Overall Project Goal

The goal for the consulting project, indicates specifically what will be accomplished and delivered in the consulting project. This is sometimes referred to as the purpose, overall objective, or aim of the project. Every consulting project should have a goal, and in some cases, multiple goals. These goals should be as specific as possible and focused directly on the overall assignment. Examples of project goals are presented in the following list. As this list illustrates, the goal is very broad in scope, outlining from an overall perspective what is to be accomplished within basic parameters. The details of timing, specifications, and specific deliverables come later. Project goals are critical because they bring focus to the project quickly, often serving as the beginning point in the discussion of the consulting project.

Examples of Project Goals

• Evaluate the feasibility of three alternative approaches to new product development and rollout. For each approach, provide data on projected success, resources required, and timing.
• Implement a new accounts payable system that will maximize cash flow and discounts and minimize late-payment penalties.
• Identify the causes of excessive, unplanned absenteeism, and recommend solutions with costs and timetable.
• Design, develop, and implement an automated sales-tracking system that will provide real-time information on deliveries, customer satisfaction, and sales forecasts.
• Enhance the productivity of the call center staff as measured in calls completed, without sacrificing service quality.
• Build a customer feedback and corrective action system that will meet customer needs and build customer relationships.
• Explore the feasibility of a work-at-home program to improve productivity, efficiency, and retention, while helping to protect the environment.
• Reorganize the sales and marketing division from a product-based unit to a regional-based, fully integrated structure.
• Provide review, advice, and oversight input during the relocation of the headquarters staff. Input is provided by memo each week. The project will address concerns, issues, problems, and delays.
• Recommend and implement a social media marketing approach, given our current marketing strategy and customer base.

Levels of Project Objectives

Most consulting projects lead to solutions. In some situations, the consulting project is aimed at solving a particular problem, preventing a problem, or taking advantage of an opportunity. In other situations, the initial consulting project is designed to develop a range of feasible solutions, or one desired solution prior to implementation. Whatever the case, these solutions or opportunities should have multiple levels of objectives, as described in Table 7.1. These levels of objectives, ranging from qualitative to quantitative, define precisely what will occur as a particular project is implemented in the organization. These objectives reflect the levels of evaluation and types of data described in Chapter 6. They are so critical that they need special attention in their development and use.

Reaction Objectives

For any project to be successful, various stakeholders must react to the project favorably, or at least not negatively. Ideally, the stakeholders should be satisfied with the project since the best project solutions offer win-win outcomes for the client and consultant. The stakeholders are those who are directly involved in implementing the project, usually referred to as participants in the project. This diverse group can be the employees who are involved in implementing the new system, team leaders who are responsible for the change process, customers who must use a redesigned product, suppliers who must follow a new system, citizens who must use a new procedure, or volunteers who must adjust to a new protocol. Stakeholders could also be managers who must support or assist the project in some way.

Table 7.2 shows a few of the typical areas for specific reaction objectives with examples. This type of information should be collected routinely through a consulting project so that feedback can be used to make adjustments, keep the project on track, and perhaps even redesign certain parts of it. These are necessary to maintain proper focus. Unfortunately, many consulting projects do not have specific objectives at this level and data collection mechanisms are not put in place to ensure appropriate feedback for making needed adjustments.

Learning Objectives

Almost every consulting project will involve a learning objective. In some cases, involving major change projects or new technology implementations, the learning component is quite significant. To ensure that the various stakeholders have learned what they need to learn to make the project successful, learning objectives are developed. Learning objectives are critical because they communicate expected outcomes from the learning component of the project, the information needed, the desired competence, or the required performance to make the consulting project successful. These objectives provide a basis for evaluating the learning since they often reflect the type of measurement process. Learning objectives clearly indicate what participants must learn—sometimes with precision. Table 7.3 show typical action verbs and examples of typical learning objectives.

The three types of learning objectives are often defined. These include the following:

1. Awareness: Familiarity with terms, concepts, and processes
2. Knowledge: General understanding of concepts, processes, or procedures
3. Performance: Ability to demonstrate skills at least on a basic level

The best learning objectives describe observable, measurable behavior or performance that is necessary for the success of the consulting project. They are often outcome-based, clearly worded, and specific. They specify what the particular stakeholder must know and do to implement the project successfully. Learning objectives can have three components:

1. Performance: What the participant or stakeholder will be able to do to as a result of the consulting project
2. Conditions under which the participant or stakeholder will perform the various tasks and processes
3. Criteria: The degree or level of proficiency necessary to perform a new task, process, or procedure that is part of the solution

Application Objectives

As a consulting project is implemented, it should be guided by application objectives that define clearly what is expected of participants and often to what level of performance. Application objectives reflect the action desired from the project. They also involve particular milestones, indicating specifically when steps or phases of the process are completed. Application objectives are critical because they describe the expected outcomes in the intermediate area, that is, between learning what is necessary to make the project successful and the actual impact that will be improved because of it. Application objectives describe how people should perform, processes should evolve, or technology should be used as the project is implemented. The emphasis is on actions, activities, and tasks.

