The Closure

This reflection blog focuses on the final stages of a consulting project—the closure. A well-researched project can all be wasted if the handoff is not planned in a useful manner. We start with learning about the very broad areas of a problem in the initial stages, and as the project proceeds and starts taking shape - a lot of those initial insights get lost. A learning from this past project has been to have a systematic approach to documentation for the work you’re doing. This could include a broad directory of content and citations just for the client’s reference and also a strategy document outlining how we approached scoping the project. I believe that there are a lot of useful insights just in the way we decide to focus on certain aspects of the project. In addition to that, there are a lot of good directions that we don’t take up in the current project cycle because of resource constraints. Documentation of that ensures that the value we deliver to our client is beyond the final output and you never know when this may be useful.

Another interesting way I believe you can look at the handoff stage is to see it as a pitch for your next project. Again, a balance must be struck here- any deliverable I’d like to submit to a client would ideally be complete on its own. But, the fact that the consulting project was undertaken through a short timeline presents opportunities for taking that stream of work further and incrementally building on it. For this class, the advantage of having a peer group for feedback on that final output has been that you get ideas for multiple directions the current project could be taken in.

This is of course based on the assumption that you would like to work more for your client. Through this process I have often wondered if there is a playbook for clients when they create these consulting projects. Being able to diagnose the problem and create a scope that is useful is as much of a skill as being a good consultant. In my understanding of having seen how other projects have turned out- clients who are clear about an objective or a problem are much easier to work with than the ones focused on an end deliverable. That in addition to how open they are regularly connecting and making the space for rapid feedback cycles on your work. While on the topic of learning from other projects perhaps my biggest takeaway has been to develop the capacity to adapt. If the client is uninterested, make the project interesting to yourself so at least the time spent will be available learning experience for you. If the client is focused on a final output you don’t agree with, still approach it with an open mind or put the most minimum amount of effort to get it done and close out the project. And if you get lucky and you have a client who is doing really interesting work and is open to collaboration, make sure you can build a relationship with them that goes beyond the scope of the project.

The project develops through a series of feedback cycles, but towards the end the realization for me was about the team’s contribution to it. The final product with the same clients would have been different if my team had a different composition. We got lucky in the sense that we were all able to complement each other’s professional backgrounds. With our team perhaps the most useful thing we did as the project was closing is imagine how the client may make use of the things we sent over. Based on this, we decided to make them a handbook that outlines our process of creating the final deliverable and how they could navigate it. With that the project has come to an end and we look forward to how the client will integrate it in their work moving forward!