally and for your career.

One way great way to begin to choose a project management course is to look at the problems you are facing today.  For example, perhaps you are having some special challenges dealing with stakeholders.  Maybe gathering requirements effectively is your current challenge.  Often times you can identify communications problems on your project and would like to learn more about tools and techniques for managing these problems.  Perhaps you would like to enhance your management skills.  Perhaps also, you simply would like to learn a broad project management framework or methodology and earn a project management certification to enhance your credentials.

Once you have this idea in mind, it is also helpful to consider the method of delivery that you prefer for the project management course.   The typical delivery methods include classroom training, audio training, and online project management training.  Classroom training has the advantage that you can give it your full attention as you are away from daily distractions.  There also is great value in being present with the instructor and students to discuss and absorb points on the spot as well as network.   On the other hand classroom training is expensive, might involve travel, requires trading off work time, and needs to be scheduled. 

An audio project management course can be very convenient, but lacks the visual learning aspect, so it often is a great supplement to other learning methods.  Some PDA-based audio programs are beginning to also offer the video, which is helpful, but it important to make sure that the audio delivery taken alone is effective for this medium when you cannot look.

Online project management training includes both instructor assisted training and pure online training.  With an instructor assisted online project management course, you take a live course over the internet, and the instructor is leading and facilitating the course.  In this case, you may have the ability to interact with the instructor and students during the class.  With pure online training, on the other hand, the course is self-contained and is available 24×7, and you can easily skip over topics of little interest and focus more on those of keen interest.  Often for the pure online training a mentor or online help is available for assistance.

Another decision is about the topic of the project management course.  For example, you might have a need to learn about a project management tool, so something like Microsoft Project training might be a good choice.  You might be in the information technology field, and perhaps you are transitioning from more technical functions to project management.  In yet another situation, perhaps an IT project management course would be a great choice. There are many other topics, especially in the soft skills areas like leadership, management, communication where you can select a sub-topic that will help take your current skills to the next level.

A final key is to choose and take that selected project management course right away!  Once the decision has been made, the desire is most likely at its peak, and you will get the most out of the project management course at that time.  If you wait even a few weeks, sometimes the issues you are facing may shift, and your ability to absorb like a sponge and immediately apply your new knowledge may diminish.  You want to be able to realize the benefit rapidly, and also making that knowledge your own for the long haul.

In summary, the way to get the most out of any project management course.  is to choose a topic related to something of very current interest.  Select a project management course about a topic of current interest to you, something for which you have a current burning desire or need and that you will be able to apply right away.  Pick the method of delivery of the course that best suits you, whether classroom, online, audio, self-paced, or other, and schedule yourself as soon as possible.  When the time comes, take the project management course at your own pace, but make sure you can give it full focus when you do.  Most importantly, apply what you have learned in the project management course right away!

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John Reiling, PMP, PE, MBA is an experienced Project Manager and certified Project Management Professional. John’s web site, project management  course provides online project management training for beginning managers and for PMP exam prep and PDUs. John also writes regularly in his blog, PMcrunch.com.

Business Analyst skills are important to have on the project team, and not a bad thing for a Project Manager to have! The same holds true for Business Analysts, where some Project Managment skills will serve the Business Analyst well.  In either case, the business analysis function is one that needs to be managed with care, perspective, and the wisdom of experience.

Business analysts typically play the following roles: requirements analysis, systems analysis, requirements management, or consulting.The key point is that the business analysis process does not just happen once. It is not just a matter of completing a task in the Work Breakdown Schedule! It starts at a high level near the beginning of the project, progressively elaborates, takes continuous monitoring, and is never really finished until the project itself is nearly finished.

Here are some key timeframes within the life of a project where business analysis makes an appearance:

1. Enterprise Analysis and Making a Business Case
Each project must fit into the plans of the organization as a whole. In depth familiarity with that plan, and understanding where the subject project fits into that is a key step in building the business case. The business case must align with the strategic objectives of the organization.

2. Requirements Planning
Developing requirements is a challenge in part because of the time dimension. Requirements planning describes a phased approach that forecasts and schedules how the requirements will unfold. It thus should have, as an output, a schedule for various time-based requirements gathering and documenting tasks.

3. Requirements Management
Managing requirements as they evolve is an important task. In some organizations there is a formal Configuration Management function. There also are myriads of business applications on the market that focus on Configuration Management for requirements. It is important to understand the degree of complexity, the expected level of change or evolution over the course of the project, and the risks involved related to requirements change developments.

