[IxDA Discuss] Bringing on a Consulting Group

[Alok Jain]

Joe,

Bringing in a consulting group should really be driven from a strategy which
defines what [part of UX should be outsourced and what should be kept
in-house. If this is not defined then it should be defined now on what is
expected from this consulting group.

Further establishing processes which clearly define roles for each one from
in-house team and consulting group will help setting the expectations. The
process should include both implementation and management processes. For
this you need to see what skills are really there in your team and where you
need or want deeper skills.

If you do not want the relationship of dependency then you need to define
the critical strategic knowledge is their with your team. This does not mean
that consulting group should not be involved , if they need to be involved
they should be, else both parties loose. Documentation is key for this!
Also, ensure that more than 1 person from your team is working with
consulting team, and then have regular sessions with rest of the team for
k-sharing. having more than 1 person involved in every initiative will help
ensure that you have a continuous involvement and knowledge of what is being
done why (think of scenarios where 1 goes on leave etc). For areas where you
don't have involvement and/or skills you can have the consulting group
provide required information to your team.

Having a new group come like this can also have impact on team's morale and
there could be concerns, this means a clear communication channel for people
to raise their concerns is important, and then regular communication back to
people to provide required required confidence. If senior management can be
involved in this, it'll have a greater impact.


Hope this helps

Alok Jain





On 4/15/07, Joe Davidchik <skyburn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Could use some advice here.
>
> Our Sr. Management group has decided to bring on an outside consulting
> group to "help" with our product/information architecture. I will
> purposely not give out the name of the group since you who are reading
> this might be working for them.
>
> We currently have a team of 5 UI/Interaction Designers, 1 UX Manager
> (research guy), and about 8 or so Business Analysts.
>
> So where I am asking for advice/guidance/input are in the following
>
> 1.      How I can help steer the relationship on both sides so we don't
> have folks pissing each other off?
> 2.      How can I get the consulting group work in a more collaborate
> structure, rather then just meeting to get inputs and then running up
> the mountain themselves  to work out the solutions?
> 3.      Long term we look to be very self supportive. Consulting like
> everything else is a business. What should we do in this world to keep
> from building up a relationship of dependency?
>
> -Joe
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