The best application objectives identify behaviors that are observable and measurable or action steps in a process that can easily be observed, measured, or checked. They specify what the various stakeholders will change or have changed as a result of the consulting project. As with learning objectives, application or implementation objectives may have three components: performance, condition, and criteria.

Table 7.4 shows typical key questions asked at this level and typical application objectives. Application objectives have almost always been included to some degree in consulting projects, but have not been as specific as they could be or need to be. To be effective, they must clearly define the environment where the project is successfully implemented.

Impact Objectives

Almost every consulting project should have an impact, even in the public sector and among nonprofits and nongovernment organizations. Business impact is expressed in the key business measures that should be improved as the application objectives are achieved. The impact objectives are critical to measuring business performance because they define business-unit performance that should be connected to the consulting project. Above all, they place emphasis on achieving bottom-line results that key client groups expect and demand.

The best impact objectives contain data that are easily collected and are well known to the client group. They are results-based, clearly worded, and specify what the stakeholders have ultimately accomplished in the business unit as a result of the consulting project.

The four major categories of hard data impact objectives are output, quality, cost, and time. Major categories of soft data impact objectives are customer service, work climate, and image. Typical measures that frame the objectives are presented in the next chapter. The following list offers examples of impact objectives.

Typical Business Impact Objectives After project completion, the following conditions should be met:

• After nine months, grievances should be reduced from three per month to no more than two per month.
• The average number of new accounts should increase from 300 to 350 per month in six months.
• Medical treatment cases should decrease by 20 percent within the next five months.
• A 25 percent reduction in overtime should be realized for front-of-house managers in the third quarter of this year.
• Employee complaints should be reduced from an average of three per month to an average of one per month.
• By the end of the year, the average number of product defects should decrease from 214 per month to 150 per month at all plants in the Midwest region.
• The employee engagement index should rise by one point during the next calendar year.
• Sales expenses for the sales team should decrease by 10 percent in the fourth quarter.
• There should be a 10 percent increase in Pharmaceuticals, Inc. brand awareness among physicians during the next two years.
• Customer returns per month should reduce by 15 percent in six months.

Return on Investment Objectives

A fifth level of objectives for consulting projects is the expected return on investment. These objectives define the expected payoff from the consulting project and compare cost of the consulting project with the monetary benefits from the consulting project. This is typically expressed as an acceptable ROI percentage that compares the annual monetary benefits minus the cost, divided by the actual cost, and multiplied by 100. A 0 percent ROI indicates a breakeven of a consulting project. A 50 percent ROI indicates that the cost of the consulting is recaptured and an additional 50 percent “earnings” is achieved.

For many consulting projects, the ROI objective is larger than might be expected from the ROI of other expenditures, such as the purchase of a new company, a new building, or major equipment, but the two are related. In many organizations the ROI objective for a consulting project is set slightly higher than the ROI expected from capital investments because of the relative newness of applying the ROI concept to consulting. For example, if the expected ROI from the purchase of a new company is 20 percent, the ROI from a consulting project might be set at the 25 percent range. Ideally, the ROI objective should be established up front and in discussions with the client.

Importance of Specific Objectives

Developing specific objectives at all levels, including application and impact, for consulting projects provides important benefits. First, they provide direction to the consultants directly involved in the process to help keep them on track. Objectives define exactly what is expected at different time frames from different individuals. These objectives provide guidance to the support staff as they offer assistance to the consultants. Impact objectives help the client to fully understand the ultimate goal and impact of consulting. These objectives provide the focus and motivation for the consultants who must achieve success with the project. In most consulting projects, the participants are actively involved and will influence the results of the project. They will clearly see the gains that should be achieved. Objectives provide important information for all stakeholder groups to clearly understand what the landscape will look like when the consulting is complete. Finally, from an evaluation perspective, the objectives provide a basis for measuring success.

Final Thoughts

This brief chapter shows how the objectives are developed to provide guidance and direction to consulting projects. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) objectives need to be established for at least four levels (reaction, learning, application, and impact). When an ROI calculation is to be delivered, a fifth-level ROI objective should be added. These objectives provide the direction from the consultant to the participants (or users) involved in the consulting project, to the other important stakeholders supporting the consulting project, and to the major sponsor or funder for the project.