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Ann Ludwick
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Consulting Management
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Explores the consulting industry, changes in the industry and future
expectations of consulting as a career. Examines different sectors of
consulting such as HR, IT, Operations, Marketing, Succession Planning,
Organizational Consulting, Knowledge management, Non-profit and health
care and government consulting.
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Consulting Management Course Syllabus: PUAD 626
Arlington Campus
First Weekend Session: January -March 2009
Meg Brindle, PhD
Associate Professor, Master of Public Management
Meg.brindle@gmail.com
Office Hours: Fridays 5-6PM
Truland Building, 400-D
Saturdays after Class and anytime by email, phone or appointment
202-368-0586
Course Text and Readings:
1) Greiner, Larry E. and Poulfelt, Flemming. The Contemporary Consultant Insights from
Experts.Thomson South-Western Publishing. 2004.
2) Gary Hammel, The Future of Management, HBR, 2008.
3) Websites: We'll also be doing some comparison of some of the larger consulting firms
(McKinsey, Bain, Deloitte and Touche, Booz Allen Hamilton and The Boston Consulting
Group).
4) Articles as per GMU J-Stor.
5) We will use GMU Blackboard technology where Class Power Points and additional readings
will be posted.
Course Objectives:
1) To develop better understanding of the emergence of the consulting industry, changes in the
industry and future expectations of consulting as a career;
2) To compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the various large firms for the
purpose of assessing your own sense of “fit” into the cultures of these firms;
3) To learn more about the different sectors of consulting such as HR, IT, Operations,
Marketing, Succession Planning, Organizational Consulting, Knowledge management, Nonprofit and health care and government consulting;
4) To gain better proficiency in project management;
5) To learn about the stages of consultancy from structuring the problem to engaging clients
and managing the client relationship;
6) To consider issues of beginning your own consulting practice as an individual or employee;
7) To develop skill in proposal writing;
8) To learn more about teamwork, dynamics of the consulting process and presentation;
9) To develop greater insight into the career possibilities in consulting for the MPA graduate
10) Contributed learning from various consulting firms and government agencies as gleaned
from class colleagues.
___________________________________________
Course Schedule and Reading Assignments for the Weekend Session
Friday Introduction: January 16:
Review Syllabus and Become familiar with course assignments
Review Center for Collaborative Government at George Mason: Website www.collaborativegov.org
Locate the following websites on your browser or via google search: McKinsey; Booz Allen Hamilton; Price
Waterhouse Coopers; Boston Consulting Group, and Bain Consulting Group.
(www.mckinsey.com), (www.boozallen.com) (www.pwc.com), (www.bain.com), (www.bcg.com).
For our first weekend on Saturday, January 23rd, we will work in project teams during Saturday afternoon to
compare/contrast five of the large firms as above.
Select one that you would like to explore in more detail for the purpose of a small team evaluation of the firm
and presentation to the class. See more details under Assignment One: Comparison of Consulting firms.
________________________________________________________________________
Weekend One: January 23/24th
Friday: The Changing Consulting Industry
Structure of a changing industry
Types of firms
The History of Consulting: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – lessons from the 20th century (based on Brindle,
M. and Stearns, P. Facing up to Management Faddism, Quorum, 2002).
Consultants: Types, Skills and Values
The ‘truly professional’ consultant
- Required skills for consultants
- Integrity issues
Saturday AM:
Consulting as a Profession
- Development of Professional Consulting
- Introduce models used by consulting firms to analyze clients
- A Discussion of Ethics:
The issue of power - consultants works at the intersection of their own organizations and managing their often
multiple bosses and organizations' interests and conflicts of interest and they work within the client
organization. We discuss the need for transparency and basic issues such as the obvious avoidance of conflict
of interest as well as the more subtle and sophisticated issues such as how bringing change affects client
organization - power and politics; those who are vested in doing things the same way; the client's organizational
history, etc. Professionalism and what it really means goes deeper than dress and basic etiquette, but the ethical
issues of avoiding gossip; confidentiality issues; exposure and full disclosure challenges wherein they are asked
to solve problems and this means digging into what is not going well.
Start to create consultant teams for field project
II. Marketing and Selling of Consulting Services
- Understanding buyer values
- Matching client expectations with firm strategy
- Internal and external marketing
- Advertising PR and relationship management
- Writing successful proposals (We discuss ethics in the proposal writing and who owns the end product)
Readings for the Weekend:
Readings:
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 1, The Changing Global Consulting Industry * and Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 2,
Professionalism in Consulting *
Hammel, Chapters 1 and 2, The Future of Management *
- Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 3, The Marketing and Selling of Consulting Services
Greiner, Olson and Poulfelt: Marketing at Bain
* for Friday
Saturday PM:
1-2: Overview of several of the largest firms
How do Consulting firms differ?
