Project Consultant Skills BY

ALLAH DAD KHANProvincial Project Director CMPII MINFAL

Pakistan 03329221298

Great consultants adapt to new projects, work cultures and colleagues easily. They come in, they fit in and they get the job done. Their soft skills and technical expertise allow them to take on their roles quickly and easily.

Great consultants are flexible

Great consultants work hard and they work smart. They know how to accomplish the best results in the shortest possible time with as little friction as possible. Great consultants are problem solvers: bring them in and the work gets done.

Great consultants have great discipline

Great consultants are confident about their skills and expertise. They expose a natural collaborative leadership and they leave their egos at the door. Great consultants are team players: they put company goals and team spirit first

Great consultants are confident

Great consultants don’t give up. They accept frictions, unforeseen circumstances and negative feedback, they learn from them and they move on. They will analyze and learn from every setback in order to prevent it from happening again.

Great consultants are persistent

Great consultants never stop learning. They need to stay on top of the developments in their fields of expertise. It is their job to bring the latest knowledge and skills to the table when others can’t.

Great consultants are studious

Remember MacGyver, the hero of the popular TV show? He could solve any problem with his mind and his Swiss army knife. The same goes for great consultants; they use skills and knowledge from previous projects to solve new problems and challenges.

Great consultants are like

Great consultants see the big picture and the small parts that can make it better. Consultants bring a fresh view, and as such they can offer surprising insights that can solve problems and boost the client’s business.

Great consultants go further

Great consultants listen first and they speak second. Their primary goal is to help other people and businesses. Great consultants build trust because of their will to help their clients accomplish their goals.

Great consultants are sociable

To help people achieve their business goals, a management consultant must hear what her clients say. Besides physically acknowledging your client's communications, you also need to read between the lines to perceive what else the client means or wants. Not all clients know how to articulate effectively. A management consultant must ask the questions -- based on what she has heard -- to draw the client's needs to the forefront. Be an active listener. Look the client in the eye as she speaks and repeat what she says to ensure you understand her concerns and to let her know she has your full attention.

Active Listening

People do not operate, think or communicate at the same level. Each person has his own way of sharing information. One quality of a successful management consultant is the ability to translate complex ideas into simple terms in a way that others can understand. Conversely, if the management consultant works with the executive level of a company, he cannot sound as if he just came in off the streets. Thoughtful, directed communication is a key trait of a management consultan

Easily Translates Complex Ideas

Consultants should always keep in mind that client relationship should remain at a professional level. It is sometimes easy for consultants to take on an “employee attitude,” which in many environments can backfire on the consultant and actually create a negative situation for the project.

Professionalism

Consultants should look for ways to adjust their work style to accommodate the schedule, budget and overall requirements of the project. This is particularly true when faced with pressure to maintain high quality within finite time and budget constraints.

Time Management

Consultants are required to have good judgment when confronted with a problem. We should not jump to conclusions. Consultants should take time to consider the facts and to get feedback from their peers and management before reaching a decision.

Judgment

Consultants must demonstrate that they are team players and are willing to learn from team members, genuinely valuing the input and expertise of others. It is important to establish a collaborative relationship with peers.

Team Player

The consultant should have excellent oral and written communication skills. Since we are often viewed as the subject matter expert (SME), we should be able to communicate our opinions effectively. In addition to English, it is beneficial to know the language widely used by the employees of the company. In some countries, the documentation may be in a local language. Ideally, the consultant can easily read this language without employing any translators.

Good Communication Skills

Clients typically approach an external consultant for two reasons: 1) the client expects the consultant to have more expertise than the organization’s internal resources or 2) because clients do not have sufficient time to solve their own problems or implement their own projects. As consultants, our level of knowledge should be broad enough to know when to ask questions and/or where to research to find solutions. At all times, the consultant should remain current by reading journals, magazines, informative websites and through networking with fellow consultants. We should know how to apply theory into practice and also be skillful in using appropriate tools (software, professional journals, etc.) to function efficiently in the job.

Expert Knowledge

During the consulting process, consultants will meet different people with unique characteristics. Some will be verbose, others reticent. Having excellent listening skills will encourage all to talk freely. This leads to more information sharing which, in the end, can make the consulting process more streamlined.

Good Listening Skills

Your work is defined by the rigid parameters set out by proposals and contracts, but you must still be light on your feet as you operate with the whole world in a state of flux. Try to keep your proposals more open-ended to handle unexpected issues that will inevitably crop up as you progress with your work

Adaptability

It is important for consultants to understand the responsibilities of their role, as well as the practices and parameters of the job. You may notice that each client has a different take on what the role of a consultant entails. Clarifying your client’s expectations and deliverables beforehand may possibly be the single most important task one undertakes. 

Roles and Responsibilities

Saying “I don’t know” is often a very good answer to a question. An even better answer is “I don’t know, but I know people who do know.” Consultants do not know everything, and should not be expected to know everything. Saying, “I do not know” will not damage your prestige. As an example, if your client has a problem related to legal issues, try to consult with a legal consultant to help your client find a solution to the problem.

Involve Other Consultants

Protect his public reputation above everything else—he will not get an easy chance to repair it if it is damaged. If necessary, walk away from situations or contracts that could potentially damage your reputation. Consulting is not simply contracting by another name; it involves duties of care and levels of accountability, responsibility and integrity that may well be greater than those of the client. If that proves to be the case and you find a client’s operations and methods are not ethical, then it is time to walk away. Be selective about the clients for whom you work.

Reputation

Some people enter the field viewing it as a stopgap between paid employment, while others view consulting as offering independence that will be a welcome relief to the stultifying atmosphere in the organizations where they have worked. Whatever your reasons, you need the financial sustainability to allow you to survive for a period of time – say six months – while you search for contracts. It is possible, of course, to ease into consulting while working part-time in a paying job, but she suggests that because you are not so hungry for work you may not try as hard to find it. You may also get stuck, perhaps permanently, in what she calls “the great divide” between the employed and self-employed, preventing you from self-actualizing in either role.

Endurance

Consultant must be strong and confident about his abilities, but also low maintenance, ego in check. Although a hired hand for the organizations he work with, he must be a leader, motivating others and working in a collaborative way to nudge clients to solutions they might not have reached on their own

Self-Confidence

He has to be smart, well-trained and experienced – and have the educational credentials to back you up, be it an MBA or specialized training in your specific field of focus. “Competition for management consultants is likely to remain keen, and those with the most education and experience will have the best prospects,” she writes. Maturity and lots of contacts from a long career can be helpful; younger individuals have youth on their side but should expand their portfolio through as many varied experiences as possible

Intellectual Capacity

You need courage, energy, vision – and spunk. “It is the capacity to go against the common view, to walk into a room of fractious stakeholders who don’t support the evaluation and don’t want to hear about the findings. It is the ability to land in a strange town at midnight, scrape the snow and ice off your rental car, and locate your motel without the benefit of a map. It is being able to get up the day after you have lost the best proposal you have ever written and start all over again,” she notes

Moxie