Four Models of Consultancy: Projects
Last Wednesday, I described a typical three-step approach to assessing an organisation’s or individual’s situation. It is important for design work to understand the consultor’s operating environment. This time here are three tools to help design projects. You may need to use them over several meetings. They are not a sequence, use them and return to them as you need them.
I shall assume the consultor has requested help with the design of a web-based project. If they have an assessment (from last time), it will help. You may need to discuss whether you need an assessment before you go ahead with the Project.
The three tools are:
- Purpose and Objectives
- A Systemic Approach
- Diagrams and Models
Purpose and Objectives
These evolve as you work on the Project. Typically, aims and objectives are fairly general at the start. As you go deeper you they become more concrete as understanding deepens.
I find tasks and issues helpful. Tasks are things you need to do to meet your objectives. Issues are the things that tend to resist the work on the tasks. Sometimes issues need to be addressed before the tasks can be started.
Typically, as you start work, objections accumulate. Once it becomes clear where the opposing interests lie, you can ask what can be done to tackle them.
The original list of tasks may grow as you address your issues and you may need to prioritise them.
A Systemic Approach
If you think you’re designing a website, you are very much mistaken. The website is a sub-system of several other systems, some online and some in real life. The latter are the most important.
There is always the possibility complexity will get out of hand. Many websites are fairly small fry and if they are a short-term event, eg a community festival site, they need to pay less attention to complex systems than a major project consuming significant resources. However all projects are part of various interlocking systems and it is the consultants’ responsibility to make sure everything is considered.
Bear in mind all the likely interests: parent organisations, partner organisations, competitors may all bring their own sub-systems. Perhaps the most important sub-system is the website’s market. Whether you are selling a product, a service or a cause; you must understand your market.
Once you have a systemic analysis, make a start and develop your website and other online media. Then you can see how it operates and the impact it has on other sub-systems.
Diagrams and Models
Use them! They help you move from situation to project or to analyse your project.
A model or framework is used to interrogate a situation or project. If your model has three dimensions, it will help you to look at the situation in all three dimensions. A model is never prescriptive. It is descriptive, deepening your insight into the situation and the likely impact your project will have on it.
Diagrams are very useful. I haven’t found a satisfactory way of doing them online. In real life I work around a sheet of flipchart paper (A1) and equip everyone with pens. This allows for lots of crossings out and things squeezed in at the edges but a good copy can be made later.
If the consultant begins a diagram, based upon the consultor’s description of the project, the consultor can check the consultant has understood the project or may see something new in the diagram they have not seen before. If they work on it together, they both deepen their understanding.
For an online conversation, you need to improvise using drawing tools, email, holding sketches up to the camera, etc. I would like to hear of tools you use to do this.
Notice how project design differs from web design. The website design is framed by project development. If websites are to be effective, they need to be planned as part of the consultor’s overall purpose.
Do you agree? How did you plan your website?