What types of foci do they have and why?
How do their priorities change? Who is leading whom?
What are the opportunities in the public sector?
2-4PM: In teams of 3-4, we will be doing a comparison of the large consulting firms. We’ll discuss the project
and in your teams, you can move to the computer lab at Arlington campus, or if you have a laptop, please bring
it to this session.
Each team will consider one of the larger firms to present to the class at our next weekend session.
Comparison of the Big Firms: Booz Allen Hamilton, McKinsey, Coopers/Lybrand, Bain, Boston Consulting,
KPMG
Project Groups: Each group will select one of the large firms or an alternate of your choosing and meet to
report to the larger class on the following parameters. Note that most can be gleaned by the firm’s website, but
others need additional research. Students do analyses of the big firms and then a comparative discussion after
presenting these. One thing we look for are the ethics of the firm and ways to understand and glean more about
ethics.
The History of the Firm
The Core Area of Consulting
The Evolution of the firm over the past few years as you can glean from a google search. Have they
undergone any major mergers; change in focus, etc.?
The organizational structure of the firm, as you can glean in such areas as leadership, core groups of
talent, partner background, headquarters, mergers if applicable. Where would you say power is
concentrated?
Sense of culture of the firm: Consider dominant artifacts and articulations as per the website, articles
featured, what the firm says about itself, etc.
Academic/practitioner mix: Can you tell if PhDs, MBAs, Accountants dominate?
What are some particular things you would need to know to interview and to work at this particular
firm?
__________________________________________________________________
Weekend Two: February 6 and 7
Major Consulting Sectors: IT, Marketing, Organizations, HR/ Government, Health care, Non-profit.
Friday Evening:
Strategic and Organization Information Technology Consulting
-History of IT / IS consulting - issues and growth
- Various IT services
- IT and the value chain
- Drivers of future growth
Strategies in Organizations Consulting
Alternative approaches to strategic planning and use of value creation models
Development of organization consulting: design to transformational change
Knowledge Management
Readings:
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 4, Information Technology Consulting
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 5, Strategy and Organization Consulting
DUE: Individual assignment: 3-5 page analysis of one major sector in consulting and trends. (See Assignment
2 in Assignments below)
Saturday Agenda: Various Sectors in Consulting
Strategic Marketing Consulting
Typical marketing consulting issues addressed
Types of marketing consulting firms
Future of marketing consulting
Marketing Trends: Intangible Value
Readings for the Weekend:
Hammel, The Future of Management, Chapter 6: Aiming for an Evolutionary Advantage
Hammel, The Future of Management, Chapters 4 and 5: Building a Community of Purpose and Innovative
Democracy.
Greiner and Poufelt: Chapter 4, Information Technology Consulting*
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 5, Strategy and Organization Consulting *
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 6, The Marketing Consultant
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch 7, Operations Consulting
Greiner & Poulfelt: Ch. 17, Knowledge Creation and Management in Consulting
* = For Friday evening session
Website Review: Light years IP (intangible value trends making a difference)
See www.lightyearsip.net See Home page and consider how intangible value has become the dominant resource
to firms.
Operations Management Consulting
Understanding OM consulting issues and requirements: Definition & history
Providers of OM services and different contexts for OM consulting
Key elements and concepts of the OM consulting engagement
Saturday PM: Group presentations regarding comparative consulting firms.
________________________________________________________________
Weekend Three: February 20 and 21st
Operating as a Consultant: Problem Definition, Scope, Project Management and Professionalism and common
challenges of power and negotiation.
Friday Evening: Realities of Managing the Consulting Engagement
Analyzing and Framing Problems
Looking for patterns
Remembering strengths of client
Feeding data back to the client: different methodologies
Pushing the engagement forward
Managing Engagements
Project management skills
Involving client in the process
Moving from analysis/diagnosis to implementation
Saturday:
Consulting to CEOs and Boards, Global Consulting and Public Sector Consulting
Various consulting services to CEOs and Boards of Directors
Understanding the diversity of consulting roles
Consulting to the Board: Unique process issues and transformation challenges
Succession Planning
Guest Speaker, Ron Layton, CEO, Light Years IP (www.lightyearsip.net)
Readings:
Greiner, Olson and Poulfelt: Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group
Greiner & Poulfelt: Ch. 9, Consulting to CEOs and Boards
Greiner & Poulfelt: Ch. 10, Globalization Consulting
Greiner & Poulfelt: Ch. 11, Realities of Public Sector Consultation
Hammel, The Future of Management, Chapters 7 and 8
Consulting in the Public and Not-for-profit Sector
Uniqueness of public sector consulting
Volunteerism in the non-for-profit sector
Key services in demand
Managing multiple stakeholders
Consulting to Global Clients
Review of Bain Consulting Website
INSEAD French Business School website
Growth in globalization consulting
‘Nine steps’ framework for analysis
Diverse issues related to globalization consulting
Brindle and Mainiero, Managing power through lateral networking, Chapters 1-3 for review (note, no need to
purchase this book. It can be viewed on-line at www.gmu.edu/ library website under electronic books. Available
free to Mason student.
