Most people develop specific skills through education, training and experience. A lot of those people have a desire to market those skills to those who need them. Starting a consulting practice is often a gratifying and fulfilling means of taking those sought after skills to market. Starting a consulting practice allows an individual to work for individuals and companies that are likely to value the skills and experience offered. Theoretically, the individual is in control of the work hours and the types of jobs that are accepted. As one might suspect, as consultants gain clients and grow their companies, the control of the consulting company's time and resources must be managed carefully. To start a consulting company in a way that has the greatest chance to succeed over the long term requires attention to building the practice one project at a time. Each project should be subjected to a process that will have the best chance of yielding a successful outcome. The purpose of this book is to take the reader through each step of building a consulting practice by understanding how to acquire and execute a consulting project. By creating successful projects, a consultant can build a reputation, acquire more projects and create a successful consulting practice.

This volume continues to build on the relationship between the Research in Management Consulting series and the intervener-researchers at the Socio-Economic Institute for Firms and Organizations (ISEOR) in Ecully, France, extending that partnership to our recent work with the French Foundation for Management Education (FNEGE), a foundation dedicated to closing the gap between the teaching and practice of management in France. As part of the Foundation's multifaceted activities-which range from seminars and an advanced training initiative for French doctoral students to joint programs with international organizations an associations-FNEGE partnered with ISEOR to sponsor a series of workshops on developing high quality intervention-research. This volume is one of the results from that endeavor. Although intervention-research helps to uncover valuable insight into organizational dynamics and performance, the challenge of capturing and disseminating that insight to both academics and practitioners is entrenched in the rigor-relevance debate. While we are witnessing increased calls for "actionable knowledge," this ideal, unfortunately, remains a rather elusive concept as critics contend either that rigorous academic research falls well-short of relevance to the practitioner world or research that proves to be valuable to practitioners falls short of the rigor expected in academic life. This volume is intended to help bridge that divide. Drawing on the FNEGE-ISEOR intervention-research workshop, the volume contains 18 chapters that explore the intervention-research process, from initial conceptualization, to implementation, to publication. The volume is published in French and English

Using the metaphor of a "Leaky Bucket," Howard Shore addresses the 15 most common issues in the areas of people, strategy, and execution that drain energy, direction, and profitability from every business. Shore provides a practical guide on how to effect change and ignite growth in the leadership team in order to achieve an organization's full potential. The principles outlined in this book lead to clear and purposeful direction, a stronger, invigorated leadership team, and maximum growth and revenue, all while reducing workplace drama.

When organizational leaders reflect on who has most impacted their lives, their careers, and their sense of purpose, chances are significant that they will name a humanistic consultant. The humanistic approach to working with individuals and organizations spans leadership development, executive coaching, organization development practice, organizational behavior teaching, and efforts to transform and revitalize entire organizational systems. Its tools and techniques are borrowed from clinical psychology, counselling, therapeutic approaches, and business change strategies. The historical roots of humanistic consulting practice, its cross-functional applications, and its powerful potential have, for too long, gone unexamined. No other book traces the influence of therapeutic models, existential philosophy and humanistic values on organizational consultation, coaching, and leadership development. Uniquely, it moves beyond a historical narrative and offers perspective, insights, and ideas for practitioners, managers, researchers and students.

Servicios gestionados en un mes es una guia practica para crear una empresa exitosa de servicios gestionados. Tanto si esta empezando de cero como si esta convirtiendo su negocio preexistente de consultoria tecnologica ruptura y arreglo (break/fix) en servicios gestionados, este libro le ensenara como hacerlo. La segunda edicion recientemente revisada y ampliada tiene nueve capitulos, que cubren los mas recientes productos y servicios disponibles en el mercado--incluyendo las tecnologias en la nube. Karl deja claro que los servicios gestionados es el modelo de negocio del futuro. Servicios gestionados en un mes es muy practico y va al grano. Karl le ensena como transformar su negocio paso a paso. Y si, realmente se puede hacer en un mes Karl W. Palachuk es autor de diez libros, incluyendo The Network Documentation Workbook, Service Agreements for SMB Consultants - A Quick-Start Guide to Managed Services, y The Network Migration Workbook. Es tambien autor del blog mas popular sobre servicios gestionados. Durante diecisiete anos, Karl fue propietario de una empresa consultora y actualmente es ingeniero superior de sistemas en America Tech Support. Ademas, proporciona asesoramiento tecnico a pequenas y medianas empresas en Norteamerica, ofreciendo servicios de asesoramiento comercial y capacitacion de maximo nivel en temas tecnicas.

Ein Werkzeug fuer Unternehmensberater und Unternehmer zur Durchfuehrung einer komplexen Betriebsanalyse. Ausgerichtet auf kleine und Mittelstands-Betriebe, die vom Inhaber geleitet werden.

Despite the size of the consulting industry and its attractiveness to business school graduates, there is a dearth of agreement about what constitutes "professionalism" in consulting. "The Practice of Professional Consulting" provides the most comprehensive introduction to the field of consulting, including a complete system of guidelines, and all the tools, templates, techniques, case studies, competencies, and assessments to become a professional consultant. Broad enough to be useful to anyone starting any kind of consulting business, yet specific in explaining typical client situations, this guide offers new and aspiring consultants with a perspective of the rules, roles, values, methods, and techniques used across firms in the consulting industry.

In this gripping and colorful account of the American dream gone astray, Lewis Pinault provides the essential guidelines on how to get ahead and an enlightening perspective on the brutal infighting that can engulf even the most civilized consulting firm. This stunning exposé of some of the most prestigious and respected names in the business leads you into a world where a client's interests are skillfully subordinated to those of the consultants, where money rules the day, and where principles and morals are unwelcome baggage.

Humorous and insightful, this no-holds-barred account takes you behind the scenes of the dehumanizing indoctrination of an academic intellectual into an exploitative -- and exploited -- "global transformation contractor." Featuring new material dealing with the e-consulting industry's boom, bust, and its future, Consulting Demons offers the most complete look at an industry that exacts the highest prices for the most questionable standards of success.

Grants are available from thousands of sources, both private and public. To the grantseeker, however, this wealth of sources appears like an impenetrable jungle. "Where are the grants I need and what do I need to do to submit my ideas and proposals?" This book is designed to answer these questions by aiming the grantseeker to both the grant givers and by providing a bibliography of book for further research.

"Based on studies of the use of management consulting, financial consulting, legal services, and IT services, this book sheds light on how needs in organizations for management advice services are constructed and why certain service suppliers are given trust to deliver. "

The Consultants Big Book of Reproducible Surveys and Questionnaires is a value-packed collection of 50 easy-to-use diagnostic tools consultants can use to collect data from their clients, quickly make needs assessments, and offer diagnoses. Never before has such a comprehensive, user-friendly collection of surveys and questionnaires been available to consultants.

Mel Silberman, Ph.D., is a bestselling author, speaker, and consulting psychologist known internationally as a pioneer in the areas of interpersonal intelligence, active learning, and facilitation/ consultation. Dr. Silberman is the president of Active Training, a provider of products, seminars, and publications.