How to assemble a consulting team

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Assignment
Team
Assembling a consulting team

4/24/2017 consultorama.101@gmail.com - all rights reserved 2
Some general
facts about
assembling a
team of
consultants
What
When
Why

What is the right team?
Some assignments require 1 single consultant for a few days, others
dozens of them for a few years
The right group of consultants
Depending on client’s problem and context, you may need Junior or
Senior, expert or generalist resources, with specific language or IT
skills
Who gather the right combination
of experience, expertise and skills
Consulting work is mainly performed from clients’ premises but not
necessarily -> you can have resources from other offices in other
countries who remotely work on your assignment
Who can work full time or more
punctually, at the client’s office or
anywhere else in the world
You may have found the sheep with 5 legs but it is of no use if they
are already assigned to another engagement and not available before
another 6 months
Who are available over the right
period of time

Why is it so important?
Some
consulting
firms sell
assignments
on their good
name or
spotless
reputation
Clients want
actual results
from D1 on
The team
assigned to
the
engagement is
the one who
must deliver
these results
The greatest
credentials
are useless if
the
engagement
team is not up
to client’s
expectations
It is therefore critical to
assemble the right team
for each particular
assignment

When should it be taken care of? | Commercial negotiation
At this point, you are not sure yet to actually sell the assignment but you need to ‘reserve’ the
resources in order to secure their availability in case you win it
You do not know either whether the team set up in your financial proposal will be approved as is by
the client or shall require adjustments

When should it be taken care of? | Deal closing
At this point, you know the commitment taken to the client. The composition of the consulting team
is more or less explicitly presented in the service agreement (fully – partly – not at all)
In any case, you need to lock the resources who will actually work on the assignment - on the field
team or not – at least for the first weeks of the engagement.
Commercial negotiation

When should it be taken care of? | Assignment
At the very beginning of an engagement, you may need to handle differences between the team set
up as discussed at prior stages and the actual set up.
After that, a variety of situations can induce adjustments on the team set up: consultant resignation
or illness, non-performing resources, natural turn-over on long-term assignments, evolution in client
needs …
Deal closingCommercial negotiation

Consulting firm profitability is strongly correlated to consultants’ staffing rate
(i.e. the % of chargeable time). Therefore, headcount is very closely monitored
creating resource crunches more often than desired.
Why is it difficult to assemble a consulting team?
1
1
Scarcity

1
Scarcity
1
Some clients wait till the last minute to request for help but still expect consultants to start right away. Consequently, you
often have only a few days, not to say a few hours, to find the team.
And as problems arise at any time, you may have to assemble a team during holiday season or summertime which are not
the most favourable periods for doing it.
Time pressure
2

As we have already seen, assembling a consulting team is constrained by several
sources of uncertainty: whether or not the engagement is won, actual needs vs.
Client’s vision, evolution of needs over time …
3
2
Deep uncertainty
1
1
Time pressureScarcity

Assembling a
team is a very
delicate process
…

… that should be performed in a very structured and formal environment
Maintain an exhaustive and
up-to-date view on
experience, expertise and
skills of all your resources
Develop procedures to
handle staffing all along the
engagement life cycle
Monitor risk induced on
client relationships by
staffing issues or errors of
casting

There are several ways to have a good view on staff experience and skills
CV database
CV database contain pre-formatted
versions of Consultants’ resumes,
either short or long-form. Consultants
are responsible for updating the DB.
Competency matrix
Competency matrix centralises
structured info an all Consultants’
competencies (nature, level …)
If this is not the case you may want to initiate their creation…
Most of Consulting firms have a more or less sophisticated
version of tools below

You increase your chances of success if you respect 4 basic rules
4/24/2017 14
Allocate role &
responsibilities
Formalize selection
criteria
Finalize team mix
1 3 4
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Analyse client
needs
2

Roles and responsibilities between the different stakeholders to the process
must be very clear
The Engagement Manager is generally
responsible for assembling the team.
In order to do so, they generally need
the support of the engagement Partner,
the consultants themselves and the
‘staffing’ function.
The Engagement Partner can play different
roles depending on circumstances:
▪ Propose staffing solutions
▪ Give final validation to the team mix
▪ Handle arbitrations and tricky
negotiations with other practices or
offices when they are needed
Consultants are responsible for providing /
updating their corporate CV.
CVs need to be constantly enriched with
new experience and skills but also to be
adapted to focus on what is important
for each engagement in particular.
Most consulting firms have a ‘staffing’
function. Their main missions are:
▪ To keep a track of current staffing
▪ To communicate current and expected
availabilities
▪ To handle resource ‘reservation’
1

