Consulting engagements that don’t end (that is, they don’t have clearly defined end criteria) are not consulting engagements but on going operations. Consultants that don’t have a clear end to their project are employees not consultants.
Having a set of criteria that defines when your consultant’s work is done is crucial to a successful project. It helps provide you with a sense of progress against plan, assess the performance of your consultant, and offers the psychological relief that you will indeed one day have accomplished something in collaboration with your consultant.
What should mark the end? We can think of at least 4 kinds of criteria that are used to define the “end” of a project. Three for successful projects and one for unsuccessful projects:
- The project end might be tied to a certain date. An example of this type of project is the year 2000 enhancements that had to happen to many computer systems. All work had to be completed by December 31, 1999. Projects with date certain endings do exist but are less common (and beneficial to you) than you might think. Typically having a specific end date benefits consultants more than clients. I’m sorry to say consultants will focus on getting whatever they need to get done to get paid rather than results that benefit you. Quality can suffer.
- The end might be based on the consultant completing some set of “deliverables” (end products). This might be a report or study of some kind, a computer system, or a building. This is some product resulting from the the consulting engagement that you can see, listen to, or touch. Typically you are the judge of quality on this deliverable and approve that it meets your needs. While better than a date certain project, deliverables based projects may have downsides as well. Consultants can get so focused completing deliverables that they ignore your needs and expectations. In some cases (constructing a road for example) this probably doesn’t matter. In other cases (assessing if you have adequate staff to do your work) it does. Overall the burden is placed on you, the client, to assess if the quality of end results meets your expectations.
- There is also a performance based end to projects. More specifically, the project ends when something measurable and agreed upon is accomplished (claims back log decreases by 10% or toll road revenues rise by $100,000). This is generally the most beneficial to you as a client because it defines the end in terms of benefits you want to see. However this is often difficult to operationalize (for example how do you measure a study of the use of WIC funds in your state?).
- Unsuccessful projects end because you or your consultant come to the conclusion the work cannot be finished by a certain date, deliverables of acceptable quality cannot be produced, or one or more performance measures cannot be met. This is obviously not optimal. I’ll mention there’s a version of this that isn’t necessarily “unsuccessful”, a project ends because the original purpose of the project no longer exists (e.g. on a personnel review the individual under review quits).
Successful end criteria can be combined as well. For example a certain report (deliverable of acceptable quality) must be completed by the beginning of the legislative session (a certain date).
Do you know when your project is over? If not sit down with your consultant and hammer out the criteria that defines the end of your project. You and your project will be better off for the effort.
This is part of a series of articles designed to help clients and their consultants have more effective and efficient engagements.