4. Eliciting Requirements
Drawing requirements out of various stakeholders is as much an art as a science. The science part provides a framework, usually in the form of ways the structure questions, common pitfalls, and how to document. However, it is an art to develop rapport with varying stakeholders and probe deeply to uncover the core needs.

5. Requirements Analysis and Models
The documentation of requirements is important to assuring that everyone is “marching to the same tune”. Often this requires developing sophisticated architectures, drawings, mathematical models, and prototypes that consolidate requirements input and reflect back to stakeholders the proposed solution. This provides further subject matter for conversations around the continuously unfolding requirements.

6. Communicating and Implementing Requirements
With a given set of requirements, the business analysis function must assure stakeholder buy-in, but also must ensure that those who will implement the requirements are equally “plugged in”. One challenge is to ensure that the stakeholders are in clear and in agreement with what will be implemented, and the implementers are clear on what they need to do. Due to the detailed and often technical nature of the work, work packages at the implementation level are well removed from the stakeholder, so the business analyst servers to bridge that gap and “broker” that relationship.

While distinctly different in many ways, Project Management and Business Analysis functions overlap in many areas. The Business Analyst ensures that the product of the project meets the targeted business needs and is well-defined. This job is a project lifecycle function and does not end until the stakeholders verify that the product meets their requirements. The Project Manager, on the other hand, is concerned with the totality of the project, and is concerned mostly with ensuring progress against schedule, risk management and mitigation, and delivering of the product of the project within budget, on time, and to specified quality standards. Skill in both areas is very valuable, and only serves to benefit the project, program, and organization – as well as the professionals in their careers. 

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John Reiling, PMP, MBA is experienced Project Manager and analyst. John’s web site Project Management Training Online, provides numerous courses for PDUs and certification training for both Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP). John’s Project Management blog is PMcrunch.

To make the most use of whatever time you have available you must focus on your long term aims. Being focused on the smaller picture rather than the big one will throw you off course. Look at where your time goes and consider if you can make better use of it. Not everybody understands us when we talk about time management. So if you are working in a group you all need to understand the same message and what you are trying to achieve.

Short term goals are one type of time management goal and the other is the long term goals. All of them will need you to list what and when things need to be completed. The things that need doing now and over the next year or two are usually considered to be short term goals. Long term time management goals are where we plan to be in five to ten years time.

We all want fast results but the big picture is where it is important to aim. Avoid being distracted and maintain focus on your long term aims. Goals should be considered and changed as required and they should never be set in stone.

Each day you should be doing something that is using time management skills to achieve your aims. A lot of people spend far too much time chasing their tails so make sure you are not one of them. Spend some of your time considering how you can make the most of the time you have to reach your long term goals

Keep a regular check on where your time is spent and if that is wise and productive. Try to look with an impartial eye as though you were somebody else. Decisions should be taken because they are good and this helps prevent emotions getting in the way. Your free time should be considered as well and using time management skills can help to make the most of your relaxation time.

Make a plan of what you need to have to reach your goal in ten years time. We need to set out how much time we can devote to each task we have ahead of us. Time management always starts by looking at our aims and our intentions for where we want to end up

Your time management scheme is your plan to meet the goals you have set for yourself. Whatever skills and education are required to achieve your goals need to be learned .Make the time available to prepare your plans for the future.

The application of time and energy will help you achieve your goals but it must be focused on the important things. To achieve success you will need to plan and have a time frame of how things should pan out. Wasting time in one area of your life will delay your plans so always consider your time management goals when deciding to spend time on other things.

Whether you want to set goals for your business or your personal life, defining clear, concise goals is very important. Without clear goals you can end up confused about what you want to achieve, and you may be putting yourself on the path to stagnation. Clear goals can give you tremendous momentum and intense purpose in your life.

Here are five important tips to help you to define clear goals in your life:

1. Understand what you want to achieve. In order to define clear goals, your first step is to determine exactly what you want to achieve. If you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t figure out a route to get there.

Once you know where you want to be and what you want to achieve, you’ll be able to come up with the goals that will help you get there.

* Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Your long-term dreams and desires might take some brainstorming, so take the time to sit down and do it.

2. Determine a timeline. Setting timelines will prevent procrastination and spur you on to action to meet your goals. Having a timeline for your goals also helps to clarify them because now you know what you want and when you want it!

* Come up with goals that you want to meet in a month, year, and even five or ten years from now.

* Make a plan that will keep you on track; however, don’t etch your plan in stone! Keep you eye on the prize, and know there will be changes along the way.

