Your department has a project that needs to be done, and you don’t have the resources. You’ve been given a budget to hire a consultant to come in and work with your team to meet the project deadlines. What can you do to make sure that he/she can help drive your project forward to completion? What communication is needed so that your current team is also “on board” with the addition to the project team?
Here are some simple tips to minimizing “ramp up” time for new consultants.
Prior to Start Date:
1.) Request access to all computer systems, laptop/desktop equipment, ID badge, and other supplies needed so that the consultant can become operable shortly after joining your project team.
2.) Preparing the internal team for the arrival of a consultant is also crucial to the success of the project. Share information with your existing team about who is coming, why the person is coming, and expectations of what the consultant will be doing, and impacts to the project and current team members. Team members who are unsure of the consultant’s role may feel they need to compete with the consultant, may worry that their own jobs are in jeopardy, or may not understand how to best utilize the consultant’s time and skills.
3.) Compile a list of internal websites, SharePoint sites, and other applicable internal information centers, and provide access to the consultant.
4.) Put together an “onboarding” checklist for the consultant, and ensure that key people are available to spend some time with the consultant. For example, many times the hiring organization begins by giving a consultant access to a list of SharePoint sites to “check out”, and then leaves the consultant to his/her own devices to look for pertinent information.
There have been times when a consultant may waste more than an hour trying to figure out where project documents are stored – especially when there are many projects, and many sites to examine. Does your organization really want to pay for someone to spend time searching for things that could be pointed out in a matter of minutes?
Potential Onboarding Checklist
There are many details that consultants will need to know when they begin a project with you and your team. Having information prepared ahead of time will minimize the hours that the consultant spends searching company websites to find answers, or wandering hallways to find meeting rooms – hours for which your organization is paying!
Following is a list of potential items to have ready to share with the consultant within the first few days of beginning the project.
Who
- Who needs to meet with your consultant to facilitate execution on this project?
- Who are team members, and how do they fit into the organization/team/business unit (org chart)?
- Who can help show the consultant how to navigate company websites, SharePoint sites, and other internal information? (It is not recommended to simply email a list of website links without providing context)
- Who is accountable for providing information, and to whom is the consultant providing information?
- Who are the contacts for key areas such as administrative support, IT support, invoicing issues and other items that support the consultant’s ability to get work done?
What
- What are the deliverables of the project?
- What is in scope, and what is out of scope for the project?
- What expectations are there regarding turnaround time (responding to emails, voice mails, project draft documents, etc)?
- What is the consultant’s role in relation to others on the team?
- What concepts should the consultant be aware of that promote understanding of corporate culture? Are there “mottos”, leadership models, acronym glossaries, standards for quality, for example?
- What processes are in place around this project? (For example: are there SharePoints for sharing documents, are there project hours that must be posted to a PM plan, etc)?
Where/When
- Where are project documents stored?
- Where are conference rooms?
- Where/when does the consultant submit invoices?
- When are deliverables due?
- When will feedback be provided?
How
- How do project team members communicate? (Virtual, In Person, Email)? How will the project team resolve conflicts?
- How often and for how long does the project team meet?
- How does the feedback loop work on this team?
- How will we know if the project is successful?
Providing clear and consistent communication to consultants and internal project team members and stakeholders is critical to achieving project success. Clarity and preparedness in the onboarding process reduces the time and dollars spent on consultants and allows the organization to gain the consultant’s “value add” on the project team in the shortest time possible.
Spending the time to onboard at the beginning reduces the time spent later in correcting assumptions about the project – not to mention having a consultant wandering the hallways looking for that conference room.
Yellow Giraffe Talent Solutions 