Working with the business:
Consulting skills for data and IT professionals

2 Day Seminar

Date/Time:	2-3 December 2008 Location: London	To Book ONLINE Now, Click Here!
Speaker:	Graeme Simsion

"Clear thoughts and clear delivery. Points supported by examples well."
Deepak Shukla, Business Analyst, Tata Consulting Services

This course suitable for anyone who provides business or technical services to internal or external clients. No technical background is assumed, but participants will gain more from the course if they already have some experience in delivering service or advice. The course is particularly suitable for:

• Enterprise Architects (Data, Applications, Technical)
• IT Strategists / Planners
• Senior Business and Systems Analysts
• Service Team Managers
• Internal Consultants / Advisors
• External and Independent Consultants
• Professional Specialists
• Account Managers

Being right isn’t enough. One of the major challenges – often the greatest challenge – is engaging the client: understanding their requirements, winning their support, and meeting their expectations. Yet most IT professionals give far less attention to these consulting skills than they give to their technical expertise. If you are an experienced professional who has not previously studied consulting skills, this workshop is likely to be more valuable in improving your effectiveness than any technical course.

In this highly-interactive workshop, Graeme Simsion shares principles, techniques, and tips learned from 25 years of managing an internal data management function, establishing and managing a successful consultancy and working as an independent consultant. He uses a combination of formal material, stories, lectures, group exercises and case studies to share ideas and techniques that you will use throughout your professional life.

• A deeper understanding of consulting relationships – and how to make them work
• Practical techniques for establishing expectations – checklists and questions
• A set of practices to keep assignments on track
• Techniques for dealing with problems and difficult clients
• Practical approaches to writing reports and delivering presentations

Understanding consulting
The title or role of “consultant” brings with it a specific set of challenges and expectations. We look at the nature and psychology of consulting, and identify behaviours that lead to successful assignments.

• The consultant role – how you’re perceived, what is expected
• Why consulting assignments fail – and what to do about it
• Working in a consulting team
• Professional behaviour – and common mistakes that hurt your credibility

Setting expectations
The widely-accepted key to effective consulting is “managing expectations”. This means establishing mutual expectations and keeping them up to date, so that at every stage of the assignment both client and consultant can be confident in a successful outcome. We look at a range of techniques for understanding and validating expectations.

• Selling consulting services: how the professionals do it
• Really understanding clients and their needs
• Establishing expectations – checklists and frameworks
• Negotiating achievable outcomes – and negotiating in general
• Pulling it together in a consulting plan

Delivering services
We look at the day-to-day practices of good consultancy needed to monitor expectations and deliver against them, and to deal with problems. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own problems for discussion.

• Effective consulting practices: habits that distinguish the professional
• Staying on track – and managing change
• Gathering data and formulating solutions
• Working with others: client staff, your own team, external consultancies
• Common problems – and practical solutions
• Maintaining integrity – while keeping the stakeholders happy
• Dealing with difficult people

Deliverables and closure
Many consulting assignments stay on track until close to the end – and then they stumble on as reports are written and re-written, deliverables await final client sign-off, and goodwill (and the prospect of further work) diminishes. This final session looks at getting closure on time and on budget and laying a base for a continuing relationship. Particular attention is given to preparation of verbal and written reports, a task that technical people often find particularly frustrating.

• Writing reports that get accepted - and acted upon
• Designing and delivering effective presentations
• Getting closure on the deliverables
• Turning experience into capability: learning from assignments
• Maintaining the client relationship beyond the completion date

IT Strategy & Management Series

The Corporate Strategy for IT
25-26 November 2008, 23-24 March 2009, London

Achieving Business/IT Alignment in Practice
27-28 November 2008, London

Working with the Business: Consulting Skills for Data and IT Professionals
2-3 December 2008, London

SERIES DISCOUNTS

• 2nd course 10%
• 3rd Course 15%

Group Booking Discounts
If 5 delegates from the same organisation register at the same time for the same or various seminars, then the 5th delegate is free. We regret that this offer cannot be used in conjunction with the Series Discount.

£995 + VAT(£174.13) = £1169.13

2-3 December 2008
Venue: The Washington Mayfair Hotel, 5 Curzon Street, Mayfair, London W1J 5HE
Phone: + 44 (0) 20 7499 7000
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7495 6172
Website: www.washington-mayfair.co.uk

IRM UK in association with JP Events Ltd has arranged special discounted rates at all venues and at other hotels nearby the venue. Please visit the JP Events website for further information.
E-mail: enquiries@jpeventsltd.com Tel +44 (0)20 7428 9911 Fax +44 (0)20 7428 9966.

For an in-house presentation of this or any other IRM UK seminar, please e-mail jeanette.hall@irmuk.co.uk or call +44 (0)20 8866 8366.

© Copyright IRM UK Strategic IT Training, Bishops Walk House, High Street, Pinner HA5 5PJ UK, Tel +44 (0)20 8866 8366, Fax +44 (0)20 8866 7966, enquiries@irmuk.co.uk, www.irmuk.co.uk.