In both cases, information to be collected should be:
Client needs must be thouroughly analised based on the info available when
assembling the team
Client needs are discussed directly with the client at an
early stage of the sales process.
Information available when assembling the team is
mostly informal and collected through direct interviews
Direct approach Request for proposal
Client needs are summarized in a document that is sent
to all firms taking part to the RFP.
Most of the information available when assembling the
team is formal and contained in the RFP documentation
2
Client
Face-off Activity &
function
involved
Nature and
depth of the
problem
Time
frame
Deliverables
Working
conditionsNature of
expected
service

Selection criteria can take a variety of forms
3
Adapt profiles to the
differential between
internal cost and
chargeable fee
Business orientations
HR development
objectives
Level of experience
Requested availability
Knowledge areas:
▪ industry
▪ client
▪ function
Consulting skills
Other abilities:
▪ interpersonal
▪ languages,
▪ systems
Profitability Client needs Development goals

The key difficulty comes from the fact that combining these criteria can induce
apparently irreconcilable differences
Client needs
Development
orientations
Profitability
In order to secure engagement course, experienced
or expert resources may be requested
In terms of profitability, junior resources generally
generate higher operational margin
Client requests operational
assistance
Development objectives
are oriented towards
expertise assignments
3

Finalising team mix often implies to find the best compromise between criteria
of choice and staffing solutions
4
Potential staffing solutions
Best compromise
Criteria of choice

Resource selection grid | Flash card
Objective
▪ Structured framework to identify the
resources in line with requirements
Required info
▪ Criteria of selection
▪ Criticality of each criterion
▪ Profile names
▪ Profile characteristics according to all
selection criteria
▪ Preferred profile(s) if any
▪ Comment
Use cases
▪ Financial proposal
▪ Internal assignment
▪ Project management
▪ Organization change
Implementation guidance
▪ Build criteria grid based on client info
experience & discussion with the
partner
▪ If they are not clear, run several
scenarios to order selection criteria
ToolsTemplates
▪ MS PPT
▪ MS XLS
4

Resource selection grid | Template
Level of experience (in Years)
Industry knowledge
Functional knowledge
Consulting skills
Client knowledge
Other skills
Required availability period
Criteria of choice Profile 1 Profile 2
Comment
1
1
1
2
2
3
3
4

What can you do
when there is no
obvious solution
to your staffing
problem?

You can explore 4 directions, keeping in mind that everything has its bright and its
dark side
1
2
3
4
Tap into new
resource pockets
Set-up intensive or
extensive training
program
Adapt planning &/or
approach to resource
availability
Do more with less

Tapping into new resource pockets can take several forms
1
Other offices or practices
You can have resources from other
assignments, other practices or other
offices transferred on your case but it
often means long discussions with other
managers / partners and increased costs
(transport & accommodation)
Sub-contractors
Sub-contracting is a ‘taboo’ in many
consulting firms -> it is not always a viable
option
Other proposals
You do not win all the cases on which you
make a proposal -> a consultant can be
‘pre-positioned’ on several proposals in
parallel, which becomes a problem if you
win them all ….
New hires
The recruitment process may be too long
compared to your assignment schedule +
it may be delicate to assign a new
resource to a strategic or complex
engagement without having tested them
on the field

The other techniques can come with a (heavy) price too
2
3
4
Set-up intensive or
extensive training
program
Adapt planning &/or
approach to resource
availability
Do more with less
It requires investing time &
resources over a short period
of time if this training
requirement has not been
anticipated in the training plan
Adjustments to the planning and the
approach as presented in the
proposal must not jeopardize the
integrity of the service -> they are not
always possible
You know from the beginning
that your team will have to work
even harder than usual -> let
them know and make sure
motivation remains high over
time

Some DOs when it comes to solving staffing issues …
Take advantage of the
engagement partner
influence
When arbitration or
negotiation is required
Keep a proactive
attitude
Staffing issues never
ever solve themselves
Cultivate good
relationship with the
staffing department
… and develop your
internal network

… and some DON’Ts to avoid
Do not take
inappropriate risks
‘Sell first deliver next’
is not always the best
you can do
Do not treat
clients like fools
They hate it when you
overpromise or lack
transparency
Do not be naive
Most of tense times
between managers
occur about staffing
issues

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