Managing a Consultant

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on May 1, 2000, but was updated on October 27, 2008, by Becky Wiegand, a staff writer for TechSoup.

Your role is not over once the consultant is on board. Unfortunately, setting them loose and leaving them alone will seldom get you the results you want (and may cost a fortune besides). Your active involvement and communication will make or break the project. Here are a few tips on working successfully with a consultant:

Before You Start

• Establish expectations. Before the consultant starts, make sure you have a meeting to go over the contract and work plan. Clarify upcoming milestones and plan your next check-in.
• Assign a point-person. The consultant should have one person to report to. The point-person should be the only one who gives the consultant instructions or new tasks. For instance, it's not a good idea to give the consultant's phone number out to all staff. Instead, have staff channel their requests or issues through the point-person.

During the Contract

• Communicate regularly. What progress is the consultant making? What does s/he need to know to continue? What problems is s/he encountering? Have your needs or situation changed in a way that might impact the project? It's best to set a time for regular check-in between the consultant and the point-person — perhaps weekly. In addition, the consultant should be documenting his or her work so that you can refer to a written record of what has been done. Some consultants use on online project management tool where you can login to see the progress made and post questions or concerns. Someone in your organization should work closely with the consultant as s/he begins to make recommendations, so that the final set of suggestions aren't wildly divergent from your organization's reality.
• Maintain staff buy-in. Keep the staff informed about what the consultant is doing, and set up procedures for them to give the consultant input early on and to comment on the draft recommendations. These opportunities for comment will help to minimize staff fears and resentments and will give you a plan which has a greater chance of implementation once the consultant is gone.

• Keep an eye on security and liability. Be aware that you are responsible for:

  • Consultant safety and liability in case of an accident onsite.
  • Security of your organization's confidential information. If you keep confidential information about your clients or donors, make sure you communicate to the consultant what s/he can and cannot access.

Ending a Project

• Give yourself an out. In a worst case scenario, where a consultant does not meet deadlines or communicate with you about progress, follow through with consequences. If your work plan and contract are divided up into phases, you can pull out at the end of a phase if things are not going well.
• Make the project internally sustainable. Once the consultant leaves, you will need to determine how to use and maintain what they have done. No project is complete without an element of training and planning for the future. If you don't do this, you may be forced to return over and over to the consultant. Becoming too dependent on a consultant can be risky since they may not be available forever, or they may not be available right when you need them. Even if they are, you can waste large amounts of money paying them to fix each little problem that comes up rather than managing small fixes internally. The ideal solution is to insist that they document their work thoroughly. Ask them to train you on basic aspects of maintaining it. If training you is a substantial task, it might be a sign that you need a system administrator, or that your system administrator needs additional formal training. TechSoup's Training section will orient you to different training options for systems administrators and regular staff.
• Plan for the consultant to handle maintenance. Sometimes it just isn't possible to handle long-term maintenance of a project created externally. If that's the case, some consultants offer monthly maintenance retainers as part of their contract or offer ad hoc fixes paid by the hour. Make sure you determine what options are available before you engage a contractor if your organization doesn't have the internal capacity or desire to manage the project longer term. Either way, ensure that there is still full documentation to pass on if you ever need or have the ability to maintain internally or decide to move the project to a different consultant.
• Finish the project on your own terms. It's important to set the exit terms yourself. Don't let the consultant walk out until you are satisfied that your original goals have been met. Will you be able to contact the consultant with questions and problems? How much will it cost you? Establish expectations about ongoing communication and availability.

Working with a consultant requires a commitment of time, resources, and a clear vision of the project goals for the staff person managing the process. If that level of management is not available from your staff, the project may not go as planned and you may find it best to wait until you have the internal capacity to work with a consultant effectively.