3. Ensure your goals are realistic. Eliminate stress from your life by having realistic goals that you can achieve. A clear goal is a realistic one.

You can seperate long-term goals for business or life into smaller, acheivable action steps. Reaching multiple goals along your journey will give you a feeling of accomplishment and motivate you to continue.

4. Be specific. Clarify your goals with the details of exactly what you want. Avoid vague generalities. When you make a specific goal, you’ll be better able to accomplish it.

* Specific goals allow you to form your timeline and define your action steps. There’s no guesswork involved when dealing with specifics.


* For example, “make more money with your business” is a vague goal. Come up with a specific goal, such as, “I will make $1,000 more per month, three months from today.” This goal is specific, measurable, and realistic.

5. Refine your goals. Your goals may change as your life changes. During this process, you’ll be able to make them more specific, realistic, and achievable.

* It’s okay to refine your goals several times in your life! What’s important now, might not be important to you six months or six years from now. Be willing to accept change. Revisit your goals from time to time and make new plans if necessary.

Some people flounder through life, unsure of their purpose or what they want to achieve. Don’t let this be you! Your life will have clear meaning if you put some thought into what’s important to you, what goals you want to achieve, and what actions to take to make your dreams a reality.

Leadership styles – there is a lot of junk written about leadership styles – so let’s make this really easy. There are really only 2 leadership styles – leading from the front and leading from the back..
What? No complicated methodology? Nothing complicated that needs an army of consultants to set up and deliver?
No – just a simple question.
Do you lead from the front or lead from the back?
Just imagine
You are out taking your children for a stroll (if you don’t have any children, just imagine you do..) and you are strolling in the park. You let them run on ahead and play. You idle along at the back – maybe have a drink or an ice cream. You are leading from the back. You have the situation under control and all is well. You have no need to get up and start shouting and telling children what to do.
But then you go out of the park
And you leave to cross the road. It’s not wise to be at the back now. Children will probably expect to be shouted at. You have to take control and now you are leading from the front.
This can easily be translated into the work place.
Relaxed
Imagine that you are at work and everything is going well. The team has hit their targets and it’s nearly holiday time and everyone is feeling good. Now is the time to lead from the back. No one will want to hear from you. No one will want to go over the work rosters for the next 6 months. You can safely lead from the back
Now imagine that your offices have been hit by a power cut. The offices are in complete darkness and staff and need direction and leadership. Now is the time to lead from the front.
Going missing at this point would be a very good way to lose the respect of your staff. What they need is to see you in command.
Of course, you will change from front to back during the working week and a good boss will be able to effortless change from one to the other.
A simple way to learn how to do this is to just listen to staff talking with each other.
Are they worried? What are they anxious about?
Are they working? Should they be hard at work?
Is their behaviour what you would expect at the current time? (For example, if they are strolling about and a big order is needed to go out, then you need to lead from the front and create a little more urgency into proceedings)
A bit of chatter is usual in most workplace but by tapping in to it, managers can decide where they need to position themselves to get the most out of staff.

Why should you bother?

The life blood of any business is good customer service. Although you should try and attract new customers good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. With every satisfied customer your business is likely to go on and secure many more customers through recommendations and if you do not take proper care of your customers there is probably a competitor waiting in the wings that will.

A customer satisfaction survey will help by not only identifying problem areas but show that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

Where do you start?

Objective – Before you start compiling your survey consider what the objectives of the survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis – In addition to the objective consider also how you will analyse the answers having completed the survey.

Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).

A great deal will depend on the predicted volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.

Opportunity – Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.

It is important that before you publish the survey that you check that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analyzed will help you make informed decisions.

Next, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?

The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

• Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
• Marketing – promote aspects of your business
• Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

In asking this question the store will hopefully not only receive useful feedback on the baby changing facility but they will also promote the store as being child-friendly even beyond the customers who actually require the facility.

Warts and all – to maximise the benefit from a customer survey you must be prepared to take criticism.

A customer satisfaction survey should be designed to highlight problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where your competitors initiatives may be losing you business.

What questions should you ask?

Depending on their own particular size and makeup each business is likely to have unique factors in relation to providing good customer services however there are common areas relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online store or a service industry. The following are some key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication – Is it easy for your customers to communicate with you?

When customers telephone are their calls answered quickly; are their enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, politely, quickly and fairly.

If there are reported problems that cannot be resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?

Use a customer satisfaction survey to check that all your employees are perceived by your customers as being helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location – Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, is it conveniently located with good access?

Making it pleasant, making it easy – For a virtual business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.

