How can you ensure that management consultants' recommendations are successful?

First of all, you have to select the Management consultant after looking into his expertise and hands on experience related to your field. They get the advise with practical implementations guidelines and as per my expertise it will work and guide you for the growth and improvement of your company's image and the kind of services and expertise you are providing.

Hands-on record is key, also accountability on his past failures are open doors to have the confidence that is the right consultant to avoid your company to do same failures, the role of the consultant is merely to reduce learning curve, cost effective and less risks.

Choose and orient the client right. Know his NEEDS and requirements properly and conclude your recommendations with pluses and minuses objectively with risks.

All you said is right and are ways to increase success but the only way to ensure it works is to risk and let the consultant deploy his strategies and tactics and assess results periodically. Plans on paper never work until deployed.

Choosing the right consultants Before hiring any management consultant, you need to have a clear idea of your goals and challenges and what kind of knowledge and experience you are looking for. You should also research the reputation, history, and methodology of the consultants you are considering and ask for references and testimonials from previous clients. It's important to find consultants who understand your industry, culture, and expectations and can communicate effectively with you and your team. This establishes a solid foundation for a productive and successful partnership.

Involving stakeholders right from start is very crucial because as the project picks pace, it becomes more and more critical to have multiple viewpoints and perspectives on decisions, changes, and risks, if any. Having their commitment and ownership will ensure that the best possible solution is delivered leading to successful project completion.

My experience in business transformation projects has taught me that stakeholder buy-in is very critical. Ownership can never be transferred, even in perception, to the consultants. Client side stakeholders need to feel the ownership and responsibility, especially in terms of schedule, quality & compliance. One way of achieving this is by means of stakeholder committees with clear RACI and deliverables. So, how do you leverage the consultant adequately and extract value commensurate with expectations? For this, the consultant is made directly reporting to the executive management with clear KPIs. Finally, for all this to work, alignment of expectations, team work, respectful relations and identification of synergies is key.

A lot depend, and precipitates with the ownership of VMVs and building it into the organizational culture. HR has a major role to play in it developing and designing the right mix for successful implementing the stakeholder's involvement through EICO (engage, involve, commit and own) route

Ensuring client commitment with the project is a priority. If customer engagement is low there's no chance of support for consultant work. Stakeholder ownership should be genuine supporting the consultant. Consultant should work with stakeholders and find ways to get them involved with the project. This way he can focus on the job.

I've found it beneficial to include the "doers" who tend to be front line employees in projects. They're ultimately feeling the changes and impacts the most and can offer insights to processes their leadership may not be actively engaging with on a regular basis.

Agreed and feasible to the extent of activities within the control of the Consultant. The engagement and exchange with the Client stakeholder (internal and external) hold the key in all the phase/stages. Manage that and rest will follow.

From my experience, I would like to add: 1. Look-ahead reports 2. Early alert flags 3. Schedule recovery plans in case of slips All this should be in consultant KPIs and monitored by executive management

The consultant, advises the business. They do not run the business. It's also up to the organization and it's internal teams to take action and responsibility for their deliverables. Failing to do so puts the plan at risk. Consultants can become easy scapegoats for internal slack.

A proper baseline has to be defined on minimum two counts - status of the parameters at the beginning of the assignment and the mandate given as output / deliverables. Performance evaluation and its mechanism should be finalized when concluding the assignment with the modified baseline for both with justification for the modifications - necessity / limitation / compulsion / others.

To be successful the consultant need to be people friendly to implement changes. He should be be able to gel with all grades of the tier and prepared to listen to the ground staff's concerns and tinker

Maintaining Lessons Learned rosters, Value Add rosters etc helps. Alignment of expectations, team work, respectful relations and identification of synergies is key.

Management consultants should ensure that recommendations that have been given to the client are practical and can be implemented by the client given their current state. They should also focus on the actual cause of the problem. At times a recommendation can be given regarding technology or a process when the underlying problem is people. If no proper diagnosis is done, then client problems remain unresolved and persistent. So the correct diagnosis of a problem is key as it will ensure the right solutions are given that are implementable .

Consultants must share transparently: 1. Support each recommendation with min/expected/max benefits. 2. How each recommendation was identified and arrived at 3. Stakeholder committees views on the recommendations 4. Categorize and prioritize recommendations with nil-action scenarios 5. services offered during implementation phase

Work with advisory teams who share your accountability for successful results. Your advisors can support you to integrate, review results and adjust plans based on the results.