Four Models of Consultancy: Introduction
George Lovell’s book “Analysis and Design” identifies four natural categories for non-directive consultancy. (I’ve called them models of consultancy because model easier to type than “natural category”!) They require different approaches. It isn’t always obvious at the outset, which model best applies to a particular consultor and so the consultant needs to find the best model or models as the work progresses. Where more than one model applies, the consultant will need to schedule the work with the consultor’s agreement.
So, the consultor might present a
- situation they wish to analyse to plan
- an online or real life project. However, it may become clear the consultor is facing a number of
- problems such as issues about software or applications, which might be about choosing the best solution or getting something to work better but as the problems persist, the consultant may find that
- they have a case, an issue specific to the history of the organisation, that needs to be resolved before the consultor can make progress.
How the Models Apply to Web Consultancy
Over the next four posts I shall present each model in turn. You can find out more in Lovell’s book but my contribution here will be to show how each model can apply to the work of a web consultant with third sector organisations.
These four models apply to any type of organisation. However, private and statutory sector organisations often have more resources to throw at a problem. They can employ staff to design their systems or hire consultants to run their systems for them. So, a lot of the work involved in site design and maintenance can be resourced. This is not to say these organisations don’t benefit from non-directive consultancy, just that perhaps they have less immediate need for it.
In the third sector the consultor, perhaps with an internal team, is more likely to need to take on long-term responsibility, with all the issues and conflicts that entails. When you’re struggling with your online presence it is easy to lose sight of the real life organisational issues underpinning your lack of success online.
Lovell developed non-directive consultancy with community groups and churches so it seems logical to extend it into web consultancy with similar organisations. He borrowed from conventional business consultancy and wealthy organisations may well borrow from non-directive consultancy. Third sector groups may find, therefore, that non-directive consultancy has a better fit to their general ways of doing things.
Do the four options address the sorts of problems you encounter online? Have you examples of one or more of them from your own experience?
Here is the Amazon uk page for Analysis and Design. There are other book sellers available.