Regardless of the store being a bricks and mortar or purely online web based store, is the store properly laid out and can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient detailed information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure make sure that the products and services that you provide do fully match your customers’ requirements.

Value for money – Cheap or expensive is rarely a good measure, value for money is.

Is your business associated with value for money by your customers, if not, why not?

Speed and attention – Regardless of the business most customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.

Are you doing everything you can to avoid any delay?

Customers like to be treated as individuals, how do you treat your customers? Attention is appreciated but it needs to be followed up with a quick and satisfactory resolution to the query.

Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example their gender, age group and where they live?

The more you try to understand your customers the better you will be able to target your business.

As part of the survey allow your customers the opportunity to highlight any problems that they may have and provide you with contact details so that their problems might be later addressed and their concerns followed up.

What is next?

Having completed the survey analyze the results.

Trends – Identify specific and common areas where the service needs improving.

Ask yourself if any criticism is valid, be honest to yourself, is there anything that can be done to properly resolve, or at the very least, minimise the problem?

Training – Are all employees properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?

Where customer service training programs have been implemented have they had the desired effect and improved the customer experience?

Follow-up – If a customer has raised a specific issue through completing a survey ensure that they are contacted and that their complaint is properly addressed.

Don’t squander the opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.

Continuously Monitor – Make changes and then measure by issuing further surveys.

To view a sample customer satisfaction survey for a store that demonstrates some of the above advice please visit:- Sample Customer Survey

In the UK and many other countries, employment tribunals have more than doubled in the last 5 years.

how so?

Well, television is increasing reality and people see The Apprentice and celebrity chef programs on TV. People who do well are almost always represented as walking about, pointing and shouting at others (and quite often swearing and being rude also) to get the job done.

But that’s television – it’s not management…

It’s meant to entertain the viewing public and remember they don’t want to hear theories and explanations – they want to be entertained.

So how to be a better manager with all this bad advice around? Here are 3 thoughts to ponder.

1. Listen more. Talk less.

You will be able to make better decisions with all the facts and people will be happy (or happier) if they can see the manager has listened. Solutions will be more readily accepted if staff have had an input. And don’t forget – it’s your staff who actually do the job…

2. Learn to prioritise

Unfortunately, not everything can be important all the time. Just because something isn’t important to you – it doesn’t mean it’s not important to the person involved. So you need to be able to (tactfully) say to people that you won’t be dealing with that particular issue today, tomorrow, this week, ever… Without shouting abuse at them…

3.Get UP TO DATE  information

Too many managers rely on “gut” or what they think – not the facts. After all stopping to check the facts and figures doesn’t make for good TV does it. And after all, most TV programs must be fitted into a 1 hour slot, so spending time expanding the story lines means less advertising revenue…

Finally, recognise TV management programs for what they are – TV programs….

Business planning feels sometimes like visiting the dentist – you know you must do it, but you keep putting it off.

Historically business plans were prepared to obtain finance and subsequently filed away. Larger corporations prepared business plans internally to justify operational and project budgets. These business plans were seldom revisited and the accuracy and completeness were always questionable.

Regardless of the size of your business, it is imperative to be incredibly focused within your business. In depth focus can only be achieved through proper planning. This can be achieved through the use of structured business plan, sound business advice and ongoing evaluation against the plans.

The structure of the business plan should include:

• Current market situation – Understand your current market environment, including its size and the share you can realistically achieve. The size of the market will depend on market trends, target customers and competition.

• Current target customers – Evaluate the characteristics of the target customers that could buy from your business.

• Competitor analysis – The level of competition and the strength of the competition will provide an indication of how difficult it will be for you to attract customers.

• Marketing strategy – List the objectives and targets for the volume and share of the market you hope to achieve and when you want to achieve it by.

• Marketing plan – Explain in detail how you going to achieve your marketing targets and objectives.

• Sales Goal and objectives – Details your sale forecasts in terms of different product types by volume and value.

• Operational requirements – Draft an outline for your plans for premises, equipment, staff, suppliers, compliance and estimated costs.

• Current financial requirements and financial forecasts – Includes a breakdown of your financial requirements, the sources of finance available and any shortfall that will require funding.

• Management processes – Consider key skills, responsibilities, and management processes needed.

• Business risks – Details the risks your business is exposed to and how you plan to mitigate it.

No-one knows the pitfalls of planning and running a business better than persons who have done it. Rather than wait too late, contract business advisors if you do not have the necessary expertise. Experts can not only provide business advice for your business planning process but will become advocates for your business, cheering it on!