Over the past two months Pivotal Insight looked at when an organization should consider hiring a consultant and which consultant to hire. This month we focus on managing consultants. If the reason for hiring the consultant is clear and understood by both parties and the right consultant was selected, managing that resource should be fairly straight-forward, as long as the best practices outlined below are followed.

1. Choose the appropriate contract type. Contract types are selected for a variety of reasons but usually to minimize risk and provide a clear definition of work. Use the right contract vehicle and many management challenges can be eliminated.

2. Be aware of business development efforts. Understand that once the consultant has been retained, he will want to maintain this relationship for a long time and also sell additional services. Understand too that this is what consultants do—address what is allowable and what is not early in the relationship.

3. Establish clear goals, performance metrics, schedule, milestones, resources and reporting requirements. Conduct a joint planning meeting with the consulting firm immediately after contract award so everyone is clear about expectations on what is required from both the consultant and the customer (i.e., staff resources, access, time, etc.)

4. Provide clear guidance on deliverables. Tell the consultant what you are looking for and provide as much detail as you can. If there is confusion over what the consultant indicated as a deliverable in the proposal, ask for a sample deliverable from a previous engagement of a similar scope and size.

5. Hold weekly meetings and require a monthly status report that not only details accomplishments, but also addresses financial performance, risks, and upcoming tasks.

6. Use issue escalation judiciously. Clients need to have a clear path for issue escalation to senior management within the consulting firm. Do this sparingly and only as a last resort. If the right program manager was selected using the process from our previous articles, issues requiring escalation should be rare. If they occur frequently, consider replacing the program manager or the consulting firm.

7. Understand that your challenge is unique. The consultant may have years of experience and worked on multiple engagements that are similar. Still, every single situation is unique because of people, personalities, information systems, business rules, and other factors in the work environment. Understand that the consultant will always have a learning curve to climb.

8. Realize that the consultant is outside your organization. The consultant must rely on the client to direct resources within the organization. Don’t expect the consultant to do this—they don’t have the authority.

9. Integrate the consultant into the project team. Do not allow an us versus them relationship to develop.

10. Reward the consultant for exceptional performance. Some of the most important things for consultants are referrals, references, and rewards. Provide referrals. Be a reference on the next proposal. Write letters and emails to the consultant’s management chain which can lead to both personal recognition or be the basis for larger awards for the entire firm.

This article concludes our series on working with consultants. Pivotal Insight has seen the power of great relationships between customer and consultant. We hope these articles have helped you make progress toward those relationships.