Website review:
Light years IP: non profit website (www.lightyearsip.net)
Melwood (www.melwood.org)
Due: Assignment #2: Proposal For Group Consulting Project (See below for more details)
_______________________________________________________________
Weekend Four: March 6 and 7th
Friday
Consulting for Change
Management issues in Consulting firms
Managing Consulting Firms - Performance Problems
- Strategy, goals and people success factors
- Leading for best performance
- Developing culture, aligning success factors
Readings:
- Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 16, High Performance Consulting Firms
You as a Transformational Change Agent : Bureaucratic Transformations
- Collusion between consultant and client
- Managing ethical and practice challenges
Readings:
Greiner and Poulfelt: Ch. 14, On Becoming a Transformational Change Agent
Hamel: The Future of Management, Chapters 8 and 9
Saturday: March 7th
Client Consulting Project Presentations
Course evaluation
Transformational resumes (optional review of your resume to turn in at last class)
Each team will present their consulting project in a roughly 30 minute presentation per group complete with
handouts, as needed and power points for the class to understand.
Clients are welcome to attend, however the weekend session is understandably prohibitive to this end.
The class will function as the client and is expected to make thoughtful and constructively critical comment.
Course Assignments and Grading Criteria
1. Consulting Firm Comparative Analysis: Presented orally -- 15%
2. Individual Assignment: Select a consulting area, such as, but not limited to change management, health
care, communications, marketing IT, or non-profit, and write a 3 to 5 page analysis of the trends as you
can determine from an analysis of the leading consulting firms. 20%
3. Group Consulting Project:
a.
Written Proposal: 15%
b.
Written Project and Recommendations: 30%
c.
Group Presentation: 10%
4. Class Contribution: 15%
Course Assignments
Consulting Firm Comparative Analysis: In class, we will form groups of 3-4 on the first weekend and groups
will select ONE major or small consulting firm to present to the class. This will include the mission and
history; overall scope of consulting and type of consulting; the organizational structure, including leadership
and board; and to the degree accessible, the working culture of the firm.
The goal of this assignment is for class learning: Students should gain a much deeper insight into one firm, and
as each group presents, we will compare and contrast the consulting firms to advance our knowledge of
consulting firms, as well as for our individual learning for our own career choices. (More details provided at
class).
Individual Trends Analysis:
Consulting firms change their focus and are often as responsive to trends in the general for profit and nonprofit
sector, as they are creators of new trends. This paper asks you to select one type of consulting and assess
general trends in the consulting industry about that type of consulting, as covered in our trend analysis lecture.
Proposal:
Write and present a team proposal to conduct a consulting project on an issue or problem in an organization.
The proposal should include the following: (1) an analysis of
the issues with a clear statement of needs and benefits; (2) a description of how your team
would approach the problem; (3) a discussion of how much you would charge to complete the project and how
long it would take; and (4) a section explaining why the company should hire you to perform the work. The
proposal should exemplify the principles of client-centered consulting and be persuasive enough to get the job.
The proposal assignment will consist of a 6-8 page group proposal for your selected consulting project.
Consulting Project: This major field project requires that you develop a client engagement and perform
consulting services for that client. Its purpose is to improve our consulting skills through the actual
performance of a consulting assignment.
You are asked to work in a minimum of three to four person teams.
Your team will identify a potential project, negotiate a defined assignment, enter the client organization, gain
access to needed data and employees, identify and diagnose issues / problems, and deliver a report with
recommendations intended to result in positive and lasting changes.
You should have your team formed and hold sufficient meetings to discuss and decide on a potential client by
the end of the second weekend class session. The client should be secured through a written proposal, a copy of
which is due in class as noted in the syllabus.
Your client contact must be a responsible individual in an organization that has a problem / opportunity / issue
in need of study. Such study areas can range from marketing to business strategy to organization and system
issues. The project should be sufficiently focused to be completed within the limited time of the course.
It is totally acceptable for your project to be something in one of your own organizations. We will need to rely
on your organizations as per the time constraints of the weekend session.
Scope: Do consider a problem that is sufficiently limited in scope. The evaluation here is not that you have
transformed an organization; fostered a merger or acquisition, but that you demonstrate learning from the
course in areas such as:
Problem Identification: 10 pts
Methods considered: 20 pts.
