Consultancy Challenge
Dr Dawn Duke, Dr. Julie Reeves, Dr. Laura Christie and Prof.
Pam Denicolo
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Developing Employability Skills
Discussion: What skills do you think you
will develop throughout your PhD?
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Skills that are developed to a unique
extent during a PhD
Analytical thinking skills
Ability to find patterns and relate seemingly
unrelated information.
Ability to process large amounts of information
effectively.
Critical thinking skills
Able to follow complex arguments and find
strengths and weaknesses
Able to construct sound, critical arguments.
Ability to conceptualise and create new ideas.
Problem solving abilities
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Other skills you gain doing a PhD
 Subject specific knowledge
 Research Skills
 Perseverance
 Time Management
 Ability to work independently
 Responsiveness to change
 Project Management
 Risk Management
 People Management
 Written communication skills
 Presentation skills
 Argument construction
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Skills that you could develop during
your PhD
Financial management & grant getting skills
Teaching Skills
Mentoring
Understanding of H&S, ethics, IPR and
copyright.
Communicative with diverse audiences
Collaboration
Innovative Thinking
Leadership
Team working
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Is leadership as skill?
 Leadership as a role
 Leadership skills
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Influencing
Motivating
Persuasion
Getting the most out of people
Ensuring things get done
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Leadership skills can be developed despite not
being in a leadership position.
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Today’s Challenges
 4 employers have offered case studies of challenges their
company faces.
1)Pentagon Plastics
2)NPL
3) Selex
4) Symetrica
 Some are technical, some are business related.
 These are challenges that the employers are currently
working on and don’t have a satisfactory solution to yet.
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Your Task
 Your task is to work in teams to develop proposals on
how to tackle these challenges.
 Provide fresh eyes and new insight.
 Work in a team, using the skills you are developing
during your studies, and develop your leadership skills.
 On Thurs, you will present your proposals to the
companies. The best proposals will win prizes!
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Learning Objectives
 Increase your understanding of business challenges.
 Develop your commercial awareness.
 Learn to communicate with a broader audience.
 Enhance your team working and leadership skills.
 Use your project management skills and problem solving
skills in a different context.
 Enhance your creativity and analytical skills, applying
these to a novel situation.
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Outline of Afternoon
 Each consultancy case is assigned to a specific room.
 Once in the room you will get into your assigned teams.
 You will be given your consultancy case and taken
through a structured form of idea generation.
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A strategy for fostering creativity
“Disney creative strategy” based on
the way Walt Disney worked …
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The “Disney Creative Strategy”
• Dreamer: visionary, thinks big, fantasises, brainstorms,
“dreams”
• Realist: pragmatist, turns dreams into concrete ideas
• Critic: evaluator, checks ideas, spots “holes”, challenges
All three elements are needed to generate
workable, yet truly creative, ideas
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Implementing the strategy
• Allowing distinct time and space for each stage
- dreamer, realist, critic IN THAT ORDER
• Suspending behaviours (even suspending thoughts) at the
“wrong” stage of the process
- example: not being critical (even not THINKING as a
critic) in
the dreamer stage
• Many people are naturally drawn to one of the roles, so use
your team to maximum efficiency
-play to your strengths
-let others play to theirs
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Ideas generation
• Suspend your inner realist
and critic
At least 4-6 dreams
• Anything goes!
15 minutes
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Realsit: Narrowing down your
options
• Suspend your inner critic
• Ask if the dream is achievable, often it is!
• Aim: To develop potential approaches to
your challenge (1-3) based on your dreams
• You should be asking questions:
•“What is preventing these dreams from
being reality”
60 minutes + break
• “How can we achieve these dreams”
•“What is possible?”
•"How will we know if the goal is
achieved?"
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Critic: choosing an approach,
identifying strengths and weaknesses
• Develop your chosen idea
Strategic objectives
•To generate approaches to your
challenge which are highly innovative
and show your creativity and analytical
skills.
60 minutes
•Use the strengths within your team.
•To take into account your particular
business’ goals and stakeholders,
demonstrating your commercial
awareness.
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Presentations
• Pitch your proposal (1-2 minutes)
• Discuss and answer questions at
your posters
• Employers and SEPnet facilitators
will provide you feedback. Prizes for
the best!
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Prizes & Judging Criteria
 Best proposal- one per challenge
 Employers are the judges
Innovative, yet realistic
Shows awareness of customers/stakeholders
Takes into account commercial risks and gains
Shows you used your team’s strengths well (must be a team
effort).
 Best Presentation & Poster
 One overall, mixed employer and facilitator judges
Clarity, timing, exciting, demonstrates benefit of proposal.
Visually attractive, good balance of image and text, defines
proposal clearly and concisely.
Shows you used your team’s strengths well (must be a team
effort).
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Planning Your Proposal
 What do you need to put together?
 What jobs need to be done to design and pitch your
proposal?
 Think about the strengths within your teams and assign
jobs to different members.
 Plan when and what needs to be done.
45 minutes
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Concluding remarks
• This is your opportunity to get a glimpse into problems that
matter to employers.
•This experience can go onto your CVs to demonstrate the
transferability of your skills.
•You will have a chance to expand your network and impress
employers. Take full advantage!
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Now, assemble in your groups to
receive your challenges
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