Scope: 10pts
Project Management: 10pts.
Proposal Writing (separate grade)
Identification and Demonstration of true client-centered problems 20 pts.
Presentation to the class: 20 pts.
Teamwork and Professionalism: 10 pts.
A professional oral presentation (with printed copies of overheads or power point slides)
will provide the basis for evaluation and feedback. The oral presentations will be made on the last class day.
Your client is invited to hear your presentation at that time. Given the realities of our weekend format, it is
expected that clients cannot attend.
If your client cannot make it that day, an audience of student peers will listen to and critique your presentation.
The oral report should be approximately 30 minutes in length, and if you client cannot make it, your report
should be presented as if the client was the primary audience. I ask that in addition to your presentation you
describe issues/problems that arose during your engagement.
Based on requirements developed with your client, I ask that you provide a written report
for your client (and for me as well) as required by your client. If your client needs a written report, your report
should include a description of (1) the client organization, (2) how you entered and what you contracted to do,
(3) your methodology and (4) your identified problems / issues and recommendations. In the report provided to
me you need to include a fifth section describing what you have learned about consulting as a result of
performing this project. Your grade on the team project is a ‘team grade’ that will be assigned equally to all
members of the team unless otherwise determined by differences in evaluations by team members (which will
be collected at the end of the semester).
10-15 power point slides for your presentation should be prepared in line with
our classroom discussion on professional presentations
I realize that it is difficult to do team projects, particularly given the weekend session and the demands of your
regular work lives. Here is what will make it ‘work.’
1) We will have class time to outline work roles and a discussion of sharing the tasks from our first
weekend together.
2) We will keep the project within a very doable scope, i.e. we are not creating a merger or new strategy
but rather providing our expertise and putting some knowledge into effect from the course.
3) I ask each person to submit a one page eview of their own work assessment and their team individually.
4) I am quite mindful of the challenges and assume the very best of you. Please do consult me with any
difficulties early on, so that we can address any issues of team dynamics or working styles effectively.
The consulting project is the main assignment for this course. I ask you to submit a team outline of your
selected project and a basic proposal of what you are attempting in Weekend 2 of the course.
Professor Bio: Meg Brindle, PhD holds a Masters degree in Public Management and Policy from the John
Heinz School of Management and Public Management and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, along with
postdoctoral studies in Organizational Behavior and Theory and an undergraduate nursing degree. Prior to
coming to George Mason University in 2000, she was on the full time teaching faculty at the MBA school at
Carnegie Mellon University where she has taught MBA, Executive Education, and undergraduate management ,
policy and world history and had been adjunct faculty of Health Policy in the Heinz School. Meg has been
teaching for 20 years, and has taught over 100 courses in management, nonprofit management, ethics, policy
and organizational studies to audiences ranging from mid-career state, local and federal government employees,
MBA, MPA, PhD, undergraduate, health care administrators, and Arts Managers and the George Mason
University Government Fellows in the Master of Public Administration program. Her books include, Managing
Power through Lateral networking, Quorum, 2000 and Facing up to Management Faddism, Quorum, 2002. She
has authored numerous articles and presented at conferences throughout the US and abroad. Meg has also
designed and brought to successful start-up three graduate programs: The Master of Arts Management at
George Mason with 12 new courses; Bioethics PhD track in the Biosciences Program; a Master of Health care
and health policy track in the MBA program at Robert Morris University and author or 15 new courses
currently in the long-term curriculum at George Mason, and numerous courses for international study such as
Comparative arts organizations and International bioethics. Meg consults for the nonprofit, Light Years IP
(www.lightyearsip.net), whose mission is to create poverty alleviation solutions for low-income African ad
Caribbean farmers and producers via the use of their IP in retail markets. She looks forward to progressing with
you into new realms of your educational and career development.
Disability statement
If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see me and contact the
Office of Disability Resources at 703.993.2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through that
office.
Honor Code statement



George Mason University has an Honor Code, which requires all members of this community to
maintain the highest standards of academic honesty and integrity. Cheating, plagiarism, lying, and
stealing are all prohibited.
All violations of the Honor Code will be reported to the Honor Committee.
See honorcode.gmu.edu for more detailed information.
Enrollment statement
Students are responsible for verifying their enrollment in this class.
Schedule adjustments should be made by the deadlines published in the Schedule of Classes. (Deadlines each
semester are published in the Schedule of Classes available from the Registrar's Website registrar.gmu.edu.)
Last Day to Add ________
Last Day to Drop ________
After the last day to drop a class, withdrawing from this class requires the approval of the dean and is only
allowed for nonacademic reasons.
Undergraduate students may choose to exercise a selective withdrawal. See the Schedule of Classes for
selective withdrawal procedures.